THE US-MEXICO BORDER: CROSS-BORDER INTERACTION IN HISTORIC PERSPECTIVE

The paper features the US-Mexico cross-border cooperation from the formation of the border in the mid-nineteenth century until present. During most of the XIX-th century the border region was largely under-populated and underdeveloped. The two sides of the borderland developed unevenly due to discrepancies in the economic, social and political potential of the two nations. On the American side the development of the new territories came in the form of a series of "booms and busts" of settlement and economic activity. The Mexican border region did not develop as rapidly and depended mostly on its closeness to the USA, due to its far distance from business centers in Mexico. In the late XIX -early XX centuries Mexican border communities flourished due to US investments into railroads and mining industry. A new economic order in the Mexican border region started in the mid-twentieth century with Border Industrialization Program, which set up maquiladoras - manufacturing plants to assemble products with imported from the USA parts and raw materials into inished goods to be shipped back to the USA. Maquiladoras converted Mexican border-states into highly industrialized special economic zones. NAFTA made a controversial impact on the border region. NAFTA facilitated maquiladora industry, but on the American side of the border many businesses declined as Mexicans nearly stopped crossing the border for shopping because American goods became available at reasonable prices in Mexico. The border region has lots of popular tourist destinations. Since the early XX-th century, it has become infamous for vice tourism, which was based on differences in law relating to alcohol, drugs and gambling in the two countries. The most urgent issues which are in the centre of heated public and political debates in the USA are illegal immigration and drug traficking. The US government has two approaches towards the problems: immigration law and strengthening the border through its militarization and the construction of the wall.

the US-Mexico border, cross-border cooperation, the USA, Mexico, illegal immigration

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