The Mexico–United States border — 2,000 miles of terrain ranging from desert to urban sprawl — is the most traversed border in the world, with over 350 million documented crossings every year.

A highly controversial concern due to the Trump administration's policies on immigration, as well as deeper, polarizing issues within the U.S., many academics trace the current stalemate to President Lyndon B. Johnson's pivotal Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which ended a long-standing quota system that heavily favored Western Europeans. The law created a new path to citizenship that focused on reuniting immigrant families and bringing skilled workers to the U.S., which, over time, gradually but dramatically transformed the demographic make-up of the country, generating a decades-long ideological struggle between open borders and stricter immigration laws.

Here is a timeline of the past 50 years and the history behind the issues of today.

1970s: The Nixon, Ford & Carter Administrations

In September 1969, the Nixon administration launched "Operation Intercept," an anti-drug measure that resulted in the near closing of the border between Mexico and the United States. The operation was unpopular and failed, but it led to the Boundary Treaty of 1970, which created our modern border lines.

Under President Gerald Ford, the U.S. House of Representatives launched the Domestic Council Committee on Illegal Aliens, and introduced a bill providing amnesty for workers currently in the United States along with employer sanctions for hiring illegal immigrants, alleging that they were driving down the wages of American workers.

In 1978, during President Jimmy Carter’s term, Congress created the Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy to further explore solutions and tighten restrictions on illegal immigration. In Mexico, the nationalized oil industry experienced a boom with the discovery of an offshore oil reserve called the Cantarell Field but, by the end of the decade, the country was again in debt, a victim of fiscal mismanagement.

1980s: The Ronald Reagan Administration

Experiencing the worst recession since the Great Depression, high unemployment once again drove Mexican workers north to the United States to seek work. By 1986, Congress passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act, determined to once again stem the flow by cracking down on U.S. employers who were hiring illegal immigrants, while granting amnesty to those already in the country. During this period, illegal immigration plummeted while, in Mexico, President Carlos Salinas de Gortari pushed to privatize nationalized industry and deregulate the economy, foreshadowing the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

1990s: The George H.W. Bush and Clinton Administrations

With the launch of the Immigration Act of 1990 under President George H. W. Bush, the number of legal immigrants accepted into the U.S. each year increased from 500,000 to 700,000. Bush also established the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform, determined to strengthen Border Patrol through advanced training. Illegal immigration soared, creating a greater demand for more security and surveillance at the border.

In February 1994, the Clinton administration unveiled a new immigration plan that prioritized security, deportation and a reorganization of the asylum process, encouraging legal immigrants to seek citizenship. Increased power was given to local law enforcement in border states with the specific aim of blocking immigrants from major smuggling routes, unintentionally causing a rise in migrant deaths along remote areas.

That same year, NAFTA went into effect, eliminating tariffs and turning the United States, Mexico and Canada into the world’s second-largest trading bloc after Europe. Initially, this served to provide the Mexican economy with a boost, but an economic crisis created by political instability, a drop in foreign investor confidence and government misspending undermined the economy and, late in 1994, the peso suffered a collapse, causing internal strife. This period saw the rise of the Zapatista Movement in Chiapas, and the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, or IIRIRA, which scholars cite as one of the largest changes to immigration laws over the last few decades.

Early 2000s: The George W. Bush Administration

After the September 11, 2001 attacks, border security increased as fears of undocumented immigration grew. Two years later, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was created, incorporating the INS, Customs and nearly 20 other agencies. That same year, President Bush's proposed guest-worker program met with strong opposition in Congress, which instead endorsed a plan to strengthen the Border Patrol. The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, which authorized 10,000 new agents, nearly doubled the patrol by 2010. This led to broader policy developments for the Department of Homeland Security and the Secure Border Initiative (SBI).

By 2005, the Border Patrol launched Operation Streamline as part of a collection of zero-tolerance policies implemented at the Mexico–U.S. border, designed to prosecute and remove undocumented immigrants through an expedited process. This period saw the rise of militia and vigilante groups like the Minuteman Project, a collective of over 1,000 volunteers who searched the desert for undocumented immigrants, as well as groups like No Mas Muerte/No More Deaths, which sought to aid migrants in their perilous journey. In 2006, with the ratification of the Secure Fence Act, the U.S. began construction on 650 miles of fencing.

2008–2016: The Obama Administration

According to the U.S. Border Patrol, from 2007–2011, arrests and detentions of illegal migrants from Central America at the U.S.-Mexico border were reduced from 70,000 to 55,000. Factors such as a weakened U.S. economy in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis increased cartel violence in Northern Mexico, and the Border Patrol’s ongoing “prevention through deterrence” policy made border crossings riskier and much less promising. In 2012 alone, agents made more than 364,000 arrests, instituting border-control strategies including Operation Safeguard in Tucson, Ariz, and the Arizona Border Control Initiative (ABCI) along the state border. The number of apprehensions increased dramatically from 95,000 in 2012 to 220,000 in 2014, with President Obama taking executive action on immigration reform that year, granting temporary work permits and deportation exemptions to millions of undocumented immigrants. This was a continuation of 2012's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program — or DACA — an ambitious initiative, still in existence today, that defers deportation proceedings for those under 15 who were brought to the U.S. as children. 

Today: The Trump Administration

In 2016, Republican nominee Donald Trump ran for president on an “America First” platform of tougher immigration restrictions and a plan to build a border wall with Mexico. In January 2017, Trump signed an Executive Order to expedite construction on the wall, but on September 20 of that year, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra filed a lawsuit alleging that the Trump administration had overstepped its powers.

In June 2018, the administration established an additional policy designed to separate parents from their children at the Mexican border. The judge ruled in favor of advocacy groups, placing an injunction on the administration. In an escalation of rhetoric, on March 31, 2019, President Trump threatened to shut down the border with Mexico, effectively cutting off trade between the two countries. Yet, despite all the political posturing, the number of undocumented migrants apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border has remained near its lowest levels since the early 1970s, although the number has risen steadily since President Trump took office. 

While much of the country came to a standstill this year due to the coronavirus epidemic, the Trump administration ramped up construction of its multibillion-dollar southern border wall and announced the closure of the border to all non-essential travel.

In March, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced plans to erect more than 150 miles of the 30-foot border wall in Arizona, New Mexico and California—in addition to ongoing construction work at 15 sites across those states and Texas.

When Andrés Manuel López Obrador, or “AMLO” as he is affectionately called, won Mexico’s 2018 presidential election in a landslide, claiming 53 percent of the vote, he rode in on a wave of change. Left-leaning and a presumed populist, he had campaigned on curtailing corruption, and capitalized on discontent with outgoing president Enrique Peña Nieto, whose perceived reckless spending had created considerable anger in a country where 43 percent of the population experience financially instability, and politics is often seen as the road to easy money.

Dubbed “The Tropical Messiah” by Enrique Krauze, a historian and pundit, López Obrador has been painted by detractors as a Donald Trump-style Latin American strongman with a dictatorial bent, while others see him as a pragmatist with a Mexico First vision. In his fourth and finally successful run for the presidency, López Obrador had been described as self-assured and occasionally arrogant, but also something of an intellectual, with over a dozen books to his credit, including Don’t Say Goodbye to Hope and The Mafia That Took Possession of Mexico.

The Promise of Austerity

From the start, he’s made austerity a defining characteristic of his presidency by only flying commercial and promising to take a 40 percent pay cut, backed by new laws demanding that no public servant can earn more than he does. López Obrador has also promised to increase social spending and cut poverty, which many feel was inspired by his upbringing in Tabasco, one of the poorest states in Mexico and where he launched his political career.

Far from the entrenched networks of Mexico City, López Obrador’s first taste of political life came during the late 1970s when he worked as a representative of Mexico’s National Indigenous Institute in his native state, even living in a shack to develop greater empathy for indigenous families.

“He knows that the south of Mexico is the poorest part of the nation, that it badly needs a pension, and he's willing to do something about that,” says William Beezley, a professor of history at the University of Arizona with a focus on Modern Mexican History and Latin American Cultural History. Beezley believes that, like his predecessors, López Obrador wants to curb violence and corruption, and is committed to building a stronger and more resilient economy, convinced that he can be successful where others have failed.

An Independent Mexico

In his first radical step, López Obrador broke away from the Merida Agreement, removing Mexico from the unpopular and costly war on drugs. No longer will U.S. advisors, helicopters or military equipment track the cartels, a development that Beezley sees as important for Mexican pride and nationalism.

“He is going to regularly do things to create Mexican independence from U.S. policy,” says Beezley, who feels there’s a disconnect between the popular misconception of drug cartels and the reality on the ground. “Drug cartels don't exist anymore—they're organized crime, like the mafia. They're involved in protection, kidnapping and drugs. So even if the drugs suddenly disappeared, all these other activities would continue.”

López Obrador vows to abandon the “failed strategy” his predecessors used to tackle these issues, including a heavily militarized 11-year campaign that claimed over 200,000 lives. He also hopes to decrease violence and corruption by reshaping the economy, providing social security and money to the poorest regions in Mexico.

“I am convinced that the most effective and humane way of fighting these ills involves combating inequality and poverty,” he said during his victory speech in July 2018. "Peace and tranquility are fruits of justice.”

A Populist President?

López Obrador hopes to bolster the economy by raising wages, with the intended effect of making corruption and crime less attractive. Detractors say he is clinging to a long-gone vision of Mexico, of a time when the private sector took a backseat to the president and state, a balance of power that largely ended when NAFTA gained a foothold in the ’90s. Yet, he has agreed to sign on to the new United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA), formally NAFTA, with reservations.  

So what about his populism?

“AMLO’s popularity and why people associate him with being a populist is that he, like many in Mexico, are disenchanted with programs that over the last 35-40 years have just not worked," says Beezley. "He thinks he can make serious changes to the Mexican economy and Mexico's relationship with the United States, particularly at the border. And because he's willing to make those changes, he's been misidentified as a kind of populist, when he's actually trying to create something different. And sometimes, it's just popular to propose a change.”

And it certainly has been. According to a survey last year in the newspaper El Financiero, López Obrador has a 66 percent approval rating, compared to just 26 percent for Peña Nieto at the time of his departure from office. But for now, we will have to wait and see how López Obrador handles the almost daily news coming from the Trump White House, along with how he will continue to navigate this tenuous period in the U.S.-Mexico relationship.

Continued Popularity in the Time of Coronavirus

According to a 2018 survey in the newspaper El Financiero, López Obrador had a 66 percent approval rating, compared to just 26 percent for Peña Nieto at the time of his departure from office. That rate has held steady through the first part of 2020, even as he unveiled more cuts in response to the Covid-19 crisis, including the abolition of 10 government departments, a hiring freeze and a 25 percent cut in government salaries.

Despite the cuts, the president promised to plough ahead with a litany of projects including a huge oil refinery in his home state of Tabasco, a pair of railways and an airport north of Mexico City. But these projects have collided with coronavirus—Mexico has confirmed 11,633 Covid-19 cases and 1,069 deaths, although the country’s health officials admit the true number is much higher. The pandemic could not have come at a worse moment: Mexico’s economy stagnated in 2019 and was already projected to contract in 2020.

In response, AMLO has proposed loans for households and business. He also promised to boost social programs and push forward pension payments.

But critics like Oxfam Mexico have expressed skepticism that these measures will be enough to help those affected by the crisis, stating in a report that they “are not designed to support that many people in poverty at this time.”

In April, AMLO said he would take out around $16.6 billion from public trusts and a budget stabilization fund to address the economic crisis that analysts expect may reduce Mexico's GDP by four to 12 percent. Lopez Obrador also said his administration will continue with its austerity measures, will not incur public debt, and will not bail out companies or give tax breaks to people or companies.

But Covid-19 is sure to put austerity to the test, and only time will tell if these measures will be enough to help Mexico weather the storm.

In the face of President Donald Trump’s plan to build a border wall, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) is approaching the issue of Mexican migration to the U.S. in another way.

On January 1, 2019, the AMLO administration enacted the “Northern Border Free Zone” or Zona Libre de la Frontera Norte, a 15.5 mile (25 kilometer) zone along the U.S.-Mexico border from the Pacific Coast to the Gulf of Mexico. Within the zona libre, sales taxes were cut in half from 16% to 8%, income taxes were reduced from 30% to 20%, and the minimum wage doubled to 176 pesos (~$9) a day.

AMLO hopes that implementing these changes in this 15.5-mile-wide zone will invigorate the Mexican economy and inspire Mexican workers to stay in Mexico. He is optimistic that the zona libre will “promot[e] investment, production and technological development, and the creation of jobs.” He calls it a “last curtain to retain workers in our territory.”

Daniel Martínez, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Arizona and affiliate of the Center for Latin American Studies, the Department of Mexican American Studies, and the School of Geography and Development, says that the changes within the zona libre may encourage direct foreign investment from the U.S., as well as cultivate binational economic hubs, but it is not clear if these new economic measures are going to practically address migration to the U.S.

“It’s possible” that the zona libre will curb migration, Martínez says, “However, international [unauthorized] migration is complex and is the consequence of several interrelated macro-, meso-, and micro-level factors, including ‘pull’ factors in the United States and ‘push’ factors in Mexico.”

Shifts in Migration

Those push and pull factors can be seen in reverberations from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Enacted on January 1, 1994, the trilateral tariff-free trade agreement between the United States, Canada, and Mexico set into motion devastating problems for Mexican farmers.

“Both campesinos and indigenous folks in the southern part of [Mexico] were displaced by NAFTA,” says Martínez, noting that the two groups often overlap.

This displacement created a pronounced northern migratory pattern from southern Mexico that did not exist prior. “Before this, most migration occurred from west-central Mexico to the United States.” But subsistence farmers in southern Mexico were forced “into urban areas and maquilas along the northern border, and into the U.S. in search of work.”

An attempt to energize the economy at the U.S.-Mexico border may not be the most effective approach to address the current migration crisis, especially since northern Mexican states like Sonora are already comparatively better off than states in southern and southeastern Mexico like Oaxaca from which the campesinos migrated.

Further still, unauthorized migration from Mexico by Mexicans is at near 40-year lows, said Martínez, and this has slowed even more in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic. The migration patterns to the U.S. have changed from the 1990s or 2000s when Mexican campesinos were pushed northward.

Today, migration consists mostly of Central American asylum seekers from the Northern Triangle—Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador—who are “fleeing abject poverty, political instability, and perhaps most important, urban violence at the hands of gangs and corrupt officials in their home countries.”

A Public Health Crisis at the Border

Previously, President Trump threatened Mexico with tariffs, putting pressure on the AMLO administration to take concrete steps to address the migration crisis at the Mexico-Guatemala border. As a response to Trump’s threats, Mexico has added more security at its southern border, apprehending and detaining Central Americans heading north to the U.S. to seek asylum.

Martínez says that both the U.S. and Mexico’s attention should be focused on the factors driving this migration crisis from the Northern Triangle in the first place, factors for which the U.S. shares responsibility. “The U.S. government, since the early-1900s, has played an active role in destabilizing these counties, whether it be through banana republics, U.S. support for right-wing regimes, U.S. involvement in the Central American civil wars in the 1980s, the exportation of gang culture through our deportation policies, and most recently, the 2009 coup in Honduras.”

These factors have led to the destabilization of the Northern Triangle, pushing many Central Americans north through Mexico to make the dangerous trek to the U.S.-Mexico border—a journey that has become even more dangerous amid the pandemic, as social distancing and quarantine in refugee situations is nearly impossible.

Due to COVID-19, Migrant Protection Protocol hearings have been suspended until at least June, which has caused a further backlog in court proceedings. Many of those waiting along Mexico’s northern border with the U.S. not only face delays, but also live in cramped and unsanitary conditions, potentially exposing them to a greater danger of COVID-19.

Seeking asylum is a legal right set forth by international and U.S. immigration law. Yet, increased militarization of the border and U.S. programs like Operation Streamline and Prevention Through Deterrence have led to an increasing amount of incarcerations, deportations, disappearances, and deaths. The U.S. and Mexico have at its shared border a public health crisis, Martínez says.

“Let's keep in mind that migration from Mexico is near historic lows,” he says. “Rather, the focus should be on the Northern Triangle in Central America.”

Take an in-depth look at the UArizona research at work in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands.

The politics of the wall gets most of the attention, but the environmental impact and adverse effects on wildlife on the border are monumental. These major environmental disruptions may permanently alter the landscape, putting a fragile ecosystem at even greater risk.

“Even before the border wall, the border’s biodiversity was already threatened by continued pressure of population growth, urban expansion and climate change,” says Margaret Wilder, Associate Professor, School of Geography and Development and Center for Latin American Studies Environment & Natural Resources 2. “So, the border fence and now the border wall strike another massive blow to this fragile and important ecological system that we live in and love.”

Wilder goes on to describe four key effects of the wall on native species and wildlife: First is what she describes as the “tightening of the noose of pressure the wall contributes to the trifecta of growth/urban sprawl and climate change” that the region is already experiencing. Second are the “direct impacts on species.” Next is the devastating impact on scarce water sources and, lastly, the significant strain on the “long-term cooperation between the U.S. and Mexico on border environment issues,” threatening a nearly century-long partnership on “collaborative solutions to the most vexing water and environmental issues.”

A Wall Runs Through It

The Arizona-Mexico border is 2,000 miles long, and only follows a natural feature when it meets the Rio Grande river in Texas. Up until that point, says Jeffrey Banister, Director, The Southwest Center Associate Research, Social Scientist, Editor, and Research Professor Southwest Center, Journal of the Southwest, and School of Geography and Development, it’s “just a line in the sand.”

“[The wall] is just running right across these landscapes without any connection to them. In fact, it's in stark contrast to them,” he says. “So, you could imagine all the damage that's being done by having all those crews out there; the machinery and what they're blasting; and they’re pumping groundwater. By the time they're done, according to the current plan, almost all of Arizona will have border wall.”

And a tall one, in some places 30 feet high, making it impossible for wildlife to travel beyond it, essentially trapping countless animals. This poses profound problems for the myriad species that exist in these spaces — like those that “need a great distance to subsist and to reproduce,” says Banister. “Like the jaguar, which requires a very broad range to mate and hunt … a lot of native species move across, back and forth across that line in the sand, and their natural range is being greatly truncated.”

According to Wilder, the wall is “a sort of nail in the coffin of an ecological region under pressure, under siege,” she says. “The border wall undermines nearly 100 years of cooperation between the two countries to preserve and share water resources and to protect the environment and species, for the health and benefit of all.

“In one stroke, the wall may deliver a crushing blow to these efforts,” she says, “and the ecology of the region is likely to be damaged and changed forever.”

Wilder goes on to cite the fact that at least 36 environmental laws have been waived to allow the construction of the border fence and wall, including major federal laws like the Endangered Species Act, National Environmental Protection Act and so many more.

But Banister cites organizations — such as the Malpai Borderlands Group, which was founded by ranchers who live and work primarily in Southeast Arizona and Southwest New Mexico — and individual landowners and ranchers who are “fighting good fights,” he says, and challenging the federal government in the courts.

“There are many, many people working for the people and communities and landscapes in Southern Arizona right now,” says Banister, “across the state, really.”

Wilder, however, says it’s up to all of us, now that the votes have been cast, to continue to urge lawmakers to remove the wall.

“The voters of the United States chose to make changes in their elected representatives to restore our longstanding environmental protections of the last 50 years,” she says. “Let’s take down the wall.”

Uncertainty and danger are familiar conditions for asylum seekers, and COVID-19 has only exacerbated a dangerous situation for an already vulnerable population, according to experts at the University of Arizona.

On March 20, 2020, nine days after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued an Order citing the obscure 1944 Public Health Service Act that “suspends the introduction of certain persons from countries where an outbreak of a communicable disease exists.”

Lynn Marcus, Clinical Law Professor and Director of Community Immigration Law Placement Clinic, says there is “no question” that the previous administration used COVID-19 to restrict migration, not to contain the spread of virus.

“It’s a distorted reading of the [CDC order] to imply that you could legally send people back to their deaths when there are others ways of screening for disease,” says Marcus. “There’s nothing in the law that says some CDC law trumps the obligations under domestic and international law toward asylum seekers and torture survivors.”

The CDC Order provides no opportunity for asylum seekers–those who are fleeing their home country and seeking protection from persecution or death–to make their asylum claim, which is a human right protected by the domestic Refugee Act of 1980 and the procedures laid out at the international Refugee Convention in 1952.

Three days after the CDC Order was issued, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Executive Office for Immigration Review released a joint statement­—which has since been reissued—suspending immigration court hearings for all asylum seekers waiting in Mexico.

Those asylum seekers are forced to wait in Mexico while their cases are being adjudicated because of the Trump Administration’s Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), or “Remain in Mexico” policy. The program, implemented on January 25, 2019, allows for U.S. border officers to return non-Mexican asylum seekers to Mexico to remain there while the U.S. immigration courts review their cases. The suspension of those hearings creates even more danger and uncertainty for asylum seekers.

Daniel Martínez, Associate Professor of Sociology and the co-director of the Binational Migration Research Institute says, “This policy is clearly intended to make the process that much more difficult so people will become discouraged and opt to return to their communities of origin.”

At the same time, “Most asylum seekers are fleeing insecurity, violence, extortion, corruption, and threats of death, rape, and kidnapping. Abandoning their asylum cases and returning home places them at even greater risk,” says Martínez.

Dr. Anna Ochoa O’Leary, Professor and Head of the Mexican American Studies Department, says that the risks and challenges faced by women asylum seekers, including abandonment, injury, separation or losing family members, abuse from authorities, assaults from border bandits, and death are “only aggravated if [they] need to remain in Mexico, where discrimination and mistreatment of Central Americans is well-documented.”

“[Leadership] hasn’t responded in any way that is protective of asylum seekers or the public,” Lynn Marcus says.

Instead, this already vulnerable population is at risk of contracting COVID-19 because they are being held in unhygienic detention centers on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border.

Shefali Milczarek-Desai, Assistant Clinical Professor and Director of The Workers' Rights Clinic says that a detention center “feels, looks, tastes, and smells like a maximum-security prison.”

Martínez says we do not know the extent to which COVID-19 is affecting those forced to Remain in Mexico, but he says we have a public health crisis in our detention facilities in the U.S. “‘Confirmed positive’ rates, among those who have been tested in detention facilities, are shockingly high relative to the general population. We should really be concerned about the conditions within which immigrants are being detained and the inadequate healthcare they're receiving in those facilities.”

“They’ve allowed the disease to spread and really fought tooth and nail in the courts to keep vulnerable detainees locked up in dangerous conditions,” Marcus says. “They are making everything very dangerous and very difficult, with the aim of people giving up.”

COVID-19 has worsened uncertain and dangerous conditions for asylum seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border, but the Biden administration is looking to slowly start reopening border crossing for asylum-seekers. 

According to the AP, the administration announced plans for tens of thousands of people who are seeking asylum and have been forced to wait in Mexico under a Trump-era policy to be allowed into the U.S. while their cases wind through immigration courts.

The first wave of an estimated 25,000 asylum-seekers with active cases in the “Remain in Mexico” program will be allowed into the United States on Feb. 19, authorities said. They plan to start slowly, with two border crossings each processing up to 300 people a day and a third crossing taking fewer numbers.