Chapter 9
Co
uption in the US Borderlands
with Mexico:
The "Purity" of .Society
and the "Perversity" of Borders
Josiah MeC. Heyman and Howard Campbell
Introduction: Co
uption in an Ideologically "Pure" Setting
A key theme of this book (notably the introduction), as well as the literature that
leads up to it (Heyman and Smart 1999; Nuijten 2003; Schneider and Schneider
2003; A
aham and van Schendel XXXXXXXXXXis that a strict division between the
clean and the co
upt-the legal, bureaucratic, and rational versus the illegal,
informal, and i
ational-is excessively simple. In our view, it is better to begin
y aiIalYzing social-political processes that produCf characteristically mixed or
perverse outcomes in government activities, containing both elements 'of formal
policy adherence and other elements, of policy incompleteness, subversion, and
hidden agendas, including (but not limited to) co
uption. Itis likeWise important
to understand 'how such ambivalent realities are justified and 'mystified by
ideologies of good versus bad, clean versus co
upt.
, We take this perspective in examining co
uption'on the US side of the US
Mexico border. The standard journalistic and law enforcement framework is that
Mexico is the source of illegality and co
uption, while the US is the target oftp.ese
illegal activities and itself is clean. Yet, there is significant evidence of co
uption
on the US side, not just in the sense that Mexican smuggling organizations subvert
US state operations (though this is certainly true) but also in the senSe that
withiti the US rules are ignored and bent through a variety of transactions and
elationships. It is interesting how these phenomena occur and are understood
in a,context of strong ideologies of rationality and cleanliness.
Co
uption is commonly viewed as a flaw, a limitation, or a failure of isolated
individuals-the "bad apple" explanation. This is particularly important in
maintaining the ideological purity of the US side. The individual component of
co
uption exists, without question. But our perspective is' that individual acts
of co
uption occur within and are revealing of wider social processes. First, we
1 See also the extensive literature review on co
uption in Ha
is (20tH: 1-32).
192 Co
uption and the Secret of Law
show that acts of co
uption happen repeatedly, in patterned ways, rather than
arely and idiosyncratically. Second, and more important, we demonstrate that
individual and overt cases of co
uption in the US are su
ounded by systematic
processes undermining the-letter and spirit of the law and connecting the legal
and the illegal. By paying attention to this "penum
a" of co
uption, we come
to understand the recu
ence of co
upt acts on the US side of the border.
Relatively clear acts of co
uption (for example, US border officers accepting
or extracting favors for overlooking law violations) form part of a wider universe
of phenomena, that also includes tolemted illegalities (for example, employment of
undocumented labor), ambiguously legal actions (for example, under-enforcement
of the law), and legal activities with questionable connections (for example,
the use of "mysterious" money in commerce and banking). Co
uption in this
perspective emerges within a network of fluid transactions and a
angements
along the border. We explore why the US-Mexican border has this particular
chamcter, not because it is a strange and stigmatized place, but because it has a
particular role in a division of labor with respect to the interiors of the United
States and Mexico.
Our attention is drawn to the movement of money, commodities, and people
etween the two nations and the role of the borderlands in mediating such flows.
Side-by-side with these flows, we note the density of the state apparatus in this
egion, the enormous material and symbolic performance of law and bureaucratic
power, and the constant presence of police agencies that people in the borderlands
simply take for granted. To combine those two perspectives, we take apart the
seemingly .massive and reified US state apparatus, viewing it as fractured and
interpenetrated by other forms of social organization and action (see A
ams
1988; Hansen and Stepputat 2001; and the introduction-to this volume). The
elationship of the state to the processes and bearers of cross-border flows ends
up being fragmented and contradictory rather than characterized by a coherent
ational legality.
We also suggest that the visibly flawed and extreme qualities of the border
do important symbolic work for the rest of US society in understanding itself
as pure. When we look at representations of border co
uption in a "rational"
society, we see first, that co
uption is treated as deviance mther than an outcome
of wider processes; second, that the border and Mexico are represented as source
of co
uption, a kind of anti-state, rather than the necessarily ambiguous part of
larger wholes; and third, that the bureaucratic machinery of the US state at the
order is a bastion of order (subject to inexplicable moments of deviance) poised
against these anti-state forces rather than a complex mixture of both opponent
and participant in these processes. Co
uption, then, should not happen according
to the "rational" view, yet in reality it has to happen, for two definite reason~: to
ca
y out tmnsactions demanded by the larger society and toprovide a contrastive,
deviant label (the sinful border, the
oken border, the co
upt border) to protect
the self-view of US society and state. To explore the paradox of co
uption in a
supposedly mtional state, then, is to draw attention to wider issues, including the
incompleteness of strong states and strong societies, the presence of ambiguity,
flu
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193
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uption in a
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Co
uption in the US Borderlands with Mexico
fluidity, and transactionality in them, and the particular roles of border cultures
and social relations in such formations.
We begin this chapter with an overview of the US-Mexico border, and then
sketch the major ways in which the US interior is linked to various illegal and
ambiguous flows across this boundary. We then look more locally at the agencies
of the US state, the kinds of laws they do and do not actually enforce at the
order, and the interactions of the national state with local society in the US
orderlands. We take particular note of the way that "mysterious" financial and
interpersonal transactions are constitutive of this region. After presenting our
analytical overview, we offer several case studies, partly ethnographic and partly
journalistic, to demonstrate two points: that co
uption on the US side of the
order is systematic rather than a matter· ofa few "bad apples," and that individual
patterns of co
uption are linked to regional and nationallbinational processes.
We finish by returning to our main analytical themes considering the paradoxical
elationship of strong states/societies with their frayed outer edges.
The US-MexicoBorder Context
The US~Mexico'bolder is almost 2,000 miles in length. Parts of it are densely
u
anized; witp binational metropolitan complexes of many hundreds of
thousands, and in two cases (San Diegoffijuana and EI Paso/Ciudad Juarez)
several million, in population. On the other hand, long sections of the border are
quite remote, spauning rugged desert and mountain country,
oken by small twin
cities at minor crossing points. It is worth emphasizing that most crossings are
su
ounded by a settlement on both sides, rather than being lonely bureaucratic
checkpoints some distance from settled towns, and that we can thus properly
speak of a distinctive regional border society in each nation. In ,part, this is
ecause substantial econotnic complexes are located along the border, depending
directly and indirectly on daily border crossing; These include the maquiladoras
(the massive band:of global export assembly plants on the Mexican side of the
order), many legal as well as undocumented migrants commuting between
the two nations (but more from Mexico to the US), tourism and shopping, and
import/export conunerce.
The seale, of. daily crossing is quite impressive. The single port of EI Paso,
for example,in2005.,had 7.6 million pedestrian entrants, 29 tnillion passengers
in 16 million personal vehicles, 740,000 trucks, and 144,000 rail containers. 2
Mixed with the vastvolume of legitimate trade and visiting are substantial flows
of illegal commodities (for example, drugs) and entrants who violate the terms
of their visas (for example, by working without authorization) once inside the
United States. In addition, sections of the border between official ports of entry
are subject to ilIegal-entrances (mostly to the US) of an unknown number, but
certainly numbering in the tnillions. The border region is thus bost to a huge state
2 Data accessed (20 December 2006) on tile searchable website of the Bureau of
Transportation Statistics (http:
www;transtats.bts.govlbordercrossing.aspx).
- ._--
http:
www;transtats.bts.govlbordercrossing.aspx
194 Co
uption and the Secret ofLaw
presence in both nations, but especially in the United States. This state presence
is fundamentally inspectorial and regulatory, and thus concerned with law
enforcement in a
oad sense, but it must address the examination, registration,
and authorization of enormous legal flows as well as interdict a large variety of
illegal acts and goods. The standard perception of the US-Mexico border as the
location of a huge punitive police apparatus is co
ect, then, but also misleading
insofar as