Class Year
2020
Document Type
Student Research Paper
Date of Creation
Fall 2019
Department 1
Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Abstract
The U.S.-Mexico border is a space for public debate on the legal and political aspects of immigration. Politicization of the southern border has resulted in polarized public opinion regarding immigration, leading to discrepancies between public perceptions of the Border Patrol and agents’ perceptions of their job. Agents’ work requires emotional labor, and lack of training for difficult encounters, pressure within the agency to detach from emotions, and public outcry lead to dissonance in agent perceptions of their own role in immigration enforcement. In addition, economic, ethnic, and gender-based factors contribute to agent identities, which intersect with perceptions of their roles in immigration politics; public unawareness of these factors contributes to a cycle of scrutiny that leads to agent frustration and contention.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Woodward, Claire H., "Deconstructing Perceptions of the Border Patrol at the U.S.-Mexico Border" (2019). Student Publications. 744.
https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/student_scholarship/744
Included in
Defense and Security Studies Commons, Immigration Law Commons, National Security Law Commons
Comments
Student research paper written for WGS 225: Gender and Global Migrations.