Perpetual Precarity: Immigration Services at the U.S.- Mexico Border in Times of "Crisis"

This honors thesis analyzes the ‘migrant crisis’ at the U.S.-Mexico border through the
lens of on-the-ground, immigrant-serving volunteers, attorneys, nonprofit employees, and
government officials. Drawing on 36 interviews with representatives of 30 organizations, I find
that immigration services, such as organizations providing legal assistance or humanitarian aid,
struggle to adapt to changing federal policies and anti-immigrant trends. While the Trump
administration’s plans for a physical border wall have not been realized, an invisible wall
constructed of adversarial bureaucracies, ambiguous and arbitrary regulations, and limited
resources has dramatically affected immigration services’ abilities to help asylum seekers. This
study conducted during the summer of 2019 contributes to the literature on how federal policies
are implemented by local bureaucrats, advocates, and participants. My findings suggest that both
federal officials and street-level bureaucrats can restrict migrant assistance and services in
response to constantly shifting immigration priorities. Furthermore, I illustrate how the
immigration industrial complex necessitates the criminalization of unauthorized migration and
strengthens a long-standing, carceral system for immigrants, which in turn provides significant
economic incentives for several border communities. Because the invisible wall described above
often has greater impact on migrants than the incomplete physical wall, immigration services
workers (ISWs) most commonly recommend systemic and long term reforms to the entire
immigration system. As mass migration increasingly affects developed nations throughout the
world, an international reform effort motivated by human rights ideals is necessary. Without
such an effort, my honors thesis indicates that the predominant response to large scale migration
at the southern border is likely to remain localized, chaotic, and precarious