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Consider the Relationship Between The War on Terror and The War on Drugs and Mexican Immigration in the post-9/11 United

States

Nicholas Thompson

ID Number: 4183940

Single Honours American & Canadian Studies

Supervisor: Dr Bevan Sewell

Dissertation (Q43128)

Contents Page Number

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Introduction

1. Context

Nixon’s War on Drugs

Racism Behind Drug Law

Mexican Immigration

The Border

2. Mexican Immigration and The War on Terror

US-Mexican Relations

USA PATRIOT Act

The Homeland Security Act

3. Arizona SB1070- The impact of The War on Drugs on Immigration Policy in the Borderlands

Calderon’s War

Arizona SB1070

The Role of the media

4. A Liberalising of Policies: Obama’s Approach Toward Drugs and Immigration

Exile Nation: The Plastic People

Executive Action: Reprieve for Immigrants

Legalisation

Conclusion

Abstract

Page Number

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This dissertation focuses on the impact the War on Terror and War on Drugs

have had on Mexican immigration. War on Terror legislation; specifically the

USA PATRIOT Act and The Homeland Security Act- are analysed in terms of

how they have damaged the liberties of Mexican immigrants in the US and led

to them being perceived as security threats. The Mexican War on Drugs under

President Felipe Calderon led to a massive amount of violence and death in

Mexico, which fuelled the push for state level draconian immigration reform in

Arizona. Arizona SB1070 has targeted Mexican undocumented immigrants by

giving police powers to harass those suspected of being undocumented, using

the overall strategy of attrition to make life so unpleasant for them that they

leave on their own accord. The media creates a ‘spectacle of violence’ about the

border and the threat of ‘spill over violence’ in its erroneous reporting of the

issue. This dissertation argues that the ‘New Racism’ allows politicians and the

media to overstate the threat of ‘spill over violence’ whilst maintaining

democratic principles and respectability. Furthermore, any critique in film of

the War on Drugs and the War on Terror is seriously limited by the ‘wartime

epistemology’, by creating a binary ‘with us/ against us’ code of signification.

Under President Barack Obama, there has been a liberalising of drug and

immigration policy. Several states have decriminalised marijuana and the

President has issued an Executive Action deferring the deportation of up to 5

million undocumented immigrants, with many of these being Mexican. It is

argued that these developments are progressive and stand to lower

undocumented Mexican immigration to the US, as the moves toward the

legalisation of marijuana will diminish the Mexican drug wars, with America

the major consumer of the narcotics that fuel the violence.

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Key WordsProhibition, Immigration, Moral Panic, Folk Devil, Securitising, Spectacle of Violence, Wartime Epistemology, New Racism, Executive Action, Decriminalisation, legalisation

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Introduction

In the post 9/11 era, the issue of immigration has been a major concern for many

Americans. This was reflected in political discourse as numerous Bills were

presented to enact measures of reform at the state and federal level, whilst at the

international level US-Mexican attempts at immigration reform was unproductive.

The debate around immigration and undocumented immigrants has been greatly

affected by both the War on Terror and the War on Drugs. In the wake of 9/11,

multiple Acts were enacted in order to better ensure American national security.

This dissertation will focus on the USA PATRIOT and the Homeland Security Act,

focusing on their impact on the treatment of Mexican immigration in the US.

The War on Terror influenced US opinion on immigrants and scuppered any

chance for reform between the US and Mexico, as immigrants became ‘folk devils’

in what Samantha Hauptman has characterised as a ‘moral panic’ that has

continued since the passing of the American War on Terror laws.1 The moral panic

will be used to analyse the effects of these anti terror laws on Mexican immigration.

The strengthening of law enforcement powers and border policing that came with

these laws have led to what Rodriguez describes as the ‘securitization’ of

immigration.2 This paper shall use these arguments to frame the issue of terror

laws and their effects on immigration, however it will further the contention that

these laws have unduly targeted Mexican immigration and that racism plays a

major role in the treatment of immigrants in the post 9/11 era.

1 Samantha Hauptman, The Criminalization of Immigration: The Post 9/11 Moral Panic, (El Paso, LFP Scholarly Publishing LLC, 2013) p162 Robyn M. Rodriguez, ‘(Dis) unity and Diversity in Post-9/11 America’, Sociological Forum, Vol. 23, No. 2, (Jun., 2008), p381

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The focus will then shift to how these anti-immigrant feelings in the US during the

post 9/11 period combined with fear over escalating violence in the Mexican drug

war and how this impacted on state level immigration policy. Specifically looking at

the example of Arizona SB1070. This law is rooted in racism, the War on Drugs and

a fear of immigrants exacerbated by Acts such as the PATRIOT Act and Homeland

Security Act.

President Felipe Calderon’s war against the Mexican cartels led to many areas of

Mexico near the border and on the trafficking route from the south descend into

chaos as cartels fought against the Mexican army and each other for control of key

transit points. During this time, the media inflated fear of spill over violence as

sections of the media and politicians painted the issue as a threat to American

national security.3 Correa- Cabrera argues the media creates a ‘spectacle of

violence’ as theories and statistics are used in an alarmist manner to enact policy

change.4 This paper will further this argument by suggesting there is an element of

racism inherent behind this spectacle, which has been propagated and justified by

the anti-Terror laws.

Under the presidency of Barack Obama, there has been a general liberalising of

state level drug laws coupled with a recent alteration in immigration policy. Taken

3 Tony, Payan, Kruszewski, Staudt, Z. Anthony, (eds.) A War That Can’t Be Won: Binational Perspectives On The War On Drugs (Tucson, University of Arizona Press, 2013) p193

4 Guadalupe Correa- Cabrera, ‘The Spectacle of Drug Violence: American Public Discourse, Media, and Border Enforcement in the Texas-Tamaulipas Border Region During Drug-War Times’, Norteamérica vol.7 no.2 México (July/ December 2012)

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as a whole, Obama’s progressive moves may go some way in limiting the impact of

terror and drug policies on Mexican immigration.

Obama’s Executive Action, the Immigration Accountability Executive Action, will

revise some U.S. immigration policies and initiate several programs. The most

controversial among these provisions would grant deferred action to as many as 5

million unauthorized aliens.5 A focus will be placed on the revised border security

policy, the deferred action for unauthorized immigrants and the revised interior

enforcement priorities, specifically the ending of the Secure Communities

program.6 Also examined will be the contradiction in federalist and anti federalist

drug policy in relation to liberal and conservative politics, as has been seen during

Obama’s presidency. The issue of drug decriminalisation and legalisation will be

examined from this viewpoint, as well as what this means for Mexican immigration.

No works address the effect of both wars on Mexican immigration, though several

address one or the other. This paper will argue that the heightened sense of fear

about immigrants due to the anti-Terror laws has merged with the fear of drug

violence to form a distinct racism that seeks to limit Mexican immigration and end

undocumented Mexican immigration.

5 Congressional Research Service, The President’s Immigration Accountability Executive Action Of November 20, 2014: Overview and Issues, (02, 24, 2015) p26 Ibid, p15

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Context

Nixon’s War on Drugs

Nixon’s explicit use of the term ‘War on Drugs’ came in an announcement to the

press on the 17th of June 1971.7 However In 1969 Nixon had already established the

Presidential Task Force Relating to Narcotics, Marijuana and Dangerous Drugs

known as Task Force One.8 Task Force One’s report submitted in June 1969 argued

that the main priority should be “an eradication of the production and refinement

in Mexico of opium poppies and marijuana.”9 US-directed “chemical crop

destruction” followed causing a strain to US-Mexican relations.10

In 1973 Nixon authorized the formation of the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA),

which “combined the narcotics agents from various departments to make a single

federal entity responsible for the enforcement of drug laws.”11 Nixon’s anti drug

measures were comparatively progressive. Two thirds of the allotted anti-drug

money was spent on treatment, whilst there is evidence that privately Nixon

understood he’d been far more successful with drug treatment than with law

enforcement.12 However the political benefit of appearing tough on crime was

irresistible, with the 1972 election Nixon used “simple, crime fighting rhetoric that

had worked for him before.”13 Crucially, Nixon’s approach to drug policy set the

agenda for other politicians to get right with drugs as it were, “As Nixon’s tough

7 Ted Galen Carpenter, Bad Neighbor Policy: Washington’s Futile War on Drugs in Latin America, (New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2003) p118 Ibid9 Ibid, p1210 Ibid, p1311 Ibid, p1512 Eugene Jarecki (dir.), The House I live in (New York, BBC, 2012)13 Jarecki, op. cit.

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talk proved a recipe for electoral success, states across the country began passing

tough new laws.”14

The drug war waned domestically under Carter and Ford, with Carter having to

deal with allegation that his Administration harboured illicit drug users. Neither

administration let up on the international facet of the drug war; with the US still

applying significant pressure on Mexico to eradicate it’s marijuana and opium

crops.15

These efforts would “pale in comparison to the policies Washington would adopt in

the 1980’s and 1990’s.”16 President Ronald Reagan continued to intervene in

source countries, i.e. where the drugs are created, but “the trend toward a more

tolerant domestic attitude on drug use reversed dramatically… as actions taken by

the administration created an unprecedented hysteria.”17 Under Reagan, the new

cocaine derivative crack cocaine hit the streets of America and seemed to threaten

the moral fabric of American society. There was a perception that the drug was a

black vice, the media fostered this view as it presented images of poor blacks

smoking crack on the streets in the nightly news. This was despite the fact that

13% of the US was comprised of blacks and the number of crack users equalled this

figure.18

14 Jarecki, op. cit.15 Carpenter, op. cit., p1716 Carpenter, op. cit., p1817 Ibid18 Jarecki, op. cit.

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Reagan signed an unprecedented array of mandatory sentences for drug crimes,

with crack receiving the worst of them. The possession and selling of Crack was

made 100 times more punitive than powder cocaine.19 Crucially during the 1980’s

powder cocaine was seen as a white drug, even a white-collar white drug. In

comparison crack was demonised as being much worse, and of course, a black

drug. It is worth noting crack cocaine is powder cocaine mixed with baking soda

and then heated- essentially the same.20

The unparalleled hysteria around drugs at the time is shown in a 1985 poll, which

showed just 2-6% of the American population saw drugs as the nations “number

one problem”, however this number jumped to 64% in September 1989. Within a

year, this number had dropped to below 10% as the media lost interest.21 President

George H W Bush continued to escalate the drug, as did Bill Clinton during his time

in office. Clinton rejected a US Sentencing Commission recommendation to

eliminate the disparity between crack and power cocaine sentences.22

Racism Behind Drug Law

American prohibitionist drug policy can be traced back to The Hague Opium

Convention of 1912, which stated medical need as the sole criterion for opiate

production.23 In 1914 the US introduced the Harrison Act, “ostensibly a taxation

measure but in reality designed to restrict the consumption of opiates by limiting

19 Jarecki, op. cit20 Ibid21 Drug Policy Alliance, http://www.drugpolicy.org/new-solutions-drug-policy/brief-history-drug-war (26, 04, 2015)22 Ibid23 Nigel, Inkster, Virginia Comolli, Drugs, Insecurity and Failed States- The Problems of Prohibition (New York, Routledge, 2012) p39

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access to them.”24 Various international conventions followed on the

manufacturing and sale of illicit drugs, by 1930 America had its own enforcement

agency in the form of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, whose commissioner Harry

J. Anslinger became a driving force shaping both his own national and the

international narcotics agenda until his retirement in 1962.25 Anslinger “waged an

implacable campaign against drugs, emphasizing a supposed nexus between drug

consumption and violent criminality.”26 Furthermore Aslinger was a “skilled and

cynical bureaucrat who manipulated statistics on consumption and arrests to

sustain and bolster the status of his bureau.”27 He is perhaps best known in the US

for launching a “one man crusade against marijuana, a drug he variously portrayed,

on the basis of no real evidence, as promoting violence and as a gateway drug

which initiated the user to stronger substances.”28

It can be argued racism has historically informed drug laws. After taking part in the

construction of the pacific transcontinental railroad, many Chinese settled on the

west coast. Efforts driven by US labour unions to discourage this community from

settling and continuing to take jobs - led in 1875 to San Francisco’s ordinance

banning the smoking of opium, seen as a quintessentially Chinese vice (laudanum,

or tincture of opium, widely used for self medication by whites, were not included

in the ban).29

24 Inkster, op. cit., p4025 Ibid, p4126 Ibid27 Inkster, op. cit., p4128 Ibid29 Ibid, p38

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Marijuana laws in the southwest also had racial underpinnings, in relation to

Mexicans.30 Mexicans in the southwest border region worked hard and for cheap,

potentially endangering white jobs. They smoked Marijuana, so the name for the

plant came from this association, as prior to this ‘hemp’ had been seen as

something of a miracle crop for all kinds of purposes.31 As was seen with opium,

marijuana use among Mexicans was sensationalized as a cause of Mexican

lawlessness. This is seen in the following remark from a Texas police captain,

“Under marijuana Mexicans (become) very violent… they seem to have no fear….

under the influence of this weed they have enormous strength and it will take

several men to handle one man.”32

It was the Mexican association and demonization that led to law being enacted,

with El Paso in Texas being the first municipality to illegalize marijuana in 1914,

California prohibiting its use in 1915 and the rest of Texas following suit in 1919.33

Similar laws came into being around the southwest and across the nation in the

subsequent years. This kind of symbiosis of racism and drug law as racial control

can be seen in action in much more recent years. In 1980, the American Coalition-

an anti-immigration group claimed, “Marihuana (sic), perhaps now the most

insidious of narcotics, is a direct by-product of unrestricted Mexican

immigration.”34 Here we can see how the racial fallout from drug laws has

persevered.35 Furthermore the explicit connection between Mexican immigration 30 Jarecki, op. cit.31 Ibid32 Frederick Block, ‘Racism’s Hidden History In The War On Drugs’, Huffington Post, (2013), http://www.huffingtonpost.com/judge-frederic-block/war-on-drugs_b_2384624.html, (08. 04, 2015)

33 Ibid34 Ibid35 Ibid

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and marijuana use demonstrates the interconnected nature of immigration and the

War on Drugs in America, and the racism that sustains it.

Mexican Immigration

Mexican migration to the US began with the formalisation of the border in 1848

with the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo following the US-Mexico war.36 Immigration

policy in the US has moved through stages, from virtually no restrictions on the

number and types of people immigrating until the 1920’s to a national origin quota

system.37 More recently, deferral controls have readjusted the immigration strategy

to decrease the family sponsored backlog and accommodate more highly skilled

workers, increasing per country limits of immigrants and expanding work based

categories of immigrants admitted.38 The Bracero Program was launched in 1942

to address US labour shortages during World War 2, and continued until 1964,

however in 1954, approximately 1 million Mexicans were deported during

Operation Wetback.39

The Immigration Act of 1965 brought a quota for western hemispheric migration

of 120,000 per year. This impacted on Mexican migrants, as the migration in the

subsequent years was now primarily illegal. It was not until 1986 when the

Immigration Reform and Control Act was implemented that US immigration law

36 Deborah W. Meyers, ‘US Border Enforcement: From Horseback to High-Tech’, Migration Policy Institute, (2005) http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/horseback-high-tech-us-border-enforcement (20, 11, 2014)37 Hauptman, op. cit., p2638 Ibid39 Stephen Castles, Mark J. Miller, The Age of Migration: International Population Movements In The Modern World, (London, Palgrave Macmillan, 2009) p182

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was “specifically targeted toward the undocumented.”40 The IRCA, characterized as

an amnesty program, was designed and enacted as means to deduce the backlog of

family sponsored applicants and give legal status to the undocumented

immigrants.41 It also made the hiring of undocumented immigrants a punishable

offence. However the enforcement of the system failed as many unauthorised

workers could simply forge the necessary documents and present them to

employers.42 Also noteworthy is the level of subversion among employers, who felt

the law would disrupt whole industries and burden businesses, particularly the

labour intensive agricultural sector.43 The rejection of the law by those involved

with Mexican labourers suggests there was an accepted role for the undocumented

in the wider economic system, perhaps an important one.

The Immigration Act of 1990 and the illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration

Responsibility Act of 1996 increased the per country limits of immigrants, number

of visas issues and funding for border control and illegal immigrant apprehension

efforts.44 The 1996 laws marked the last series of major changes to the US federal

immigration policy, which greatly affected the rights and privileges afforded to

both legal and illegal immigrants entering the US and the number and types of

immigrants admitted, until 9/11.45

40 Hauptman, op. cit., p2641 Hauptman, op. cit., p2742 Castles, op. cit., p18343 Ibid44 Hauptman, op. cit., p2745 Hauptman, op cit., p28

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The Border

The enforcement of the US-Mexican border has generally reflected the political

priorities, legislative changes and context of the broader economic and political

environment.46 Enforcing the border is typically directly linked with immigration

reform. The prevailing notion spanning the decades has been that a more secure,

less porous border would mean less illegal migrants and greater national security.

The Border became much more militarized in the 1990’s, with the construction of a

10 feet high wall between San Diego and Tijuana in 1991 that has eventually been

expanded to cover many of the key areas related to drug smuggling and human

trafficking.47 In the 1990’s, Operation Hold the Line was implemented using a new

style of policing, where the border agents would be placed forward at the border

proper as opposed to apprehending illegal immigrants once they had made their

way into the country in the El Paso-Tijuana border area.48 Similar tactics were

implemented in Operation Gatekeeper and Operation Safeguard in California and

Arizona respectively. California

New laws have seen the commitment of more border agents and resources, leading

to a highly militarised border. The importance of the border, as the physical

representation of American sovereignty and security will continue indefinitely. Its

enforcement has been the main pillar on which US migration management has

rested in the last decades and will continue to be.49

46 Meyers, op. cit.47 Ibid48 Ibid49 Florian K. Kaufmann, Mexican Labor Migrants and U.S. Immigration Policies: From Sojourner to Emigrant? (El Paso, LFB Scholarly Publishing LLC, 2011) p138

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Mexican Immigration and The War on Terror

“We had to find the terrorists hiding in America and across the world before they were able to strike our country again.”50

George W. Bush

50 ‘President Bush’s Speech on Terrorism’, The New York Times, (2006), http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/06/washington/06bush_transcript.html?, (22, 04, 2015)

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Immigration reform had been a major concern for both America and Mexico for a

number of years prior to Fox and Bush’s presidencies. Numerous acts were passed

in the 1990’s as Clinton sought to create a better system, yet undocumented

Mexican immigration remained a large issue in America. The 9/11 terrorist attacks

disrupted the chance for reform as several reactionary Acts were passed that

changed the very concept of immigrants in America, notably the USA PATRIOT Act

and the Homeland Security Act. In the post 9/11 era and due to these acts,

immigrants became ‘folk devils’ in what was a ‘moral panic’ that continues today.

The term moral panic implies that an “occurrence, perceived as a threat to society,

has the potential to critically change social values, norms, and regulations and that

its occasion may vitally disrupt the sanctity of society.”51 Finally, “‘as the

occurrence of a moral panic causes an unexpected, fundamental change at the very

essence of society, it is also likely that what results are a demand for greater social

regulation or control and a demand for a return to ‘traditional’ values.’”52 Crucial to

the perpetuation of a moral panic is the ‘folk devil’, that is an identifiable person or

group of people to concentrate upon, in this case, immigrants.53 The Acts have

exacerbated existing tensions and have produced new sets of racialised and ethnic

conflicts in the US.54 Ultimately both acts have targeted Mexican immigrants and

hindered Mexican immigration reform.

US-Mexican Relations

The election of Vicente Fox in 2000 “ended seven decades of PRI domination of the

presidency” and signalled to the US clear Mexican commitment to democratic

51 Hauptman, op. cit., p1252 Ibid53 Hauptman, op.cit., p1354 Rodriguez, op. cit., p379

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principles that had been lacking with the decidedly corrupt and antidemocratic

ethos of the PRI.55 The stage was set for bilateral talks on comprehensive

immigration reform in the US to deal with the question of Mexican migration,

whilst the legacy of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) suggested

such bilateral talks could be fruitful in an age of liberalizing cooperation and trade

across the border. At the meeting between the presidents on the 16 th of February

2001, both Fox and Bush pledged to work together to address the question of

Mexican migration to the US, however with the terrorist attacks of September 11 th

any hope of progress was railroaded by American preoccupation with the War on

Terror.56 9/11 changed the structure of the international system, with the US

government increasingly ‘“looking at the world through the prism of the security

concerns of terrorism, ‘securitizing’ its policies with regard to the movement of

goods and people and the management of border issues, thus narrowing its

international agenda.”’57 This would cause a strain in US-Mexican relations as

America increasingly sought to stretch its power and burden the good will of other

nations in its prosecuting of the War on Terror.58

During the Fox-Bush presidencies, transnational processes set the agenda for

bilateral relations, as drug use in America remained high whilst no real demand

reduction programs were in place. Whilst paradoxically, in the post 9/11 period

“Undocumented migration continued, overcome by security fears, the US reduced

the number of authorized lawful Mexican immigrants, inducing even more to

55 Payan, op. cit., p3956 Jorge I. Dominguez, Rafael, Fernandez de Castro, Contemporary US-Latin American Relations: Cooperation or Conflict in the 21st Century? (New York, Routledge, 2010) p1757 Dominguez, op. cit., p1758 Dominguez, op. cit., p17

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choose illegal migration.”59 Clearly there was some oversight in American political

discourse in the post 9/11 period as many Mexican immigrants were targeted in

the name of security. Despite the real fear being that of Islamic terrorists. During

this time, despite greater bilateral activity, there was actually a ‘deliberalization’ of

the border as it was further militarised. The unparalleled effort to police the border

came at the same time as both countries were embracing a shared vision of a

“border free North American economic space.”60 Mexican immigration suffered as a

result of the ‘securitizing’ of immigration, as did many immigrant groups in the US

at this time.

USA PATRIOT ACT

Central to the US response to 9/11 was the passage of the USA PATRIOT Act

(Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to

Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001).61 The Act enhanced the surveillance

of immigrants living in the United States and allowed officials to track down and

deport those suspected of having terrorist links; furthermore, the Act exempts

these cases of deportation from processes of judicial review.62 Though Mexicans

were not involved in 9/11 and the terrorists did not use the US-Mexican border,

the majority of undocumented immigrants come from Mexico so when America’s

spotlight focused on immigration enforcement, it focused on them.63

59 Ibid60 Nik Theodore, ‘Policing Borders: Unauthorized Immigration and The Pernicious Politics of Attrition’, Social Justice Vol. 38, Nos. 1-2, (2011) p10261 USA PATRIOT Act, 200162 Rodriguez, op. cit., p38163 Mallie Jane Kim, ‘After 9/11, Immigration Became About Homeland Security’, US News, (2011), http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2011/09/08/after-911-immigration-became-about-homeland-security-attacks-shifted-the-conversation-heavily-toward-terrorism-and-enforcement? , (12, 02, 2015)

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The Act’s primary focus was to vastly increase funding to all aspects of law

enforcement to further enhance the ability of the U.S. government to “prevent,

investigate, and prosecute acts of terror”.64 The increased authority raised the

awareness of terrorism and imposed increased government enforcement,

surveillance and suspicion against virtually all segments of society.65 Due to the

federal governments firm stance on homeland security and the varied group of

challengers that were critical of the new immigration restrictions, the Act became a

well-publicized subject of debate among the general public.66 With an increased

awareness of the flaws in the federal immigration system and subsequent national

security issues, the PATRIOT Act’s legally imposed restrictions on immigrants and

visitors to America caused, Hauptman argues “a moral panic, inadvertently leading

to the criminalization of immigrants in the post-September 11 the era.”67 Despite

having no role in the attacks and presenting no real threat to American national

security, Mexican immigrants felt the brunt of the increased fear of immigrants the

PATRIOT Act created.

The final and most important component of the moral panic is the role of the

media, which has “habitually played an active role in promoting moral panics.

Adding to the fury and proliferation, the media are capable of presenting seemingly

small events or episodes and thrusting them into an individual’s consciousness, by

means of a reinterpretation of seemingly mundane behavior or actions, which are

64 USA PATRIOT Act, 200165 Hauptman, op. cit., p366 Ibid67 Ibid

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then abruptly deemed deviant.”68 Kellner contends that the "the corporate media

(in the US) has been exploiting fear for decades in their excessive presentation of

murder and violence and dramatization of a wide range of threats from foreign

enemies and within everyday life", however this tendency has seemingly

intensified post 9/11.69

The perception of the existence of a continuing terrorist threat after these events,

and the incorporation of this idea into public discourse and as a staple for mass

media, both as news and entertainment- have created a media spectacle and

stirred up significant levels of fear among the US population.70 Although the

PATRIOT Act was not drafted as an immigration policy, its main focus is

immigration with much of the new legislation and changes in strategy attributed to

increased national security concerns.71 Ultimately laws such as the PATRIOT Act

have aided in stereotyping all immigrants and by extension Mexican immigrants as

potential deviants, as “there is often a slippage between the categories of illegal

immigrant and legal immigrant. Both get constructed as ‘other’ to those who

naturally belong and became associated with a host of social dangers and disorders

such as crime, drug trafficking and terrorism.”72

The Homeland Security Act

The Homeland Security Act was passed on the 25th of November 2002 in order to

strengthen national security post 9/11. It led to the dissolution of the Immigration

68 Hauptman, op. cit., p1469 Correa- Cabrera, op. cit.70 Ibid71 Hauptman, op. cit., p2672 Hauptman, op. cit., p29

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and Naturalization Service (INS), replacing it with the Department of Homeland

Security (DHS).73 Notably, under the new DHS, the policing and enforcement

functions of immigration authorities, both external and internal, were increased.

For instance, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) was established to

handle immigration enforcement at U.S. borders.74

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office was created to deal

with the enforcement of immigration policy within the interior United States.

Moreover, local police units could now be forced to cooperate with federal agencies

in immigration enforcement, further extending the government's policing

apparatuses.75 Robyn M. Rodriguez argues these changes made US national security

policy increasingly interiorized and localized, marking a trend toward

‘securitization’ of migration in the US.76

Thomas Faist defines the securitisation of migration as the construction of

"security, the collective management of subnational or transnational threats and

the policing of borders and internal realm, rather than just the defense of territory

against external attack."77 Faist contends that the depiction in the West of

migration as a security threat post 9/11 has contributed to what American political

scientist Samuel Huntington termed the ‘clash of civilisations.’ In that “Securitizing

migration reinforces the very stereotypes about cultural fears and clashes that

politicians publicly deny.”78 This is debateable in terms of US foreign policy, as 73 Rodriguez, op. cit., p38174 Ibid75 Ibid76 Rodriguez, op. cit., p38177 Rodriguez, op. cit., p38178 Thomas Faist ‘“Extension du domaine de la lutte”: International Migration und Security before and after September 11’, International

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often strategic interests predominate civilizational conflict, however in terms of US

War on Terror policies, Faist’s argument is convincing given the American public

and media perceive threats posed by foreign immigrants post 9/11 through a War

on Terror lens.

Huntington’s ‘clash of civilizations’ thesis argued that conflicts would be driven

increasingly more by differences between civilisations and less by “political

ideology and economics.”79 It is irrefutable that the “mainstream media in the USA

automatically, implicitly and unanimously adopted Huntington’s paradigm to

explain September 11.”80 However as Abrahamian states, “Paradigms do not have

to be true to become conventional wisdom.”81 Faist agrees with Huntington in that

the end of the Cold War has enabled cultures or Huntington’s broad and somewhat

antiquated “civilizations” to be central to the structure of the new international

system. Faist writes:

In recent times, migration as a security threat has emerged with the end of the Cold War… the end of the Cold War has been the most recent development, which favored the spread of objectless fear. This historical divide not only meant the disappearance of a powerful external threat to the security of the West but also the loss of an important source of cohesion between the diverse groups, which constitute them.82

Something that seems clear given Faist’s view that the end of the Cold War led to

migration being the new threat to western cohesion, is that perhaps it is the loss of

cultural identity that Americans are so afraid of and this is reflected in the anti-

Terror laws. Huntington, viewing the world in a somewhat primitive way with his

Migration Review, Vol. 36 No. 1 (Spring 2002): 7-14 (2002) p879 Samuel P. Huntington, ‘The Clash of Civilizations?’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 72, No. 3, (1993)80 Ervand Abrahamian, ‘The US media, Huntington and September 11’, Third World Quarterly, Vol. 24, No. 3 (2003) p52981 Ibid82 Faist, op. cit., p8

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work on civilisations, suggests that Mexican migrants have always been viewed as

a cultural threat to Americans.83 Arguably then this has always been the case, as

can be seen with the marijuana laws of the mid twentieth century and the sporadic

deportations like Operation Wetback. However 9/11 and the resulting anti-Terror

laws have allowed a legitimised framework for the ‘securitization’ of immigration

that can help allay these fears.

Rodriguez argues that with the securitization of migration, immigrants have

become the subject of state surveillance. National security or, in its more recent

designation, ‘homeland security’, is not merely concerned with securing national

borders against external threats; it is aimed at the perceived threat posed by

noncitizens living within U.S. national borders.84 Peter Andreas states “take the

word 'terrorism' and put in the words 'drug trafficking' or 'illegal immigration' and

the new discourse of border security is remarkably similar to the older discourse

that has defined U.S. border relations with Mexico"85 Perhaps the fact that the

discourse is so interchangeable is due to the fact that the true underlying source of

fear remains the same, racism. T. A Van Dijk has written on the ‘New Racism’,

arguing:

Many forms of new racism are discursive: they are expressed, enacted and confirmed by everyday text and talk… policies, laws… TV programs and news reports… they appear mere talk… yet they may be just as effective to marginalize and exclude minorities. They may hurt even more, especially when they seem so ‘normal’… to those who engage in such discourse.86

83 Castles, op. cit., p21284 Rodriguez, op. cit., p38185 Rodriguez, op. cit., p38186 Adrian Holliday, Martin Hyde, John Kullman, Inter-Cultural Communication: An Advanced Resource Book (Abingdon, Routledge, 2004) p122

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One must argue the desire for immigration reform stems from this ‘New Racism’.

As will be discussed in the next chapter, many conservatives have sought to enact

immigration policy built on racist sentiment, which is justified through a labyrinth

of media support and policy precedence that seems to normalise it. One can even

point to Huntington’s views, as normalising what is essentially racism as something

scholarly and sincere.

Rodriguez makes the astute point that the “securitization of migration also

describes the process by which the work of national security is normalized and

taken up by ordinary US citizens. For instance, the DHS actively encourages

individuals to report "suspicious activity," while state and local authorities ask that

"if you see something, say something."”87 The veracity with which citizens have

helped securitize migration can be seen with the ““Minute Men”, who pledge to

"use every legal means at our disposal to assist law enforcement authorities in

identifying and apprehending those who violate our borders.”"88 Interestingly, Faist

notes:

The links between international migration and security threats are inconclusive. These two phenomena only superficially share the fact that border crossings are involved.... the link between migration and increases in other phenomena, such as drug trafficking and crime, is vastly overstated.89

From Faist’s remark here, one is reminded of Abrahamian’s quote on page 19, a

supposed link doesn’t have to causal for it to be common knowledge and part of the

political discourse.90 For example, it is common practice in America to clamour for

a more secure border in times of perceived insecurity such as in the post 9/11 era,

87 Rodriguez, op. cit., p 38188 Rodrgiuez, op. cit., p38189 Faist, op. cit., p1090 Abrahamian, op. cit., p529

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as most proposals to U.S. Congress to ““revamp the U.S. immigration system” call to

expand border enforcement activities further””91, yet the reality is that stricter

““U.S. border enforcement leads to higher migration intensity, which in turn leads

to an increase in the volume of undocumented Mexican migration, presumably due

to the reduced transfer-incomes of “stayers.””92 As the deterrence effect of U.S.

border enforcement is negligible, the net effect of increased U.S. border

enforcement is to spur more undocumented Mexican migration.””93

To explain problems without actually having to give concrete evidence, politicians

can use immigration. This is because the effects of immigration are empirically

hard to establish.94 Faist argues that ‘securitizing’ migration is part of elevating

migration to a ‘meta issue’, that is the way in which “international migration,

immigration and emigration can be conveniently connected to a host of other

issues, especially danger and threat, military - but above all social, economic,

political and cultural.”95 Threats to security in immigration countries are without

any real-world foundation. What is true however is that through meta-politics, low-

level threats usually gain out-of-proportion significance.96 In essence, small things

can be blown out of proportion.

Meta-politics unsettles the balance between the material and symbolic content of

politics in connecting substantive issues such as unemployment and security to

91 Kaufmann, op. cit., p592 Ibid93 Kaufmann, op. cit., p694 Kaufmann, op. cit., p1295 Kaufmann, op. cit., p1296 Ibid

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symbols, which signify threats in factually incorrect ways.97 One could even argue

the USA PATRIOT Act and the Homeland Security Act are in a sense Meta-politics.

As despite the fact that the 9/11 hijackers all arrived in America with visas, the

perceived threat of undocumented immigrants- a reality- has been lumped in with

the idea of the undocumented immigrant turned terrorist- which is as of 2015 a

myth. The true failing with 9/11 was with the US embassies overseas seeing as

they are the ones that permitted the terrorist’s entry. Nevertheless, many Mexicans

have been detained and deported en masse across the United States.98 Rodriguez

writes, “Indeed, if 9/11 produced public anxieties toward Arabs and Muslims, it

also exacerbated already existing tensions around Mexican immigration...”99

Targeted by groups such as ICE, Mexican immigrants have become victims of the

post 9/11 War on Terror era. The plans of reform at the start of the decade were

seriously scuppered with the passing of Bush’s anti-Terror laws.

97 Ibid98 Rodriguez, op. cit., p38399 Ibid

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Arizona SB1070- The impact of the War on Drugs on Immigration Policy in the Borderlands

“Poor Mexico, so far from God, so close to the United States.”100 Porfirio Diaz

The Passing of Arizona SB1070 on April 32rd, 2010 signified a move toward state

level immigration reform due to a perceived “broken immigration system.”101

Although ostensibly implemented to decrease the number of unauthorized

immigrants, the law finds its roots in a definitive fear of perceived Mexican drug

war spill over violence.102 The Arizona-Sonora part of the US-Mexican border has

perennially been the most active part for unauthorized crossings and marijuana

seizures, with the two existing separately, however Calderon’s war against the

cartels dramatically increased violence and instability in Mexico, leading to

theories of ‘spill over violence’ as American media and politicians alike painted the

issue as a threat to American national security.103

The Media creates a ‘spectacle of violence’ about the border as theories and

statistics are used in an alarmist manner to enact policy change. Using the concept

of the ‘media spectacle’, taken from Guy Debord’s 1967 book Society of the

Spectacle and Douglas Kellner’s extensions of the ‘spectacle’, Correa-Cabrera

contends that the perceived threat posed by the Mexican drug war has been

fabricated and overstated by the media, with these inaccurate statements then

100 Sandy Goodman, ‘“Poor Mexico, So Far from God, So Close To The United States”’, Huffington Post, (2009), http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sandy-goodman/poor-mexico-so-far-from-g_b_170899.html, (24, 04, 2015)101 Theodore, op. cit., p90102 Ruben Navarrette Jr, ‘Drug cartels: Bogeymen in Arizona Law’, CNN (2010), http://edition.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/08/09/navarrette.arizona.immigration/ (20/04/2015)103 Payan, op. cit., p193

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used by politicians.104 The ‘Wartime Epistemology” refers to the way in which all

cultural productions are constrained by “an either/ or regime of signification.”

Meaning all representation and debate in times of war (drug/terror) is reduced to

Manichean wartime logic of “you are either with us or against us” binaries.105

Calderon’s war

On December 1st, 2006, newly elected PAN President Felipe Calderon declared “his

determination to oppose the cartels with the full force of his government.” 106 The

United States fully supported the strategy, in keeping with its long-standing

confidence in the “efficacy of force”.107 Calderon would eventually deploy more

than 50,000 military personnel to areas known for cartel activity as part of a

progressive increase of resources enabled in large part by what would become

known as the Merida initiative.108 The American assistance package pledged $1.6

Billion “to be dispersed over three years, to pay for military and law enforcement

equipment, technical and tactical training, upgrading of intelligence capability,

hardware such as helicopters and surveillance aircraft and special equipment to

detect drugs at border crossings.”109

Calderon was able to claim several early wins in his war, with the arrest of

thousands of suspects- most of whom were released without being prosecuted,

seizure of tons of drugs with an estimated street value in the billions and the

104 Payan, op. cit., p193105 Andrew Schopp, Mathew B. Hill, (eds.) The War on Terror and American Popular Culture: September 11 and Beyond (New Jersey, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2009) p220

106 Payan, op. cit., p40107 Payan, op. cit., p40108 Inkster, op. cit., p93109 Payan, op. cit., p40

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extradition to the United States of several high-level drug traffickers.110 The killing

of Arturo Beltran Leyva in December 2009 and the subsequent arrest of his two

brothers and another key leader left the Beltran Leyva cartel defunct.111 The

resulting violence however offset the gains in a horrendous manner. Many

Mexicans became disillusioned as talk turned to the possibility of Mexico becoming

a “failed state”.112 In June 2010 the major newspaper, El Universal, observed that

the chaos spreading through the country “requires us to change our view of the

problem, that it is no longer a matter of organized crime but rather of the loss of

the state.” Calderón himself acknowledged, “This criminal behavior . . . has become

a challenge to the state, an attempt to replace the state.”113

Paradoxically, it appears that once the military arrives in a city, violence has

typically lessened, however this drop is then followed by a “notable and prolonged

increase.”114 Professor Denise Dresser contends that when the military have

entered troubled cities; they usually removed local police forces, regarding them as

under control of the cartels.115 Without denying high levels of corruption among

local police, Dresser contends that they know their cities and are better equipped

to deal with violence. The military lack the knowledge and experience with police

work.116 The result is a climate of lawlessness in which not just drug traffickers but

all sorts of criminals and people whose violence had been kept in check are able to

operate with impunity.117

110 Payan, op. cit., p40111 Ibid, p51112 Ibid, p41113 Payan, op. cit., p41114 Payan, op. cit., p46115 Ibid116 Ibid117 Payan, op. cit., p46

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A 2010 poll showed that 50% felt that security had worsened and only 21%

believed the country was safer under Calderon, showing support for the war was in

decline. Furthermore, the year 2010 saw the highest level of cartel related killings-

15,273- a 60% increase on the previous year.118 During his presidency, Calderon

repeatedly stated that over 90% of those killed in cartel related violence were

criminals, implying that the gangs were killing each other off in a kind of

cannibalistic path of destruction serving the greater good of the nation.119 Officials,

agents and the mainstream media have generally accepted this message in the

US.120 Perhaps as it’s much easier to see the war in ‘good’ versus ‘evil’ terms which

confusingly fractured conflicts often boil down to in American discourse. The film

maker Adam Curtis spoke about this tactic of western politicians in the film Bitter

lake, arguing western politicians often make complex issues a case of ‘good’ versus

‘evil’ to avoid any true critique of Western actions and complicity in international

traumas.121 The reality is many innocent Mexicans are dying as result of American

drug consumption.

However it is true that most of the violence has been “Internecine between cartels,

factions therein, or opportunistic small gangs seeking to carve out a piece of the

lucrative pie. The gangs have used violence as a way to taunt and terrorize,

beheading their victims… and posting videos of their grisly deeds on YouTube…”122

Although the dead may be rival gang members, they may also be kidnap victims,

118 Inkster et al, op. cit., p94119 Payan, op. cit., p44120 Ibid121 Adam Curtis (dir.), Bitter Lake (London, BBC, 2015)122 Payan, op. cit., p44

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migrants who had paid the gangs to help them cross the border, innocents caught

in the crossfire, or others deemed disposable.123 In 2012 the government

acknowledged that at least 47,515 people had been killed in ‘drug-war related’

incidents between December 2006 and September 2011. However other estimates

have been much less conservative, with figures exceeding 100,000.124 The horrors

of Calderon’s war have negatively impacted on Mexican immigration as Border

States began to cite the threat of ‘spill over violence’ as a threat to national security.

Arizona SB1070

Officially named the Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighbourhoods Act,

but better known as SB1070, the stated purpose of the law is “to discourage and

deter any unlawful entry and presence of aliens and economic activity by persons

unlawfully present in the United States.”125 There is something to be said about the

name, as illegals have surely never lived in safe neighbourhoods. They have lived in

the crime-ridden areas and always have. It seems to be about control, as

realistically none of the act actually makes neighbourhoods safer. What it does

allow is legalised harassment of Mexican immigrants. Its key provisions include:

(1) requirements that Police Officers investigate the immigration status of all

individuals they stop, if the officers suspect that they are in the country unlawfully;

(2) mandatory detention of individuals who are arrested, even for minor offenses

that would normally result in a ticket, if they cannot prove they are authorized to

be in the United States; and (3) stipulations that allow law enforcement officers to

arrest a person without a warrant if the officer has probable cause to believe that

123 Ibid124 Ibid125 Arizona Senate Bill 1070, 2010

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the person has committed an offense that makes him/her removable from the

United States.126

Although by far the most divisive, SB1070 is “just one of hundreds of state and local

immigration laws that have been enacted in recent years, and it is just one of

dozens of illegal-immigration relief acts that have been signed into law since

2008.”127 A major driving issue behind the law has been the perceived threat of spill

over violence from the Mexican cartels. Jay Heiler, a high level political and public

affairs consultant whom counsels Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, has been a vocal

defender of SB1070.128 In an interview with CNN contributor Ruben Navarrette Jr,

Heiler demonstrated the perceived significance of the cartel threat, saying “If

you're going to write about this issue with credibility… you have to acknowledge

the reality of the violence caused by the Mexican drug cartels and the inability of

the Mexican government to contain it."129 As Naverrette Jr writes, “The cartels are

their strong card; why not play it?”130

An argument advanced by supporters of the law, and by Governor Brewer, is that

most illegal immigrants act as drug mules for the cartels.131 This kind of assertion is

troubling for a number of reasons. Firstly, the fact that undocumented migration

and drug smuggling has become intermingled, and at the Arizona border in

particular is a response to the heightened level of border enforcement.132 Through

126 Theodore, op. cit., p90127 Theodore, op. cit., p95128 Navarrette Jr, op. cit.129 Ibid130 Ibid131 Navarrette Jr, op. cit.132 Payan, op. cit., P195

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strengthening the border patrol, it simply creates a more profitable market for

smugglers of people and drugs.133 Furthermore the crackdown on cartels in Mexico

under Calderon has led to more violence and more pressure for cartels to maintain

profits in what is a competitive market of cartels versus cartels versus the state.

Thus they move into the realm of migration.134 So from the outset the threat posed

by undocumented migrants smuggling drugs stems from war on drugs policies and

is not an organic issue as Heiler portrays it.

Second, is the fact that other significant Republican Arizona politicians do not agree

with Heiler. Arizona senator John McCain said he doesn't believe that most illegal

immigrants are used as drug traffickers. Neither does T.J. Bonner, head of the

labour union representing border patrol agents, the National Border Patrol

Council. Bonner said Brewer's claims are "clearly not the case" and "don't comport

with reality."135 Indeed, irrespective of what public officials claim, equally or likely

more important is what the public thinks about the issue. Heiler submits that most

of the support for the measure- polls showed that about 55 percent of Arizonans

backed the law in August 2010, down from 70 percent when Brewer signed it in

April- is coming from people who are sincerely afraid that Mexico is spinning out of

control because of the drug war and that the chaos is spilling into Arizona in the

form of kidnappings and other lawlessness.136

The notion of spill over violence is a something of a fallacy, as the number of

violent crimes has fallen every year in Phoenix since 2006, the FBI reports. It's part

133 Ibid, p208134 Ibid, p205135 Navarrette Jr, op. cit.136 Navarrette Jr, op. cit.

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of an overall trend in which, according to the Federal Bureau of Instigations, crime

rates are actually going down in cities that have large immigrant populations.137

Furthermore, the ‘media spectacle’ about the border and perceived lawlessness

often generates fear over ill explained issues. For example, according to law

enforcement authorities, in 2008, nearly 400 kidnappings happened in Phoenix.

However these kidnappings are not usually for ransom, rather, they are an

extension of the human smuggling industry, in which rival coyotes raid each

other's “drop houses” and steal the cargo. A serious crime, yet it's probably not

what most people think about when they hear the word "kidnapping."138

In America there have been routine pronouncements across the political spectrum

that the US immigration system is “broken”, lawmakers promoting a restrictionist

agenda have sought to enact a range of punitive policies aimed at disrupting the

lives of unauthorized immigrants amid the desire for reform.139 Nik Theodore

contends that these lawmakers have exploited:

Vague generalizations concerning the “broken immigration system”- an abstraction around which a (false) consensus has formed. For when people agree to the proposition that the system is broken, they often mean very different things. Some favour a broad legalization program that grants amnesty to undocumented immigrants, while others openly call for stiffer border enforcement and harsher penalties for unauthorized migration.140

Lawmakers seeking to enact stiffer immigration laws have shifted their focus from

national level policymaking to state arenas in the wake of failed attempts to

overhaul the US immigration system in 2005, 2006 and 2008.141 As, although the

Supreme Court and lower courts have consistently reaffirmed the federal

137 Navarrette Jr, op. cit.138 Ibid139 Theodore, op. cit., p90140 Ibid141 Theodore, op. cit., p90

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government’s exclusive authority over immigration policy, state and local

governments are able to enact legislation that relates to immigrants and their

incorporation. Varsanyi sees this rescaling of immigration policy as an attempt “to

wrest immigration power… from the federal government.”142

However to what extent is SB1070 the result of the cartels in Mexico, or something

rather more sinister, the result of fear over change of demographics and even

racism? Navarrette Jr writes:

Although Heiler doesn't deny that some of the folks who have rallied around the law are motivated by anxiety over changing demographics, he wouldn't admit that this has anything to do with race and ethnicity. But isn't that obvious? For the past two decades, there has been a loud chorus of worry about how Latino immigrants are changing Phoenix -- and, according to some, not for the better.143

Navarrette is right to assume such sentiment does not just go away, and that these

people are supporters of SB1070. The contention that “Not everyone who wants to

get rid of illegal immigrants does so because he or she sees a connection to the

drug cartels…. Most people just want to preserve the America they grew up with” is

not hard to imagine being true.144 In fact it seems to support what Arizona state

senator Russell Pearce, the chief sponsor of SB1070 argued:

It will do no good to forgive them because millions more will come behind them, and we will be over run to the point that there will no longer be a United States of America but, a North American Union of open borders… How long will it be before we will be just like Mexico? We have already lost our history … we have lost our borders.145

Ultimately one must argue the cultural threat Mexican immigration represents

seriously fuels these statements and the Arizona law. The above quote from Russell

142 Ibid143 Navarrette Jr, op. cit.144 Ibid145 Theodore, op. cit., p90

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Pearce seems entirely in keeping the concept of the ‘New Racism”. The ‘New

Racism’, which is contrary to the old forms of racism such as slavery, “wants to be

democratic and respectable, and hence first denies that it is racism. Real racism, in

this framework of though, only exists among the extreme Right. In the New Racism,

minorities are not biologically inferior, but different. They have a different culture,

although in many respects there are ‘deficiencies’, such as single-parent families,

drug abuse…”’146Consider Pearce’s statement and the other draconian views

presented in this paper on immigration and its clear that what is essentially a

shared goal in Europe- open borders- one that has been realised, is the antithesis of

progress to many conservative America politicians.

Although SB1070 was amended to prohibit the investigation of “complaints based

on race, color, or national origin,” the larger context of the bill’s passage makes

clear that Arizona legislators are prepared and willing to use racial profiling tactics

as instruments of policing and social control.147 SB1070 certainly arrived on the

back of the violent coattails of the Mexican drug war, but whether this is a

smokescreen for underlying racism is not out of the question. Of course,

generalisations cannot be made; many will fear the threat of spill over violence. A

fear fanned by alarmist messages, which are “given a certain truth-value through

their fervent reiteration.”148 Ultimately the mechanism of Arizona SB1070 is that of

attrition. It attempts to enlist undocumented immigrants in their own removal

from the US by degrading the daily life of undocumented immigrants to the extent

that they leave.149 Clearly as a law it stands to lower the number of illegal Mexican

146 Holliday, op. cit., p122147 Ibid, p94148 Theodore, op. cit., p97149 Theodore, op. cit., p96

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immigrants as they are increasingly harassed, hampering any chance of liberal

immigration policy in Arizona.

The Role of The Media

The ways in which the media can influence and manipulate public opinion are well

known. Leo R Chavez suggests that media images not only reflect the national

mood, but also play a powerful role in shaping national discourse. Furthermore,

media images influence the creation of social identities and public policy design, as

well as social, economic and political relations. 150 In the US, War on Terror related

fear of a terrorist attack has combined with the drug violence in Mexico and the

perception that this violence might spill over the US-Mexico border, forming

Correa-Cabrera’s ‘spectacle of violence’. Exaggerated and frequently inaccurate

statements about the situation in Mexico feed this spectacle. Correa-Cabrea uses

the example of a recent statement made by George W. Grayson on the Zetas cartel,

a professor of government at the College of William and Mary in Virginia, in which

Grayson refers to the group as a "bloodthirsty sadistic organization" that serves the

"lowest rungs of hell.”151 This simply isn’t useful in understanding the group’s

practices, motivation, and origins and importantly from a US standpoint,

limitations.152 To speak in biblical terms is much too subjective and can only further

misunderstanding, help foster a ‘moral panic’ and fuel reactionary immigration

policies like Arizona SB1070. But the reality is this is the way of operating for many

conservatives, these references will continue.

150 Correa- Cabrera, op. cit.151 Correa-Cabrera, op. cit., 152 Correa- Cabrera, op. cit.

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The genuine threat of “spill over violence” is negligible; one may look at the

contrast between Mexico’s most dangerous city, Juarez, and the safe US sister city

El Paso for confirmation of this.153 Yet there is general concern about the

phenomenon, one that barely exists. US intelligence and security officials have even

suggested plausible ties between the cartels and Al Qaeda and its affiliates.154 DHS

Secretary Janet Napolitano described this possibility in testimony before a

congressional committee in February 2011. Notably, she expressed Washington's

concern about an eventual alliance between Al Qaeda and the Zetas.155 A cursory

glance at the modus operandi of the cartels in Mexico would quickly tell us this

could never be. They are simply distinctly different in character, in model and in

existence for wildly different ends. The suggestion that the most insurgent like Los

Zetas could team up with Al Qaeda glosses over their striking differences.

Noam Chomsky has written on the erroneous information and views Americans

receive, arguing the news provides us with “a very narrow, very tightly constrained

and grotesquely inaccurate account of the world in which we live”156 It is not purely

sensationalist conservative media that portrays the threat of spill over violence as

an inevitable threat to US national security. Consider, for example, the piece

written in the Business Insider, in which the title reads, The Mexican Drug Cartels

Are A National Security Issue. Journalist, Grace Wyler frames her argument in

favour of striking the cartels at the source, as, in her view “The drug trade- and the

powerful criminal organizations that control it- has become a national security

153 Correa-Cabrera, op. cit154 Ibid155 Ibid156 Holliday, op. cit., p120

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problem, and needs to be dealt with as such.”157 She mounts her argument in

response to the 2011 Report of the Global Commission on Drug Policy.

Signed by various luminaries such as Kofi Annan, Richard Branson and George

Schultz, the Report gives a comprehensive look into the pitfalls of current drug

policy globally. It encourages, among other things- Governments around the world

to experiment with models of legal regulation of drugs to undermine the power of

organized crime and to safeguard the health and security of the citizens. Whilst

also arguing for a focus on repressive actions on violent criminal organizations in

ways that undermine their power and reach while prioritizing the reduction of

violence and intimidation.158

Forgoing the underlying theme of legalization or decriminalization, Wyler concurs

with the US and Mexican rejection of the document, due to the “vast scope of

Mexican cartel networks…” and its narrow purview.159 Although ultimately Wyler

concludes that the documents argument is correct, in that the drug war has failed,

she argues, “The U.S. needs a new approach that treats illegal drug trafficking and

abuse not as a moral issue, but as a significant threat to domestic security and

regional stability.”160 There is an obvious tension in her argument, primarily her

advocating of firmer intervention in the Mexican drug war even though when

Mexican armed forces went after the cartels the violence increased exponentially,

157 Grace Wyler, ‘The Mexican Drug Cartels Are A National Security Issue’, Business Insider, (2011)http://www.businessinsider.com/why-the-us-needs-to-stop-fighting-the-drug-war-and-start-fighting-the-cartels-2011-6#ixzz3XUhx2ZhI, (05, 11, 2014)158 Kofi Annan et al, War on Drugs- Report of the Global Commission on Drug Policy, Global Commission on Drug Policy, June 2011159 Wyler, op. cit.160 Ibid

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further US involvement- and there has already been some level of US complicity in

the Mexican war- won’t necessarily aid the situation. Here we can see the ‘media

spectacle’ in full view, the writer assumes the horrendous violence witnessed in

Mexico has the potential to spill over, arguing in favour of a stronger response-

however the claim is not substantiated by evidence. It is indisputable that fear

mongering like this has enabled laws such as Arizona SB1070 to be passed into

state law. It is not within doubt that the violence in Mexico, particularly during the

Calderon era has destabilized Mexico, however it is not clear that the threats to the

United States from Mexico's violence are of the magnitude that U.S. media,

politicians, and officials have sometimes alleged.161

Todd Schack alleges the ‘Wartime Epistemology’ restricts cultural representations

of both the War on Terror and the War on Drugs. First advanced by Maurizio Viano

the ‘Wartime Epistemology’ refers to the way in which all cultural productions are

constrained by “an either/ or regime of signification.”162 This has been particularly

pronounced in the post 9/11 era. It is clear that the inability to genuinely evaluate

the fundamentals of either but particularly the war on drugs will inevitably lead to

a continuation of draconian immigration policies in the US, as Mexican legal and

illegal migrants continue to be portrayed as part of the chaos south of the border.

As a result of the terrors unfolding due to Mexico’s war on the Cartels, “The US

media, while at times granting Mexico’s anti drug program its dues, tend to

highlight the negative, the sensational. As a result, the American public, never one

for in depth knowledge of things Mexican… has synthesised a New Mexican

stereotype…” the stereotype of the illegal immigrant and the drug trafficker, or the

161 Correa- Cabrera, op. cit.162 Schopp, op. cit, p221

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‘narco’.163 However if one considers the racism underpinning drug laws and

immigration policy historically, this is hardly a new concoction. Simply more

heightened in the post 9/11 age of anxiety.

163 Guadalupe, Gonzalez, Marta, Tienda (eds.), The Drug Connection in US Mexican Relations, (San Diego, University of California, 1989) p84

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A Liberalising of Policies: Obama’s Approach Toward Drugs and Immigration

“The Prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and

the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced.”164

Albert Einstein

As President of the US, Barack Obama has overseen a general liberalising of drug

laws in certain states coupled with a much more recent alteration in immigration

policy. With the Immigration Accountability Executive Action, America would

revise some U.S. immigration policies and initiate several programs, including a

revised border security policy for the Southwest border; deferred action programs

for some unauthorized aliens; revised interior enforcement priorities; changes to

aid the entry of skilled workers; promoting immigrant integration and

naturalization; and several other initiatives the President indicated would improve

the U.S. immigration system.165 The most controversial among these provisions

would grant deferred action to as many as 5 million unauthorized aliens.166 This

chapter will focus on the revised border security policy, the deferred action for

unauthorized immigrants and the revised interior enforcement priorities,

specifically the ending of the Secure Communities program.167 The strain this

particular program was placing on Mexican immigrant families is told in the

Charles Shaw film Exile Nation: Plastic People, where deported Mexicans find

themselves disenfranchised in a Tijuana holding area known as ‘Zona Norte’.168

Under Obama’s presidency, numerous states have enacted marijuana legalisation

164 Austin Sarat, Law and the Stranger (Stanford, 2010, Stanford University Press) p222165 Congressional Research Service, op. cit., p2166 Ibid167 Ibid, p15168 Charles Shaw (dir.), Exile Nation: The Plastic People (Los Angeles, Devolver Digital Films, 2014)

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policies, demonstrating the anti federalist tradition Democrat presidents have

pursued in the drug war years, contrary to the federalist approach Republican

presidents have taken. This is contradictory to the usual maxim of either party and

so the issues of legalisation/ decriminalisation will be explored in relation to this.

This chapter will conclude with how these changes under Obama have led to an

altering in the direction of the War on Drugs, and how these changes have come to

be reflected in film.

Exile Nation: The Plastic People

Charles Shaw’s 2014 film Exile Nation: The Plastic People follows the lives of

Mexicans deported from the US during Obama’s Administration. The film states

that in the decade following 9/11, the US began a program of mass deportation,

with a total of 4-6 million deported. 97% of these have been Mexicans.169 Many of

these, up to 400 a day end up in ‘Zona Norte’. An enclave in Tijuana described as a

“closed community of drug addicts, homeless, sex workers and deportees.” 170

Although they are Mexican, many have lived in America their entire lives, their

family will live in the US but they were illegal. The title derives from the name

Mexicans give to these people, not Mexican and not American- hence, ‘the plastic

people’.171 The film notes the enormous hysteria around immigration in the US, as

has been described previously, as a major reason for the trend in increasingly

damaging punishment for those found to be undocumented.172 Central to the film is

the ‘Secure Communities’ program, enforced by ICE. The program has seen the

169 Shaw, op. cit.170 Ibid171 Ibid172 Ibid

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deportation of 200,000 parents as of 2014. Those deported are faced with being

barred from the nation if they try to enter again. 173

Further proving the assertion that immigrants are precipitously being treated as

threats post 9/11 is the ‘California Street Terrorism Enforcement & Prevention Act’

or ‘STEP Act’. Under this Act, ‘gang enhancement’ and ‘street terrorism’; elevated

criminal charges reserved for their namesakes, are increasingly being aimed at

minority groups by ICE, leading in deportations for those who have not partaken in

such activity.174 Under the Obama administration, total deportations have risen to

over 1 million a year, yet as the film notes “Migration is a core human urge… that

core urge is gonna (sic) trump all efforts to keep people out.”175 With recent

presidential authority, president Obama will potentially limit this practice,

however those already on the wrong side of the border do not stand to gain from

the Executive Action.

Executive Action: Reprieve for Immigrants

On the 20th November 2014, Obama issued the Immigration Accountability

Executive Action. In his address to the nation on the Action, Obama echoed the

well-worn sound bite, acknowledging, “Today our immigration system is

broken.”176 Such a view is repeated by the Congressional Research Initiative, which

claims that “”Major U.S. Immigration Policy Issues Policymakers and immigration

173 Shaw, op. cit.174 Shaw, op. cit.175 Ibid176 Barack Obama, 2014. Address to the Nation on Immigration, (Online), 20 November, White House, Washington DC (16, 04, 2015), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wejt939QXko

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observers widely agree that the U.S. immigration system is “broken,””177 however

the initiative also acknowledges the reality that generalisation around a broken

system has invariably led to differing conceptions of what may fix it as has been

argued by Theodore in the previous chapter.178

The Congressional report argues, “Underlying these different views are broader

and more fundamental debates about how many temporary and permanent

immigrants should be admitted into the United States, how those immigrants

should be selected for admission.”179 The most fundamentally radical and

progressive aspect of the Executive Action is the “relief for undocumented

immigrants, which could lead to millions of people being shielded from deportation

and made eligible to work. About 5 million will likely be eligible for a new policy

that allows undocumented parents of U.S. citizen and legal permanent children to

stay in the country and work legally, if they have been in the U.S. for five years or

more and pass a background check.”180

The Executive Action as a whole has caused uproar among Republicans, as many

questioned the legality of it, with others arguing it was largely for political

purposes and that once granted the temporary measures it encompasses would be

difficult to revoke.181 The Administration has made sure to point out that the

Executive Action takes a precedent, with Republican presidents no less:

177 Congressional Research Service, op. cit. p3178 Theodore, op. cit., p90179 Congressional Research Service, op. cit.180 Elise Foley, ‘Obama Moves To Protect Millions From Deportation’, Huffington Post, (2014), http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/20/obama-immigration-plan_n_6178774.html, (16, 04, 2015)181 Congressional Research Service, op. cit.

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A form of administrative relief similar to deferred action, known then as "indefinite voluntary departure," was originally authorized by the Reagan and Bush Administrations to defer the deportations of an estimated 1.5 million undocumented spouses and minor children who did not qualify for legalization under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986.182

Similar rhetoric can be found in Obama’s speech to the nation on the issue. Mexican

counterpart Enrique Pena Nieto has praised the executive action as “very

intelligent” and “an act of justice” considering the high number of Mexicans

affected by the Action.183 Obama felt compelled to enact such legislation without

congressional support because the Republican majority Congress has been unable

to pass immigration reform. In his speech on the issue, Obama showed his

frustration, responding “And to those members of Congress who question my

authority to make our immigration system work better… I have one answer: pass a

bill.”184

Supporters of the action have said it will keep millions of families from being

separated. The disastrous effects separation of parents from children is well

known; this Action will help to diminish the shear scale of economic migrants stuck

in perpetual limbo in Mexican border cities such as Tijuana. The deferred removal

of millions is undoubtedly a progressive move, however it is also temporary,

similar policies in previous decades tell us such policies do not end the issue of

undocumented immigration in the long term. Furthermore, the fact that similar

182 US Department of Homeland Security, Exercising Prosecutorial Discretion with Respect to Individuals Who Came to the United States as Children and with Respect to Certain Individuals Who Are the Parents of U.S. Citizens or Permanent Residents, (11, 20, 2014) p2183 Fred Lucas, ‘Mexican President Calls Obama Immigration Action an Act of Justice’, The Blaze (2015), http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/01/06/mexican-president-calls-obama-immigration-action-an-act-of-justice/ (18, 04, 2015)184 Barack Obama, 2014. Address to the Nation on Immigration, op. cit.

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policies have been enacted suggests the move is not the major progressive change

in the Action, rather just the most contentious. Other facets of the Action have more

of a bearing on how US immigration policy will be carried out in the long term.

One element of the Action is border security reform. The Obama Administration

has argued that the US-Mexican border is more secure than ever. Yet some

Members of Congress have called on the Administration to do more.185 As part of

the Action, three task forces will be created from the current DHS organizations to

better tackle the issue of illegal crossings. The number of border patrolmen is at its

highest ever argues Obama in his announcement of the Action. With the overall

number of people trying to cross illegally at it’s lowest since the 1970’s. 186 The

trouble with such claims is that they rely on apprehension rates. Since the border

has become much more militarised in the past couple of decades, the number of

those apprehended has gone down.187 Either this is a success or a failure. Possibly

the increase in policing has acted as a deterrent or the resources spent has been

ineffectual in forcing any kind of successful outcome. Kossoudji suggests these

figures simply show the reality that “once a Mexican enters the migrant stream, the

deterrence effect (of border enforcement) disappears and in fact becomes

perverse: migrants return to the United States more quickly, and if not

subsequently apprehended will stay here longer than if they had not been

apprehended previously.”188 Such moves to tighten the border are rhetorically

impressive but realistically flawed, as Kaufmann shows, many Mexicans have

become dependent on migration for income, as:

185 Congressional Research Service, op. cit., P9186 Obama, op. cit.187 Kaufmann, op. cit., p92188 Kaufmann, op. cit., p93

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Mexican migration to the U. S. has reached such levels that many Mexican regions depend on international migration and the resulting foreign transfers. If these remittances were to diminish other Mexicans would be forced into migration to balance the income losses. Tightening border controls is likely to lead to such a suppression of remittances, as migrants’ intensify their migration strategies in order to adapt to the new constraints imposed on their work and private lives.189

Thus the migration-security nexus is far from simple and seemingly impossible to

stop given the common consensus that has formed around tightening the border.

As Kaufman and others have argued, the only way to end the stream of

undocumented Mexican immigrants would be to ensure Mexican wages rise.190

Legalisation

An interesting feature of drug liberalisation in the US has been the fact that

Republicans have clamoured to have more federal power given to the DEA and

other entities to uphold the nationwide prohibition, while Democrats have moved

toward a position that favours states’ rights on drug policy.191 This is despite the

opposite ringing true of liberals and conservatives in general politics. States that

have relaxed their position on the sale of marijuana recently include Colorado,

California, Oregon and Washington DC. One might argue the relatively low number

of immigrants in these states bar California are illuminating. As perhaps it’s the fact

that these are predominantly white states that marijuana is seen as a white vice.

Contrast this with a place like Arizona or Texas, where there are considerable

Mexican immigrant numbers but marijuana decriminalisation is not a realistic

scenario. Arguably parallels can be drawn with the selective banning of opium and

the disproportionately harsh treatment of crack cocaine users to spare the white

189 Kaufmann, op. cit., p131190 Ibid, p135191 Payan, op. cit., p174

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users of other drug forms. Furthermore proposals to decriminalise marijuana in

California in the past have been knocked back, conforming this line of argument.

However we must not forget the traditionally conservative make up of these states.

Jose D. Vilalobos argues there is a distinct lack of attention to questions of

Federalism with respect to U.S. drug policy than there is with other issue. For

example George W. Bush was said to have committed an act of “socialism” with his

bailouts of the banks by the Far Right.192 Then Governor of Texas Bush told the

Dallas Morning News in October 1999 that he felt the federal government should

let each state, “choose that decision as they so choose.”193 Once Bush became

president however he fell in line with his Republican predecessors in continuing

the war on drugs by using federal laws to push back against state level efforts to

legalize marijuana use.194 In so doing, as Vilabolos surmises- “Bush demonstrated a

high level of responsiveness to his base of social conservative supporters, as well as

to his own social policy preferences, though at the expense of his states’ rights

values.”195 President Obama however took the opposite approach, calling on the

DEA and other forces to pull back and allow states to continue the process of

decriminalising the sale and consumption of medicinal marijuana.196 Despite this,

Obama has remained publically opposed to marijuana legalisation- and other drugs

for that matter, thus in keeping with the typical Democrat-Federalist approach.

This may be proof that the US government is still viewing marijuana as a moral

panic at the federal level.

192 Payan, op. cit., p177193 Payan, op. cit., p175194 Ibid195 Ibid196 Ibid

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The Obama administration released its initial National Drug Control Strategy in

May 2010, in it, Obama was supportive of state- level drug decriminalization efforts

but also concerned about the health issues related to drug use and determined to

uphold federal law when it comes to perceived abuse by medicinal marijuana

providers.197 This seemingly contradictory approach has characterised Obama’s

drug policy, suggesting Obama may be performing a juggling act between his

personal policy preferences and his Federalist philosophies in dealing with the

issue of drugs.198

The move away from prohibition of marijuana can only be a good thing for the long

term in reducing the cartel war in Mexico as the market becomes less lucrative,

however one might expect an initial intensification in violence as cartels seek to

maintain profits. Furthermore, as has been discussed previously, the cartels may

broaden their portfolio in search for profit, which could mean more adventurous

ventures such as more extensive human trafficking. The recent surge in child

refugees from Central and South American nations fleeing gang related conflict

might be an area of Mexican cartel control for example. This may mean the war on

drugs- immigration reform link shall continue in public discourse though perhaps

not as its been playing out in the post 9/11 period.

It is largely accepted now that the War on Drugs has failed. The various policies the

US has pursued in order to prohibit the production, sale and use of various drugs

has largely been ineffectual, imprisoned those in need of help and caused human

197 National Drug Control Strategy, 2010, Washington DC198 Payan, op. cit., p176

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suffering within the US and its South American neighbour nations. The American

prohibition era stands as testament to the futility in restricting the supply of

substances to the people, as such a market will exist irrespective of the legal status

of said substance. Ultimately, the prohibitionist approach is an attempt to repeal

the economic law of supply and demand, and therefore it is fated to fail.199

However the prison industrial complex will be a stumbling block toward any kind

of liberalising of policy on a federal scale. The US holds 25% of the world’s

prisoners despite only having 5% of the world’s population. With over 500,000

people incarcerated for non-violent drug charges.200 How it got to this stage is

multi faceted and gradual. Many of the prisons in the US are privately owned,

meaning there is money to be lost if there is an empty cell. The Field of Dreams line

“if you build it, he will come” seems apt here.201 There is a paradox with the private

prison system, as although these prisons are there to house criminals, they help

perpetuate high rates of criminality as police are paid for each drug arrest. 202 Once

someone has a criminal record they are seriously limited in options in their life and

are more likely to offend again due to a myriad of reasons; the area they are likely

to live in, the people around them as well as the difficulty finding a job with ticking

the ‘criminal record’ box.203 As stated in the film, “there are so many people

involved in the prisons, making money… though their intentions are honest- taken

199 Carpenter, op. cit., p8200 Jarecki, op. cit.201 Phil Alden Robinson (dir.), Field of Dreams, (Fort Lauderdale, Gordon Company, 1989)202 Jarecki, op. cit.203 Jarecki, op. cit.

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as a collective, they keep the War on Drugs working and make sure the hard parts

of it are ticking over.”204

Films such as The House I Live In show that the course of the drug war in America is

altering, there are numerous documentaries that praise the medicinal advantages

of marijuana and several documentaries have focused on the new millionaires of

the marijuana industry. Films such as Exile Nation: The Plastic People help highlight

how millions of undocumented immigrants are churned out of America on a yearly

basis all for the promise of a better life. The only kind of real respite from such

phenomena is higher wages and a better living standard south of the border.

Intrinsically however, the cartel warfare that destabilises Mexico helps keep the

nation in a bind with poverty and destruction. The enforcement of prohibition is

normally the catalyst, which enables a parasitic relationship between criminal

groups and the state.205 We are seeing this in Mexico, where concurrently the

exported American drug war and Americas drug lust has enabled a parasitic cartel

network to gorge on the primary transit state for its narcotics.

The levels of experimentation with decriminalisation of drugs and the liberalising

of immigration policy under Obama seem to be a redeeming turn in the drug and

terror fuelled racism that informs US immigration policy. Films such as The House I

Live In and Exile Nation: The Plastic People suggests there are swathes of Americans

who care and this is being reflected in the increasingly liberal cultural mediums

forcing an end to the status quo. Furthermore Jarecki’s film demonstrates that, by

204 Jarecki, op. cit.205 Inkster, op. cit., p30

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focusing on the harsh realities of the drug war, as other films have, there is

potential to outmanoeuvre Schack’s ‘wartime epistemology’.

Real change in the commonly held belief of drug prohibition is still a way off

however, as “the political establishment is so wedded to the political status quo, its

thoughts are on the next election.”206 Mexican immigration stands to gain from the

gradual liberalising of drug laws in the US, as it will diminish the Mexican drug war,

which shall then aid in changing perceptions about Mexicans in the US. This would

then lead to more liberal immigration policies. However as has been proven in this

paper, the ‘securitizing’ of immigration has seriously damaged the popular view of

immigrants and by extension Mexican immigrants. It is possible racism will fuel a

new fear in the future about Mexican immigration.

Conclusion

With an increased awareness of the flaws in the federal immigration system and

subsequent national security issues, the PATRIOT Act’s legally imposed restrictions

on immigrants and visitors to America have caused a ‘moral panic’ about

206 Jarecki, op. cit.

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immigrants, who were the ‘folk devils’. This negatively impacted on Mexican

immigrants as the spotlight was on undocumented immigrants, despite the fact

that immigrants with documentation perpetrated the 9/11 attacks. The powers

vested in Homeland Security with the passing of the Homeland Security Act made

US national security policy increasingly interiorized and localized, marking a trend

toward ‘securitization’ of migration in the US.207 The securitization of migration

also, as Rodriguez argued, describes the process by which the work of national

security is normalized and taken up by ordinary US citizens, with examples of the

border militias and the ‘Minute Men’. This is despite the link between international

migration and terrorism being inconclusive, sharing, as Faist argued “only

superficially… the fact that border crossings are involved.”208

There also appears to be a genuine perceived threat to the cultural fabric of

American society by Mexican immigration, as there has always been, however the

Homeland Security Act and the strengthening of the border has, in its ‘securitizing’

of immigration, made the issue of immigration and by extension Mexican

immigration a ‘meta-issue’ that can be used by politicians to explain many issues,

be them social, economic, cultural or political factors. This is all possible because

the effects of immigration are empirically hard to establish.209 Thus I have found

the heightened levels of anxiety toward American national security and cultural

identity have negatively impacted on Mexican immigrants with the passage of

these laws and on the potential for immigration reform. Furthermore, many have

been detained and deported en masse as a result of these anti- Terror laws.210

207 Rodriguez, op. cit., p381208 Faist, op. cit., p10209 Faist, op. cit., p12210 Rodriguez, op. cit., p383

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Further studies may wish to observe whether immigration continues to become

more ‘securitized’ in the future.

Following on from the immediate post 9/11 moment; a time in which racist

sentiment was legitimised by anti-Terror laws, the media and political discourse, I

have found that local level immigration policy such as Arizona SB1070 was driven

by a perceived threat of spill over Mexican drug violence. This is proven in the

rhetoric of Arizona politicians who argue the threat is serious, whilst the media has

helped portray the need for action as imperative in order to secure American

national security in what was a ‘spectacle of violence’. My research suggests

evidence of spill over violence is negligible, however the role of the media and

alarmist politicians has clearly worked in portraying the issue as essential to

national security. This stems from has been called the ‘New Racism’, which justifies

itself through democratic principles such as politics, democratic principles such as

free speech and freedom from terror. The media is generally controlled by those

likely to harbour these ‘New Racist’ ideas and project them on to the viewership,

who then assume this view of immigration is the accepted and rational view and

adhere to it. The lack of Mexican control of the mainstream media means any kind

of counterbalance in the media apart from Mexican rights groups are drowned out.

The threat of violence has been used as a catalyst for the many immigration

reformers seeking to fix the “broken” system; only to promote draconian policies

as can be seen with Arizona SB1070. Further study may focus around the number

of undocumented Mexican immigrants in Arizona in the following years.

Additionally, the notion that SB1070 is actually the result of perceived federal

failing needs to be studied.

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There is a truly restrictive level of control that comes with declaring war on what is

essentially tactics and behaviour. The War on Drugs, as well as the War on Terror

create a ‘wartime epistemology’ which seriously limits the ability in which cultural

mediums can critique either war without being seen as pro drug/terror, whilst

critics are unable to remove themselves from the binary restrictions placed upon

them when critiquing such artefacts. However I argue a certain degree of racism

fuelled by a fear of a loss of cultural identity also informed the law, as can be seen

by the strong desire for immigration reform in Arizona for the past two decades as

well as historical drug and immigration laws that have purposefully targeted

Mexicans. Nevertheless, it was the perceived threat of drug related violence that

was the spark for passing of the law. A crucial aspect of immigration reform is the

closely related security of the border. I have found that the strengthening of the US-

Mexican border has been a common desire for many US citizens and politicians

alike, without much consideration of what the implications might be. Tightening

the border actually has the unintended consequence of ensuring undocumented

Mexican immigrants stay in the US once they are in, with less chance of a return

back to Mexico like Mexican migration patterns in the 1970’s.

Finally I have discussed how under Obama there has been a liberalising of drug

policy and immigration reform. Prior to this however, the deportation of Mexican

immigrants without documentation had rose to 1 million a year.211 This was made

possible in the beginning of the War on Terror by the powers bestowed in the DHS

and its subdivisions, namely ICE and the ‘Secure Communities’ program it

211 Shaw, op. cit.

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enforced. Despite this, there appears to be some semblance of respite from this

cycle of post 9/11 anxieties, with the Immigrant Accountability Executive Action

deferring the deportation of up 5 million immigrants as well as other progressive

features. Furthermore, under Obama, certain states have set in the motion the

process of decriminalization of marijuana. The sort of action necessary to help

dampen the narcotics wars in Mexico and should decrease the need for Mexicans to

migrate in the first instance and also be less stigmatised when they do. The

liberalising of policies represents a major shift in the War on Drugs, with this shift

becoming progressively more visible in film and other cultural media. Further lines

of study could observe the number of Mexican immigrants that arrive in the US

following Obama’s Executive Action and the proportion of those who are

undocumented.

Ultimately, the War on Terror policies heightened a sense of fear and distrust of

immigrants, introducing a legalised framework with which to persecute them.

Mexican immigrants were affected by these measures, as, as a nationality, they

were the main source of undocumented immigrants. The Mexican War on Drugs

then reinforced the sense of fear as theories of spill over violence were portrayed

in the media and in national discourse. In this context Arizona SB1070 was able to

pass, however I have argued there was already latent racism around the issue of

Mexican immigration and that both the Terror and Drug wars have become easy

excuses for those who wish to appear democratic, whilst persecuting Mexican

immigrants. Under Obama there has been a liberalising of policies which if

continued stand to weaken the role of racism in affecting Mexican immigration.

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Arizona Senate Bill 1070, 2010

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