Voices of the Border

Powerful stories of migrants' experiences reveal the painful consequences of public policy Voices of the Border documents testimonios—first-person narratives—of migration, deportation, and asylum-seeking in and around Nogales, a city of a quarter-million inhabitants on Mexico's northern border. In this updated and expanded edition, individuals recount life on the move to find work, flee violence, or reunite with family, as well as the effects of U.S. and Mexican government immigration enforcement that complicate movement, forcing people to either move again or become immobile. In addition, chapter introductions written by migrant advocates, humanitarian aid workers, religious leaders, and scholars examine various political influences, including the Trump and Biden administrations, evolving nation-state power, shifting immigration laws and policies, the squeeze of global capitalism, diverse familial and financial situations, persistent faith, and the ways that people respond to those powers. In tracing the routes travelled to and from Nogales—in the United States, Mexico, the Central American region, and beyond—Voices permits insight into linkages between the histories, regions, local geographies, economies, and cultures that both emerge from and shape human movements. The testimonios in this volume amplify the voices of those who are mobile, expanding understandings of what it means to be stuck or on the move, and redefining whose perspectives and experiences matter.