A study of the international diplomatic efforts that followed the 1973 shut-down, by former employees of the transportation company, of the streetcar line that connected El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.

As historian Miguel Antonio Levario explains in this timely book, current tensions and controversy over immigration and law enforcement issues centered on the US-Mexico border are only the latest evidence of a long-standing atmosphere of uncertainty and mistrust plaguing this region. Militarizing the Border: When Mexicans Became the Enemy, focusing on El Paso and its environs, examines the history of the relationship among law enforcement, military, civil, and political institutions, and local communities. In the years between 1895 and 1940, West Texas experienced intense militarization efforts by local, state, and federal authorities responding to both local and international circumstances. El Paso’s “Mexicanization” in the early decades of the twentieth century contributed to strong racial tensions between the region’s Anglo population and newly arrived Mexicans. Anglos and Mexicans alike turned to violence in order to deal with a racial situation rapidly spinning out of control. Highlighting a binational focus that sheds light on other US-Mexico border zones in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Militarizing the Border establishes historical precedent for current border issues such as undocumented immigration, violence, and racial antagonism on both sides of the boundary line. This important evaluation of early US border militarization and its effect on racial and social relations among Anglos, Mexicans, and Mexican Americans will afford scholars, policymakers, and community leaders a better understanding of current policy . . . and its potential failure.

This book analyzes when, how, why, and to what effect China has used its armed forces in recent decades to coerce other actors in the international system. Over the past 20 years, China’s international status as a “great power” has become undeniable. China’s “peaceful rise” has included substantial investments in military modernization and an increasingly assertive regional posture. While China has not waged war since 1979, it has frequently resorted to what the U.S. State Department has referred to as “gangster tactics” – threats, intimidation, and armed confrontation – to advance its strategic aims. This volume illuminates the ways in which China has employed its military and paramilitary tools to coerce other states, and examines the motivations and specific foreign policy objectives that China has pursued using force short of war. The study presents new analysis of an original dataset on coercive actions undertaken by China’s armed forces, taking into account the political objectives pursued and the environmental contexts in which these operations occurred. It also presents a series of expert case studies addressing the most consequential examples of China using force to coerce in recent decades. The volume contributes to a more historically informed, empirically based understanding of great power competition. This book will be of much interest to students of Chinese security and foreign policy, strategic studies, Asian politics and International Relations.

From the Cold War through today, the U.S. has quietly assisted dozens of regimes around the world in suppressing civil unrest and securing the conditions for the smooth operation of capitalism. Casting a new light on American empire, Badges Without Borders shows, for the first time, that the very same people charged with global counterinsurgency also militarized American policing at home. In this groundbreaking exposé, Stuart Schrader shows how the United States projected imperial power overseas through police training and technical assistance—and how this effort reverberated to shape the policing of city streets at home. Examining diverse records, from recently declassified national security and intelligence materials to police textbooks and professional magazines, Schrader reveals how U.S. police leaders envisioned the beat to be as wide as the globe and worked to put everyday policing at the core of the Cold War project of counterinsurgency. A “smoking gun” book, Badges without Borders offers a new account of the War on Crime, “law and order” politics, and global counterinsurgency, revealing the connections between foreign and domestic racial control.

Justice can be elusive. Family secrets can be deadly. The stakes are high, and the clock is ticking in a volatile criminal case filled with unanswered questions. And Carrington Reed is running short on time to piece together clues that will solve the puzzle. Hostage negotiator Carrington Reed is called to the scene when reports come in that fifteen hostages are being held by the Kendrix brothers in an abandoned house in south Texas. When she arrives on site, Carrington quickly learns that the brothers are armed and refuse to release their victims, a group of undocumented immigrants, until the local police identify their father's murderer. Working closely with Levi Ehrlich, a handsome investigative reporter who has covered some of Carrington's negotiations in the past, she finds herself being undeniably drawn to him. Carrington digs deeper into the death of the Kendrixes' father and begins to notice that some details surrounding his death aren't adding up. As Carrington investigates the brothers' claims and tries to piece together their motive for taking innocent people captive, it soon becomes clear that they are trying to hide something and that revenge for their father's death may not be what they're really bargaining for after all. To protect the hostages and ensure the brothers don't carry out the rest of their sinister plot, Carrington must get to the bottom of one family's secret and the truth they're trying so hard to hide before time runs out. Award winning author DiAnn Mills delivers pulse-pounding romantic suspense about secrets, betrayal, and finding a path to forgiveness. Includes discussion guide for book groups. A clean contemporary thriller from Christy Award-winning author DiAnn Mills For fans of action-packed romantic suspense in the vein of Lynette Eason, Irene Hannon, and Dani Pettrey From the popular author of Facing the Enemy

Recognizing the radical disparity between migration/border policy and constitutional law “inside these borders,” Kathleen R. Arnold focuses on two main forms of migrant protest to explore the meaning of resistance in a sovereign context: self-harming protest by detainees and faith-based sanctuary of individuals scheduled for detention. This activism creates a “democratic state of exception,” interrupting the legal process, altering discretionary forms of sovereign power, and enacting rights not formally granted; these efforts go beyond the assertion of liberal rights or merely restoring the rule of law (even if these are also goals), challenging the warfare state while constituting a demos that is formally illegible. Migrant Protest and Democratic States of Exception will be of interest to scholars, migrant advocacy professionals (including INGO and IGO officers), graduate students, and advanced undergraduate students in a variety of fields from legal studies to forced migration and refugee studies, political science, human rights, protest history, and contemporary movements.