The rise in unauthorized border crossings by Central American migrants demonstrates how U.S. immigration control and foreign policy in Latin America combine to produce violent results.
In less than one week, two Guatemalan citizens committed suicide in the privately-run immigration detention center in Eloy, Arizona. It is another horrifying glimpse into an ever-expanding U.S. immigration control complex where death has become very much a part of the equation.
A recent tragedy in the waters separating the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico led to dozens of migrant fatalities. In comparison to the intense reporting on the sinking of the luxury cruise ship, Costa Concordia, off of Italy's coast in January, media coverage of the deaths of Dominican migrants was poor at best. The disparity exemplifies who counts and who doesn't in a world of great inequality.
Last Friday, 18-year-old Joaquin Luna shot and killed himself in south Texas. Luna, an unauthorized immigrant who had lived in the United States since the age of six months, had become increasingly depressed about his life prospects given his immigration status and the defeat of the DREAM Act. His untimely passing highlights the complicated ways in which the systems of immigration enforcement and state exclusion produce deadly forms of violence.
