Enforcing Order on the Border: Race, Policing, and Immigration Enforcement in South Texas

As a lifelong resident of the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, Eric Gamino has always been curious why some U.S.-born Latinos were indifferent toward Latino immigrants, especially since both groups lived within the same majority Latino-origin community--the Rio Grande Valley of Texas (RGV). Enforcing Order on the Border offers a personal, ethnographic examination of Gamino’s life as a resident of the RGV coupled with his experience as a police officer for two different police departments in the region. Gamino reveals how the concept of race functions within a predominantly Latino-origin community.

Gamino unpacks the interplay between local police, federal immigration officials, and civilians as they encounter immigration. Enforcing Order on the Border illustrates how institutional practices such as immigration enforcement occur on the South Texas-Mexico borderlands as collaborative eff orts between local police and the U.S. Border Patrol from an institutional perspective. Consequently, this collaborative eff ort in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands creates a distinctive method of policing, which he tellingly refers to as ＂constitution-free policing.＂ Gamino provides a unique perspective on how the concept of race in a predominantly Latino-origin community complicates intraracial/intraethnic relations on the South Texas-Mexico borderlands.

ERIC GAMINO is an associate professor of criminology and justice studies at California State University, Northridge.