By Juliana Morris

      In late August of this year, my work as a research assistant on migration issues in Chiapas brought me and the professor with whom I work to Tziscao, Mexico, a small rural village located on the border with Guatemala. Soon after we arrived, we drove the 5-minute trip along a dirt road to Guatemala. My professor drove us right across the border line into the town of Quetzal to say hello to an old friend of his. On our way back, we got out of the car to take a look at the border we had just so casually crossed. The road between Tziscao and Quetzal reaches the border at the crest of a small hill. From there, we could see the border stretching out over the surrounding hills - marked off by a series of white pillars, placed every 200 meters or so, and a line of cleared foliage. Below us, there was a green lake, over which the border line as marked off by a thick, suspended rope.

      My professor encouraged me to stand next to the delineating monument closest to us, so I could say that I had had one foot in Guatemala and the other in Mexico. Standing there, with feet in two different countries, I was struck by how arbitrary the border felt.  We had just driven from one to the next without noticing any difference in landscape or “feel” of the land and people. Later on during my stay in Tziscao/Quetzal, this arbitrariness was reaffirmed when a woman I spoke with on the Guatemala side kept referring to her family as “Mexicans.” Indeed, they had lived on the Mexican side of the border for many years, but to her, the fact that they were now living on the Guatemala side didn’t change her sense of identity. She and her family still have ties in Tziscao, they still go to the Mexican side for medical care, and on market days, they head to Mexico for their shopping.

      Despite this general perception of arbitrariness among the local people, the forces that were trying to assert the legitimacy of the border were clearly felt. The first day we arrived, a group of men were working near the monument closest to the road. They told us that they were building a sign that would proclaim the Guatemalan and Mexican sides of the border. Sure enough, when I walked back to the line two days later, the sign had been raised and the men were putting on the finishing touches. “Welcome to Guatemala” was emblazoned on one side and “Welcome to Mexico” on the other. The border, in fact, was being constructed before my very eyes.

      The construction of the border in Tziscao parallels movement regarding the Mexico/Guatemala border occurring at the national level in Mexico. In the 1980s, Mexico actually had a conscious policy of keeping its southern border open, to facilitate cross-border markets and family interactions.¹ Despite this precedent, the government has initiated a series of changes in recent years, such as Plan Sur of 2001, which have ramped up immigration enforcement in the country, particularly in the southern states.² Many scholars and journalists contend that these increases in border enforcement have been made as a result of pressure from the United States government on Mexico to help staunch the flow of illegal immigrants to the U.S.³ No walls have been raised, but increases in the number of immigration agents and more aggressive policies to seek out illegal immigrants have caused Mexico’s southern border to begin to resemble to a greater degree that of its northern neighbor.

      This is troubling, when one considers all of the problems that have developed as a result of the “construction” and increased enforcement of the U.S./Mexico border. At one point, this border was crossed just as nonchalantly as the Tziscao/Quetzal dividing line. However, with ramping up of border enforcement beginning the 90s, the border between the U.S. has truly become a toxic zone, where danger, abuse, and death can come in the form of thieves and gangs, dehydration, sexual exploitation, dangerous wildlife, and corrupt officials. While migrants already experienced the majority of these dangers in places throughout Mexico for many years, the increased immigration enforcement in Mexico in recent years has also augmented their vulnerability to the dangers. The example of the U.S./Mexico border shows us that any additional immigration enforcement in Mexico, including increased control in the border region, will only serve to further increase the frequency and geographic dispersion of the dangers, violence, and human rights abuses suffered by migrants in the country.

      So, one can understand why it made me nervous to see the group of men building the sign marking off Guatemala and Mexico, literally “constructing” the border. While putting up a sign is not in and of itself a method of “control,” it provides evidence of how the national policy shift towards increased control of its southern border is leading toward an increased articulation of the border line, not only at major transit centers but also in small towns like Tziscao.

      As I stood at the border that first day in Tziscao, hearing the slow chirping of birds and watching the green hills reflected in the stillness of the lake below, it was hard to imagine that the peace and continuity of this border line could ever be turned into the heavily controlled border we see in the north, or that the various forms of control and threats to migrants already occurring in other parts of Mexico could be replicated here. Nevertheless, all things can change. And as I turn to head back to the car, I hear the chink of the hammer behind me, steadily driving in the foundation of the new sign delineating Mexico from Guatemala.