The Trans-American Border Regime

This final chapter seeks to construct a genealogy of what we have designated the trans-American border regime, exploring its historical formation, consolidation, and ongoing reconfiguration throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. Rather than attempting to provide an exhaustive historical account, we propose a broader contextualization of the key historical dynamics shaping and continuing to transform the region’s borders, from European colonialism through US imperialism to transnational neoliberal formations of multilateral “migration management” and border externalization. Through this genealogical approach, the chapter aims to identify critical historical antecedents essential for understanding the current transformations within the border regime that has emerged across the hemisphere during the twenty-first century. The primary objective is to develop a history of the present that can supply the critical parameters for the conceptual framework of the volume elaborated in the introduction and thus to enable a deeper comprehension of the structural changes and reconfigurations currently under way in the enforcement and “management” of the borders of the Americas, highlighting the critical significance of diverse human mobilities and the struggles of migrants for analyzing the ongoing shifts in border politics.