Review of "Threshold: Emergency Responders on the US-Mexico Border"

In her book, Threshold: Emergency Responders on the US-Mexico Border, Ieva Jusionyte offers a firsthand account of her time observing and immersing herself in the work of first responders caring for wounded migrants at the border. From Sonora to Arizona, she uncovers the harsh realities of life at the border and presents terrain as a “mechanism of injury”, explaining how the tactical infrastructure both hinders and facilitates movement. With the understanding that built environments “actively, sometimes violently - shape incidents and events,” Jusionyte uses the stories of migrants and first responders to show how these accidents are deliberately caused by government policies. Applying what Caroline Besteman (2019) introduces in her article, Militarized Global Apartheid, the US/Mexico border is a militarized form of global apartheid and is the cause of the thousands of injuries that first responders are left caring for. The US has made state-sanctioned investments in the form of militarized technologies and personnel to protect the country against the mobility of people from the global south. 

The title of the ethnography is inspired by the border as a quintessential threshold of the state in which political authority is continually remade and its legitimacy renewed. “Threshold denotes the juncture between territory and terrain, when an otherwise innocuous constellation of policies and materials achieves the level of toxicity that is harmful to humans.” (Jusionyte p. 24). Throughout her book, Jusionyte uses anecdotes from migrants, first responders, border patrol and her own observations to give the reader a deeper understanding of the complexities of the politics of injury and rescue on the militarized border. 

In Part I titled “Ankle Alley”, Jusionyte expands on the concept of tactical infrastructure and shares tragic stories from first responders tending to the many bodies that fall victim to its traps. At the center of the Border Patrol’s 1995 Strategic Plan was a program built on “prevention through deterrence” that called for the introduction of significant enforcement resources at every major corridor (Jusionyte, p. 42). The plan believed that a well suited border security force would deter illegal traffic or force them to take more hostile terrain. Amidst the government's deterrence strategies, first responders still must do their job and are often confronted with many challenges and limitations.

In Part II titled “Downwind, Downhill and Downstream”, Jusionyte dives into the brotherhood that exists between border communities. As a firefighter shared with Jusionyte, the binational cooperation works because of the people and their joint desire to care for all who are in need. However due to the hostile society, both groups have limitations on the level of risk mitigation and rescue they can provide. Using a wildfire that required the attention of both US and Mexican firefighters as an example, we learn how the US government restricts the work of emergency responders through a “bureaucratic wall” (Jusionyte, p. 99). Mexican firefighters are able to cross the border to help the US, but the US firefighters are unable to cross the border to work collaboratively with them. If they tend to a situation in Mexico, US first responders are left uninsured and liable for their actions. The US government is not only restricting mobility for migrants, but also restricting the work of first responders in order to maintain control. However the chapter shows us that with politics aside, first responders from Mexico and the US continue to find ways to support one another. 

In Part III titled “Wildland”, Jusionyte dives into the experiences of first responders and the challenges they face daily in helping injured migrants. Following Tangye, a first responder in the Arizona border town of Arivaca, she explains how “borderlands fall into the gray area of the law” (Jusionyte, p. 184). Tangye and her counterparts are confronted with the challenging decision to report undocumented migrants to border patrol in order to get reimbursed and given access to use US resources. As seen over and over in the book, firefighters and paramedics are confronted with the difficult decision to act according to the law or be swayed by ethics. 

The role of militarization and tactical infrastructure in normalizing the accidents of migrants is a serious matter, yet has received little acknowledgement. In the case of the US/Mexico border, the use of technical language and strategic infrastructure continues to allow Border Patrol to detach terrain from any other deeper significance: “if it’s tactical, then it is not ecological or historical” (Jusionyte p.11). Every day migrants are injured by the wall, and harmed after being forced onto a more treacherous path.

As Besteman (2019) would argue, militarized global apartheid “pushes them back, it tracks them to interrupt their mobility...pushes them into the most dangerous traveling routes, and creates new forms of criminality” (Besteman p. 1) To this day, the government continues to find ways to force migrants away from populated areas and into treacherous corridors that bring about vulnerability and diminish the value of their injuries. The concept of tactical infrastructure creates victims while labeling them as criminals, and gives Border Patrol a scapegoat from the responsibility of wounding. 

Although they represent the same state, emergency responders and Border Patrol work in different capacities and under different understandings of space. The work of first responders as rescuers obscures the politics of wounding as they work at the threshold of the state, where it “both wounds and cares” (Jusionyte p. 212). Unlike car accidents or shipwrecks, which happen without an intended cause, “border trauma is deliberate. It is calculated and produced by those who deploy the security apparatus” (Jusionyte p. 85). For those who get injured, their broken ankle or amputated finger becomes clear evidence of illegal entry. 

Through the wall, the US has the power to shape their population by policing who is able to enter and removing those who are unwanted. The unwelcoming and dangerous landscape created for migrants reinforces ethnic hierarchies and reminds them just how abusable and replaceable the US believes they are. First responders work in what Pierre Bourdieu refers to as the “bureaucratic field,” where they are responsible for clearing up and caring for injuries they have caused (Jusionyte p. 21). As rescuers, they prioritize the injured and approach their work without discrimination. However Border Patrol has other goals and exercises their power in discriminatory ways to regulate who is coming in and out of the country. Achille Mbembe sees space as “the raw material of sovereignty” and Besterman follows that thought with the idea that the state uses law, territorial borders, and militarized security structures to “promote and ensure a particular hegemonic racial identity” (Besteman p. 11). 

Jusionyte’s book uses the experiences of first responders to bring to light the deliberate and unintended environmental, social, historical, and economic consequences of the border. In her book, Jusionyte offers an honest account of her observations and the experiences shared with her. Her previous experience as a firefighter and EMT brings a level of understanding of the field and an interesting perspective to the storytelling. She allows the reader to get an intimate glimpse into the lives of those living and moving near the border. From the emergencies at the wall to the emergency room at the hospital, from inside classrooms to conversations at the fire station, the reader is brought into the many different situations first responders are confronted with daily. To complement her book, I would be interested in reading a similar account from the perspective of the Mexican first responders, especially detailing their understanding of the border as a deliberate “mechanism of injury”. 

Besteman, C. (2019). Militarized Global Apartheid. Current Anthropology, 60 (S19). https://doi.org/10.1086/699280

 Jusionyte, I. (2018). Threshold : Emergency Responders on the US-Mexico Border. University of California Press