9/28/2019 The Violent History of the U.S.

-Mexico Border - HISTORY

UPDATED: MAR 14, 2019 · ORIGINAL: APR 9, 2018

The Violent History of the U.S.-Mexico Border

BECKY LITTLE

Chinese immigrants, escaped slaves, and Native Americans were all people
U.S. forces tried to keep on one side or the other.

Donald Trump’s decision to send National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexican border is
only the latest in a long history of U.S. militarization of its national boundaries.

In fact, America’s southern border—which has shifted multiple times with U.S.
expansion—was arguably formed through violence. Texas and American militias used
force to establish that border in the 1830s and 1840s, capturing modern-day states
like California, HISTORY HISTORY
Texas, and all of the American southwest from Mexico. H

In the decadesHistory of official and vigilante groups

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after, the both regulated the

Mexico
movement of people across that border—be they NativeBorder
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Chinese immigrants, or Mexicans.
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9/28/2019 The Violent History of the U.S.-Mexico Border - HISTORY

This policing wasn’t always aimed at keeping immigrants out. The Native Americans
forced out of Texas had lived either in the area or further east before European
colonizers violently pushed them West. Enslaved people from Africa were another
group of non-immigrants whose movements vigilantes tried to police. Slave catchers
who monitored the border weren’t trying to keep anyone out—they were trying to
keep enslaved people in .

How the Current U.S.-Mexico Border Was Formed

The U.S.-Mexican border was not always where it is today. When Mexico declared
independence from Spain in 1821, the country’s territory included California, Texas,
and the land in between. But in 1836, white Americans who’d moved to Mexico turned
around and seceded from the country. They formed the short-lived independent
Republic of Texas, which the U.S. annexed in 1845.

To maintain the borders of their new country, these self-declared Texans formed the
Texas Rangers, also known as the Frontier Battalion. According to Miguel A. Levario, a
history professor at Texas Tech, they were an early example of a group that used
violence to maintain the border between Texas and Mexico. At that time, he says,
“they were mostly responsible for removing Native Americans from west Texas.”

After the Mexican-American War, the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo transferred
55 percent of Mexico’s territory to the United States, establishing (more or less) the
same borders that the countries have today.

Before Immigrants, U.S. Forces Policed the Border for

Escaped Slaves
The same year that the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo cut Mexico in half, the Fugitive
Slave Act ushered in a new kind of violent border control.

After Mexico ended slavery between 1829 and 1830, the Texans re-established it in
the new Republic of Texas. By the time the U.S. annexed the territory, its enslaved
population had grown from 5,000 to 30,000.

For many enslaved people, fleeing south to Mexico—which was closer to many slave
states—made more sense than trying to make it to the northern free states. But after
the Fugitive Slave Act established that, legally, slaves must be returned to their
owners, vigilante slave catchers began to monitor the U.S.-Mexican border in the
hopes of earning a reward for capturing escapees.

Using the Border to Keep “Illegal” Immigrants Out

The first federal law governing which immigrants could and couldn’t enter the U.S.
was the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. With it, Chinese immigrants became “the
earliest targets of systematic efforts to only selectively allow admissions,” says
Madeline Y. Hsu, a history professor at the University of
HISTORY Texas at Austin.
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“You had to beHistory of very limited exempt classes,
part of [these] Thewhich
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students, merchants, the merchants’ family members, diplomats,” she says. Chinese
immigrants whoMexico
didn’t meet these standards began to Border
enter the country Canada and M
Mexico; a type of U.S. immigration that was, for the first time, “illegal.”
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9/28/2019 The Violent History of the U.S.-Mexico Border - HISTORY

These immigrants began to enter mostly through Mexico in the late 1880s, after
Canada passed a tax on Chinese immigration. And because of this, the U.S. began to
focus more heavily on the U.S.-Mexican border as a place where immigration officials
needed to screen people to determine if they could enter.

Targeting Mexican Immigrants

Even with this increased attention to the border, there was no concerted effort to
keep Mexicans from migrating to the United States until the Mexican Revolution
broke out in the 1910s. At first, U.S. armed forces monitored the border to keep
violent revolutionary conflicts from spilling over the border. However, once Mexicans
began to escape the conflict by immigrating to the U.S. in large numbers, other
militias formed along the border to keep them out—including the Texas Rangers, who
were still an organized military force.

“The rangers were very much part of violence toward the indigenous Mexicans and
Mexican Americans in the 1910s,” Levario says. In addition, Texas vigilantes known as
“home guards” began to guard the border. Although these home guards weren’t
official state forces, they still had “the blessing of the governor to operate,” he says.

In 1924, the U.S. established the Border Patrol, a federally armed force specifically
dedicated to policing the border year-round. Initially, these officers did more policing
of Prohibition-era bootleggers than Mexican immigrants. But like the forces of the
1910s, its main goal was to impede Mexican immigration, as well as unauthorized
immigration from Asian countries.

In “almost exactly 100 years,” Levario notes, “our approach to border security with
Mexico has not really evolved.” But it has expanded greatly. Policing America’s
borders is now a $4 billion per-year enterprise, requiring some 20,000 Border Patrol
agents.

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