Explore histories of migration, citizenship and belonging in Germany and the U.S. over the centuries.
On May 28, 1924, Congress passed a law that established the U.S. Border Patrol to prevent migrants from crossing the borders from Mexico and Canada without authorization.
In the 1950s, the Border Patrol started Operation Wetback (see also: Operation Wetback, 1954), a major deportation program, to send undocumented migrants back to Mexico. Today, the Border Patrol spans twenty “sectors,” divided between the northern and southern borders with one additional “sector” in Puerto Rico. Human rights abuses and unwarranted killings of migrants crossing the border by the Border Patrol have been the focus of numerous local and national campaigns for greater accountability while conservative forces have called for increased militarization of the border.
Department of Homeland SecurityBorder Patrol History. Date accessed: December 2, 2014.
Border Patrol Museum. Date accessed: June 16, 2015.
Chad C. Haddal. Border Security: The Role of the U.S. Border Patrol. Congressional Research Service. August 11, 2010. Date accessed: June 16, 2015.
Geri Spieler. Migra! A History of the U.S. Border Patrol. The Huffington Post. May 5, 2010. Date accessed: December 2, 2014.
Brian Epstein. Crossing the Line, Part 2. Need To Know on PBS. 20/07/2012. Date accessed: June 16, 2015.
Kelly Lytle Hernandez. Migra!: a history of the U.S. Border Patrol. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press.
Todd Miller. Border Patrol nation: dispatches from the front lines of Homeland Security. San Francisco: City Lights Publishers.
