The question posed by the discussion panel on Feb. 18 in the Driscoll Hall Auditorium was one at the forefront of today’s society: is there a border crisis?
The panel was moderated by Villanova Law Professor Daniel Cortes, a Colombian lawyer whose personal experience with immigration led him to fight for an equitable immigration system. Audience members in attendance ranged from undergraduate and graduate students to law students and other community members, all eager to gain insight into this increasingly relevant topic.
Cortes introduced the panel of accomplished scholars: Penn State History Professor Mary Mendoza, University of Pennsylvania History Professor Hardeep Dhillon, and Seton Hall Law Professor Lori Nessel.
The panelists traced the origins of immigration and border control in America, offering diverse perspectives on how the current system began and what led to its flaws.
Cortes opened the discussion, expressing that immigration has recently bent political discourse, making the panel’s topic especially relevant and timely.
Diving into her explanation of how the current immigration system emerged, Mendoza surprisingly revealed that it all dates back to bugs. She explained that the first federally funded border fence, which was raised in 1911 between the United States and Mexico, was meant to control the movement of ticks, protecting American cattle from what they deemed the “infested” cattle from Mexico.
“Race is a social conception,” Mendoza said. “Not just a system of organizing human bodies according to perceived differences, but a system of inclusion and exclusion based on notions of moral hierarchies, often loosely organized around physical differences.”
She further outlined border history and described the dehumanizing practices of chemical cleansing that Mexican migrants were put through, which caused many to pass through the border secretly to avoid such torture. This only “fueled animosity towards Mexicans.”
The 1940s saw an increased use of fences and patrol agents to control migrants along the border, and Mendoza highlighted that many agents were concerned about Mexican women having children in the United States and “staining the social fabric of America.”
Mendoza deduced that although border regulation traces to ticks, it has become more than that.
“Human migrants had become the parasite,” Mendoza said. “We have created a border crisis, but it is one of our own making.”
After Cortes posed the question, “Where does the border live?” Dhillon jumped into her analysis of the border crisis, explaining that the border is not a single physical structure.
“[The border] lives everywhere,” Dhillon said. “In the mind, in the body and at home.”
Dhillon detailed her view of how the US, particularly government employees, have “used legal status as a proxy to structure inequality.” She explained the development of birthright citizenship in the US and described the barriers U.S.-born children face in accessing the rights associated with citizenship. Dhillon also drew attention to the Supreme Court ruling on birthright citizenship to come later this year, which threatens to end birthright citizenship for children born to unlawful and lawful immigrants.
“There is not a singular border, nor a singular crisis,” Dhillon said. “But a constructive legal architecture made by humans and tied to legal status, that follows not only an individual but their children, and shores up grave questions about constitutional rights and protections in the history of this nation.”
Nessel followed, describing the work she has done for more than 20 years fighting to achieve justice for immigrants. She points out that her immigration rights clinic has now been forced to redefine what “winning” looks like. It used to entail clients gaining asylum and becoming U.S. citizens. It now looks like resisting an unjust system, often fighting for due process.
She recounted a story of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detaining an immigrant without fair reasoning. Her clinic, along with the help of the local community, fought for his freedom.
“If people come together and push back, you can achieve small victories,” Nessel said.
Nessel voiced her concern regarding the lack of transparency in recent immigration operations, with masked agents intentionally sending immigrants away from their families and robbing them of full due process. She also clarified the importance of realizing that immigrant laws have long been weaponized to “dehumanize and send messages of control, but are not now exploding because of the lack of due process.”
“There is no other area of law that has been as isolated from constitutional norms and protections as immigration law,” Nessel said.
This discussion panel illustrated the importance of understanding the history and flaws of the US immigration system that produced today’s border crisis.
