Victimizing the undocumented: immigration policy and border enforcement as state crime

There is a third significant source of avoidable social injuries in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands – the U.S. war on drugs. It is responsible for bloody, inter-cartel battles in Mexico, corruption of law enforcement on both sides of the border, a dangerous merger of drug and human smuggling cartels, and a racialized imprisonment binge in the United States that has devastated social networks in poor communities of color (Austin and Irwin, 2011; Jones, 2013; Mauer and Chesney-Lind, 2002; Thomas and Torrone, 2006). While important, the full consequences of the war on drugs are beyond the scope of this chapter, and will be addressed only as they bear on issues related to immigration.