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Toward Border Abolition

Migrant Struggles and the Law

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Book

Pages: 260

Illustrations: 1 illustration

Release Date: August 11, 2026

Editors: Nicholas De Genova, Daniel I. Morales

Toward Border Abolition is an interdisciplinary exploration of border abolition that brings together scholars of international migration, border studies, and law who historicize the current border regime, critique the violence of border policing, and consider alternatives. The contributors explore the ways that migrants practice objective border abolitionism by circumventing the sociopolitical order imposed by nation-states. They illustrate how various methods of migrating, from seeking asylum to “unauthorized” border crossing, all enact a fundamentally human freedom of movement that precedes state border control as it exists today. Ultimately, Toward Border Abolition questions the assumed legitimacy of borders, nation-states, and immigration law while simultaneously showing how migrants’ transgression of borders opens new vistas for remaking the world.

Praise

“Radically refreshing, Toward Border Abolition bridges disciplinary boundaries and dispenses with methodological nationalism to make the case—thoughtfully, creatively, and unapologetically—that it isn’t people who should be shunted across borders but borders themselves that deserve to be relegated to the past.” - César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, author of Welcome the Wretched and Migrating to Prison

“This book shows, with devastating specificity, how abolition is always about land use and land control. Examining struggles to move about or stay put, Toward Border Abolition casts stark light on how criminalization and militarization reconfigure geographies without revising maps. How? By sliding partitions through individuals, households, and communities, and regions. A must read for teachers and organizers.” - Ruth Wilson Gilmore, author of Abolition Geography: Essays Towards Liberation

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Information

Author/Editor Bios Table Of Contents Rights Additional Information

Author/Editor Bios

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Nicholas De Genova is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Houston.

Daniel I. Morales is Associate Professor at the University of Houston Law Center.

Table Of Contents

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Preface / Nicholas De Genova and Daniel I. Morales  vii
Introduction. Border Abolitionism: Migrant Struggles, the Law, and Remaking the World / Nicholas De Genova and Daniel I. Morales  1
1. Abolition and the US Immigration Law Context / Leti Volpp  39
2. Law Against Law: Immigration Eugenics, Family Law, and Border Abolition / Audrey Macklin  59
3. Struggles for Freedom in a World of Nation-States / Nandita Sharma  88
4. Abolishing National Borders: Citizenship After the Nation / Jacqueline Stevens  108
5. Border Abolitionism: Commoning Beyond the Opposition of “Community” and “Nation-State” / Martina Tazzioli  139
6. Scales of Abolition: Mapping Multijurisdictional Border Abolitionist Engagements / David Moffette  156
7. Of Aid and Abolition: Humanitarian Innocence Between Encampment and Resettlement Futures / Hanno Brankamp  171
References  197
Contributors  233
Index

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Additional Information

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Paper ISBN: 978-1-4780-3891-7 / Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4780-3401-8 / eISBN: 978-1-4780-6251-6 /