UC Irvine

In 1978, the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) began construction on newly commissioned border fences in the El Paso and San Diego regions of the U.S.-Mexico border. These fences, infamously nicknamed the ‘Tortilla Curtain,’ became the center of a cross-border controversy due to their initial, violent design. This flashpoint over the commission and construction of a weaponized border fence marked an important shift to increasingly unilateral border enforcement underscored by the U.S. intention to use threats of both direct and environmental violence to deter and punish unauthorized border crossers. The incident exacerbated ongoing racialization and criminalization of migrants in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, and fundamentally altered the development of policy, policing, and public perceptions pertaining to the U.S.- Mexico border. The Tortilla Curtain was thus a critical turning point in the history of border enforcement, and a significant step toward the ‘Prevention Through Deterrence’ strategy that the INS has embraced since the early 1990s.