Abstract
This article focuses on how different actors frame and respond to violence, rights, and solidarity along the U.S.-Mexico border, and points to the institutions available for redress - focusing on migrants, activists, and state actors. Through this comparison, the article highlights the way violence along the U.S.-Mexico border becomes pervasive, normalized, and incontestable due to the lack of institutional paths to address this violence, while solidarity work remains largely symbolic and unsupported by the state. This article shows that solidarity with people on the move is often the result of a politicized view that takes into account the violence the border engenders - and that this work is also limited by ideology and legal boundaries. This article draws on media and governmental reports, as well as surveys, interviews, and participant observation data collected in the border town of Mexicali, Baja California, Mexico, between July 2009 and August 2010.