This deeply grounded, ethnographic account of the everyday realities of illicit border crossings is exactly the sort of book we need more of in order to understand the dynamics of human smuggling and to demystify sensationalized accounts perpetuated by politicians and the media. Anyone interested in how human smuggling actually works, especially works, especially along the Arizona-Mexico border, should read this book.
Peter Andreas, John Hay Professor of Political Science and International Studies, Brown University, USA
There has been much media coverage of irregular border crossings between the US and its southern neighbor, but few have engaged in a careful and systematic examination of the topic like the one presented here by Dr. Gabriella Sanchez. Through extensive court record reviews, in-depth interviews with both human smugglers and undocumented migrants, and extended field observations, Dr. Sanchez unpacks the complex and often mutually-enabling dynamics between those who wish to cross illegally into the US and those who are ready to facilitate for a fee. Dr. Sanchezs nuanced analysis of the political tensions in immigration control, informal economy along border communities, and gendered work in the smuggling enterprise has set a new standard for others to follow and emulate.
Sheldon Zhang, Professor, Department of Sociology, San Diego State University, USA
Human Smuggling and Border Crossings is a landmark book on an epochal issue for Arizona, the United States, and the twenty-first century world. At the same time deeply personal and coolly objective, the book provides a unique insight into the lived experiences of smuggling, for migrants, smugglers, and the authorities, and in so doing explodes many of the myths that have distorted our understanding and policy responses to human smuggling.
Khalid Koser, Deputy Director, Geneva Centre for Security Policy, Switzerland
The motives of migrants are well known to scholars and students, but studies about the lives of those they trust to guide them are often confused by theory, rhetoric and fear. With a clear, even literary hand, Dr. Sanchez guides us through the struggles and structures of non-violent smugglers, narrating their realities and explaining their experiences. I have yet to read a more thorough, insightful or empathetic account of the oft-maligned, yet little understood people who cross both real and imaginary borders to move others from anarchy to safety.
David J. Danelo, Director of Field Research, Foreign Policy Research Institute, USA
Human Smuggling and Border
Crossings
Graphic narratives of tragedies involving the journeys of irregular migrants trying to reach destinations in the global north are common in the media and are blamed almost invariably on human smuggling facilitators, described as rapacious members of highly structured underground transnational criminal organizations, who take advantage of migrants and prey upon their vulnerability.
This book contributes to the current scholarship on migration by providing a window into the lives and experiences of those behind the facilitation of irregular border crossing journeys. Based on fieldwork conducted among coyotes in Arizonathe main point of entry for irregular migrants into the United States at the turn of the twenty-first centurythis project goes beyond traditional narratives of victimization and financial exploitation and asks: who are the men and women behind the journeys of irregular migrants worldwide? How and why do they enter the human smuggling market? How are they organized? How do they understand their roles in transnational migration? How do they explain the violence and victimization so many migrants face while in transit?
This book is suitable for students and academics involved in the study of migration, border enforcement, and migrant and refugee criminalization.
Gabriella E. Sanchez is an anthropologist by training and a graduate of Arizona State Universitys Justice and Social Inquiry Program. Her research interests include borders, migration and transnational crime and labor. She has conducted fieldwork along the USMexico border, Mexico, Central America, North Africa, the Middle East and Australia, documenting the experiences of the men and women involved in drug and human smuggling operations as traffickers/smugglers. A Boren and a Fulbright fellow, Gabriella was also a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Marylands Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) and a visiting lecturer on Feminism and Transnational Migration at Wellesley College. Gabriella is currently Assistant Professor at The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC and a Research Fellow at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.
Routledge Studies in Criminal Justice, Borders and Citizenship
Edited by
Katja Franko Aas, University of Oslo
Mary Bosworth, University of Oxford
Sharon Pickering, Monash University
Globalizing forces have had a profound impact on the nature of contemporary criminal justice and law more generally. This is evident in the increasing salience of borders and mobility in the production of illegality and social exclusion. Routledge Studies in Criminal Justice, Borders and Citizenship showcases contemporary studies that connect criminological scholarship to migration studies and explore the intellectual resonances between the two. It provides an opportunity to reflect on the theoretical and methodological challenges posed by mass mobility and its control. By doing that, it charts an intellectual space and establishes a theoretical tradition within criminology to house scholars of immigration control, race, and citizenship including those who traditionally publish either in general criminological or in anthropological, sociological, refugee studies, human rights and other publications.
Policing non-citizens
Leanne Weber
Crimes of Mobility
Ana Aliverti
The Securitization of Migration and Refugee Women
Alison Gerard
Asylum Seeking and the Global City
Francesco Vecchio
Human Smuggling and Border Crossings
Gabriella E. Sanchez
Human Smuggling and
Border Crossings
Gabriella E. Sanchez
First published 2015
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
2015 Gabriella E. Sanchez
The right of Gabriella E. Sanchez to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sanchez, Gabriella E.
Human smuggling and border crossings/Gabriella E. Sanchez.
Pages cm.(Routledge studies in criminal justice, borders and citizenship)
