Border prophylaxis: Technology, illegality, and the government of immigration

This article explores border policing as a way of governing illegal immigration. In particular, it focuses on the technical dimensions of this process - on border policing as a technology. Not just as any technology, however, but as a prophylactic one. Border policing is a prophylactic technology in the sense that it brings together an array of practical and intellectual mechanisms in an effort to affect the conduct of illegal immigrants in such as way as to forestall illicit border crossings. The goal here is social prophylaxis. It is to prevent undocumented immigrants from becoming 'problems' in the social body through preventing their entry into the US.