The three U.S.- Mexico border wars : drugs, immigration, and homeland security

XV, 164 S.

The three border wars -- A tale with two sides -- The meaning of the border -- The frontier era -- The customs era -- The law enforcement era -- The national security border -- The closing of the border -- Our lives in the hands of others -- A democratic deficit -- Conflating the issues -- Planning to secure the border: same old, same old -- Are the three border wars justified? -- The scope of the book -- The drug war on the border -- A bird's eye view -- Economics and geography -- It's economics -- The explanatory power of a standard map -- The beginning of the war -- Between business and war -- Bureaucrats vs. drug cartels: unequal enemies -- Modus smugglandi -- The port of entry vs. the non-port of entry axis -- The people vs. the vehicles axis -- The NAFTA connection -- The c-tpat -- The narco-tunnels -- Corrupting the warriors -- The protective shield of the border police -- Victimizing the criminals with bribes -- Violence and the drug trafficking business -- Competition: viol

the border -- The more things change, the more they stay the same -- Operation hold the line -- Good fences make good neighbors -- Empowering the coyotes -- The crossing card trick -- NAFTA and undocumented immigration -- OTM: other than Mexicans -- Other modus operandi -- The militarization of the border -- Law enforcement and escalation -- Deterrence and escalation -- The illegal document industry -- The attrition argument -- The U.S. military and the border -- All the border's a stage -- The American public -- The minutemen -- Border political grandstanding -- A new approach is needed -- Homeland Security and the border -- The war on terror comes to the border -- The border and the immediate aftermath after September 11 -- Diagnosing the failure of September 11 -- Immigration failure -- Economic integration, trade and border security -- Arizona and New Mexico -- Damn those bureaucrats! -- Intelligence failure and the border -- Conflating the issues -- Reorganizing for border sec