Yet the unprecedented buildup of border policing has taken place in an era otherwise defined by the opening of the border, most notably through NAFTA. This contrast creates a borderless economy with a barricaded border.".

Private Bill Savery lands right in the middle of the Cold War when he is assigned to a US military base in Germany in the 1960s. As a linguist, it is his job to transcribe and translate intelligence coming in from the Russians, and hes looking forward to the challenge. Its a lot more exciting than anything he ever did in his home state of Vermont. When hes transferred to the small town of Schningen that borders East Germany, he meets Christine, a beautiful girl who dreams of becoming a reporter. It doesnt take long for the two to start spending all their free time together, and soon their friendship blossoms into love. Christine is often sad, though, and Bill wonders what causes it, though he never asks. Then one day, it becomes all too clear. Christine is engaged to marry another man, a marriage both families have already agreed upon. Breaking the betrothal will be nearly impossible, but Bill isnt about to give up. He loves Christine, and he knows she feels the same. Yet two days before the wedding, Bill receives an urgent assignment. A border incident is brewing way up north on the Elbe river, and he must put aside his personal feelings for his duty. Will he and Christine find out a way to be together, or is it already too late?

Career Army Sergeant Sterling Archer is a respected military man who suddenly finds himself out of a job, out of luck, and penniless on the mean streets of Las Vegas. When an old Army buddy presents him with an opportunity to make more money than he ever imagined, Archer jumps at the chance, unaware of incoming catastrophe. Soon, the pyramid scheme goes sour, and Archer ends up behind bars in federal prison. His only way out is to turn government informant. As if things could get any worse, his new partnership with the FBI places him square in the sights of a Mexican drug cartel, and Archer's life is turned upside down as he fights to stay alive, no matter the cost. He must now desperately weave his way through the dark underworld of gunrunning, human trafficking, and the illegal narcotics trade. But Archer's troubles don't end there as the investigative trail leads him across international borders and into the high stakes world of espionage and political intrigue.

In this third edition of Border Games, Peter Andreas charts the rise and transformation in policing the flow of drugs and migrants across the US-Mexico border. Recent border crackdowns and wall-building campaigns, he argues, are not unprecedented. Rather, they are the outcome of an escalatory dynamic already in motion—but now played out on a far bigger stage, with higher stakes, and in new security and political contexts. Focusing on the power of symbolic politics and policy feedback effects, Andreas traces the logic behind such buildup. Border policing is an attractive political mechanism for handling the often unintended consequences of past policy choices, signaling a commitment to territorial integrity and projecting an image of territorial authority. Yet its negative aftermath is not only frequently glossed over; it also fuels further escalation. With new chapters on the border policies of the Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations, Border Games continues to help readers grasp how the busiest border in the world is also one of the most fortified, and why it plays such a complicated and contentious role in both domestic politics and US-Mexico relations.

Globalization in the United States can seem paradoxical: free trade coincides with fortification of the southern border, while immigration is reimagined as a national-security threat. US politics turn aggressively against Latinx migrants and subjects even as post-NAFTA markets become thoroughly reliant on migrant and racialized workers. But in fact, there is no incongruity here. Rather, anti-immigrant politics reflect a strategy whereby capital uses specialized forms of violence to create a reserve army of the living, laboring dead. Visible Borders, Invisible Economies turns to Latinx literature, photography, and films that render this unseen scheme shockingly vivid. Works such as Valeria Luiselli’s Tell Me How It Ends and Alex Rivera’s Sleep Dealer crystallize the experience of Latinx subjects and migrants subjugated to social death, their political existence erased by disenfranchisement and racist violence while their bodies still toil in behalf of corporate profits. In Kristy L. Ulibarri’s telling, art clarifies what power obscures: the national-security state performs anti-immigrant and xenophobic politics that substitute cathartic nationalism for protections from the free market while ensuring maximal corporate profits through the manufacture of disposable migrant labor.

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