Crossing the Weaponized Landscape

The study area of the thesis encompasses 259,981 hectares of the Sonoran Desert on the Arizona border, named the Altar Valley. Centered on Arivaca, Arizona, the Altar Valley has been one of the most popular crossing corridors along the US-Mexico border in the past two decades. Due to Customs and Border Patrols' strategic efforts in deterring future migration, this desert landscape has been efficiently weaponized as a barrier for informal crossing and is now the site of hundreds of migrant deaths per year and hundreds of unidentified remains. The study examines the spatial conditions created by key surveillance technology the CBP uses to survey the landscape and develops a route and information system that mitigates death and detection as much as possible.