Iconographic Landscapes of US Borders and Immigration Controls

The post-9/11 era has witnessed a dramatic shifting of national priorities in favor of enhanced national security and immigration controls. One of the ways this is manifest is in the construction of extensive border barriers, first initiated during George W. Bush’s presidency and later re-started with less bi-partisan support but even greater intensity and resolve under the Donald Trump Administration. Border barriers reflect and inform how societies think about international borders, serving as dramatic means of making political statements to constituents and potential migrants and reflecting collective political anxiety over immigration. Interactions over these landscapes are a proxy for greater discussion of social change and national ideals. This chapter assesses the ways in which political messaging is embedded in these contested landscapes. Border barriers have been viewed through the lens of sovereignty and recent concerns over globalization, but the power of these landscapes in shaping national identity is also central. These structures and debates over their meaning reveal divergent understandings of US society, what it is, and what it should be. Shaping the landscape is a basic attempt to control one’s surroundings and direct the future. In border barriers we see this play out on dramatic national and international scales that make explicit some of the basic concepts about the study landscapes and their critical interpretation.