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" (...) The U.S. border enforcement apparatus has thus been extended south, in what Border Patrol chief Mike Fisher calls a “layered approach.” As he says, according to the 2012–2016 Border Patrol strategy, “the U.S.-Mexico border is our last line of defense.” Now undocumented Central American border crossers confront such a layer in southern Mexico, 1,000 miles before touching U.S. soil. Since July, there has been a surge of Mexican immigration agents, federal police and military — with a gauntlet of roadside checkpoints and sophisticated surveillance equipment at their disposal — in an enforcement belt that goes hundreds of miles into Mexico’s interior. “Subordination,” said Miguel Angel Paz of the Mexican immigration rights organization Voces Mesoamericanas, “is part of the relationship Mexico has with the United States.” The U.S. border enforcement regime has gone beyond policing the U.S.-Mexico divide to patrolling south to Central America, targeting the men, women and children seeking refuge in the north. (...) The collaboration between the U.S. and Mexico has been going on for quite some time. What started with a U.S.-backed deportation campaign known as Plan Sur in 2000 has been transformed into what officials in 2010 dubbed the 21st century border. This is the official name of the third pillar of the Merida Initiative, a U.S. military aid package to Mexico. In 2014 alone, the United States designated $112 million to help modernize and make more efficient Mexico’s border policing and militarization. Included, with additional funding from the Department of Defense, were X-ray vans, contraband detection kits, biometric kiosks and accompanying databases to store facial and retinal information and fingerprints. Included are funds for Mexico’s National Institute of Migration, the Mexican Marines and federal police for facility construction, patrol boats, night vision and communication equipment and maritime sensors. There are helicopters, which the Washington Office on Latin America says have been spotted in places near Mexico’s southern border. And there are the K-9 units, the drug and contraband-sniffing dogs. All this material comes with training for customs, the marines, the federal police and the National Institute of Migration. And all this material increases the capacity for cross-border intelligence sharing. Today the 2012 claim by U.S. Department of Homeland Security official and former border czar Alan Bersin that “the Guatemalan border with Chiapas, Mexico, is now our southern border” rings louder and clearer than ever."  (...) http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/10/mexico-us-borderpatrolsecurityimmigrants.html.See also : Todd Miller , Border Patrol Nation: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Homeland Security , City Lights Books, 2014Fast-paced frontline reporting and analysis on the militaristic spread of US Border Patrol and the long-term consequences for free society. Publisher Comments: "It is a book that frightens and inspires, and one that demands a wide audience. Miller's message is one we ignore at our peril.", Joseph Nevins, author of Operation Gatekeeper and Beyond: The War on "Illegals" and the Remaking of the U.S.-Mexico Boundary Armed authorities watch from a military-grade surveillance tower as lines of people stream toward the security checkpoint, tickets in hand, anxious and excited to get through the gate. Few seem to notice or care that the US Border Patrol is monitoring the Super Bowl, as they have for years, one of the many ways that forces created to police the borders are now being used, in an increasingly militarized fashion, to survey and monitor the whole of American society. In fast-paced prose, Todd Miller sounds an alarm as he chronicles the changing landscape. Traveling the country—and beyond—to speak with the people most involved with and impacted by the Border Patrol, he combines these first-hand encounters with careful research to expose a vast and booming industry for high-end technology, weapons, surveillance, and prisons. While politicians and corporations reap substantial profits, the experiences of millions of men, women, and children point to staggering humanitarian consequences. Border Patrol Nation shows us in stark relief how the entire country has become a militarized border zone, with consequences that affect us all. Todd Miller has worked on US border issues for over fifteen years. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Mother Jones and elsewhere. For the past 15 years, Todd Miller has been working on U.S./Mexico border issues for the organizations BorderLinks, Witness for Peace, and NACLA. His work has appeared in Tom Dispatch, Mother Jones, The Nation, CounterPunch, Upside Down World, The Providence Journal, Guernica, Al Jazeera English, NarcoNews, NACLA Report on the Americas, and Common Dreams among other places. Border Patrol Nation is his first book, published in City Lights' Open Media Series.http://www.citylights.com/book/?