Conclusion

The USA-Mexico border is a highly policed zone where children and youth are exposed to violence, vulnerability, and “death.” It is comparable with several other border zones globally.

The geographies of violence and conflict plaguing children and youth in warlike border zones also come with stories of resilience, courage, and hope. Activism committed to stopping violence and promoting peace is central to safeguarding human rights and imagining nonviolent possibilities at the USA-Mexico border.

Youth are often at the helm of activism, such as the Marcha del Coraje, Dolor, y Desagravio (March of Courage, Pain, and Vindication) protests organized in Ciudad Juarez denouncing the murders of citizens (Staudt and Mendez 2015). The global “No Borders” movement that in 2007 took place at the Mexicali, Mexico-Calexico, California border, is another example of youth-led protest and “transformative resistance” (Bejarano 2010) to the border industrial complex. No Borders calls for the “abolition of nation-state imposed borders and subsequent immigration controls” (Burridge 2010, p. 401). The “No Borders” youth protestors demanded to “participate in critical debates surrounding migration, freedom of movement, human rights, and nation-state sovereignty, but also to step beyond typical frameworks and institutions, which do not address the stakes which youth have in current programs of border militarization and criminalization of migration” (Burridge 2010, p. 402). The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) youth, better known as “Dreamers,” have marched and risked deportation, while other Dreamers have been deported or have become self-sovereign beings and fled the USA as a form of defiance to anti-humane and restrictive border policies. These youth formed the organization Los Otros Dreamers in Mexico City that work to establish more humane immigration policies and work with families caught between nation-state borders (Anderson and Solis 2014). These forms of activism seek to rethink citizenship and repurpose human rights' frameworks and, in so doing, reshape the border itself.