Visions of Migration: News Images and the Production of Knowledge on the U.S. Southern Border

Symbolic Power

Symbolic power refers to a set of visual conventions that make one element dominant in the frame through size, color, or placement and subordinates all other elements that are depicted within an image. This is one way in which viewers relate focal points with other visual elements and is part of the “compositional metafunction” of images (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006). I found three ways in which symbolic power was constructed in the qualitative sample of images: hierarchical compositional structures, compositional weight, and compositional containment.

Hierarchical compositions place certain objects physically above other objects and certain people compositionally above other people. Some hierarchies can be innocuous—certain objects exist in the world at higher positions than others—but when juxtaposing people, it conveys a symbolic power. Because news images offer an “initial recording” (Ritchin, 2009, p. 18) of an event, they cannot be adjusted after the fact. Certain natural factors influence this construction, like the physical height of people, but it can also be emphasized through the image’s vantage point and framing. Many images that I qualitatively analyzed depicted migrating people sitting down, while CBP officers stood in a dominant position over them. This sequence of events occurs in front of the photographer in real time, but the photographer’s decision to include both sitting migrants and standing officers within the same frame is a compositional choice. And it conveys symbolic power.

Symbolic power is also communicated through visual weight, which refers to the way an object in a given composition demands attention through size, focus, tonality, proximity, and proportion of a visual element. In many images I analyzed, the proportion of the frame dedicated to the symbols of law enforcement far exceeded those occupied by migrating people (see Figure 1). These included CBP officers, CBP vehicles, searchlights, helicopters, fences, and other instruments of the border enforcement apparatus. The dominant position of authority signifiers can influence viewers to interpret the other elements of the frame in relation to that dominant element. Relegating migrants to secondary or tertiary focal points symbolically positions them as counterpoints of the composition. Migrants’ actions become secondary to the actions of CBP officers. They add complexity to the story of migration but are not the main characters.

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Figure 1.

U.S. Border Patrol agents take undocumented immigrants into custody capturing them after they crossed Rio Grande from Mexico into Texas on August 18, 2016, near Sullivan City, Texas. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)

Finally, symbolic power is also communicated through compositional containment, which, in the sample, was the symbolic capture of migrants between two or more symbols of authority. Agency or the freedom of physical movement by migrants is constrained by the signifiers of law enforcement. This is often a product of the vantage point from which the photographer made the image and the photographer’s choice of elements to include and exclude in a frame. Figure 1 is also an example of this convention, which emphasizes the ability of law enforcement to control and restrict movement. This emphasis on containment—conspicuous in 13 of the 21 images in this sample—creates an asymmetrical power dynamic between migrants and law enforcement officers.

Social Separation

The interpersonal metafunction has a profound effect on the meaning potential of images, as it socially positions a viewer relative to the represented objects in an image (Azoulay, 2012; Jewitt & Oyama, 2011; Newton, 2013). For instance, the vertical angle of an image (photographing from below eye level—colloquially known as the hero pose) is a common convention for signifying power, used in film, television, photography, and drawing (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006, p. 140). One less commonly theorized convention is social separation, or the absence of shared physical space between the photographer (and thus the viewer) and the people photographed. Social separation was pervasive in this qualitative sample: In nearly every image, photographers did not occupy the same physical space as a migrating person but were separated by objects, people, and many times barricades, fences, or barred windows of vehicles. Conspicuously, this did not hold for any CBP officer in the image; often a CBP officer was the barrier between a migrant and a photographer.

This social separation symbolically distances viewers from migrants. This distance signifies that migrating people may not have agency in the photographic act—such as the ability to consent or physically influence the photographic event. Moreover, it situates viewers as observers. Meanwhile, many images were photographed at an intimate distance over the backs, shoulders, and heads of CBP officers who stood between the photographer and the migrant (see Figure 2). This allows viewers to enter the scene on the side of law enforcement, or perhaps through law enforcement. When viewers occupy the same physical space as officers and observe migrants from a nearly identical vantage, the gazes of the viewer and the officer begin to merge. This compositional convention grants the viewer the authority to observe the socially separated other and encourages the viewer to sanction the depicted activities.

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Figure 2.

A U.S. Border Patrol agent speaks with Central American immigrants at the U.S.-Mexico border fence on February 01, 2019, in El Paso, Texas (John Moore/Getty Images).

Embodied Gatekeeping

Migration comprises numerous processes of which border crossings are but one ephemeral portion. Yet, border crossings are one of the most overrepresented aspects in news media. The crossing “hot spots” are among the key locations that photographers must access. These heavily controlled areas all but ensure photographers will need to negotiate access and collaborate with law enforcement agencies. Referring to the Texas-Mexico border, NT estimated that “99 percent of the riverbank on the U.S. side is either private ranch, farms, or federal land.” LN, who has photographed on the border for over 15 years, said that in Texas, geophysical land control often begins miles away from the river. Pulitzer Prize–winning SL said:

You essentially cannot access the border without embedding with border patrol. You can’t just show up as a photographer and access the areas where migrants are crossing, so being embedded with border patrol is pretty much your only option there.

Some photographers elsewhere along the border still ventured out alone to cover migration processes. But one freelancer, VZ, indicated this unembedded approach is a dubious prospect: access depends on the disposition of the DHS officers when photographers physically approach them. HW vividly detailed how CBP often “tell you to fuck off” on the Roosevelt Reservation in Arizona, a 60-foot-wide federally owned strip of land along the border. OQ described frontier areas: “It really depends on who’s working.” Sometimes “there’s no bosses, there’s no oversight” but that can quickly change. This gamble was not always suitable for photographers needing to produce images on deadline. In my observations, I only came across one group of migrants on a public road outside the view of law enforcement. Law enforcement’s embodied gatekeeping creates a funneling effect for photographers actively resisting these geophysical restrictions, limiting the scope of visual reportage:

You may have seen a lot of photos from a place called Roma, Texas. The reason why Roma is a place that we all go to isn’t because it’s the only place to cross. It’s because it is a private piece of land where the owner has given media permission to be there. (MP)

At least seven of the respondents I interviewed were all present at a specific migration event in Roma, Texas, where they had access to a private ranch. “That was the hotspot that everyone like parachuted into,” said AN. He noted that he wanted to be at Roma because it was “the only place where you have that kind of access.” This riverbank location was where coyotes (smugglers) on the Mexican side of the river ferry migrants across on rafts and drop them off on the U.S. side to request asylum from waiting CBP agents, Texas Rangers, and members of the National Guard. TH said the scrum of journalists felt like a “beehive swarm just descending upon these people.” He said he became disheartened by the seemingly callous behavior of photographers toward the migrants and that some were “treating it like a sports game.” TH added that he “lost his shit at one point.” Then, after reflection, TH asked rhetorically, “Is this a mirror of something that’s deep within me that I’m ashamed of?”

Like many other access points, photographers’ access to the river in Roma, Texas, was only temporary: Eventually, the landowner had a change of heart. NT stated that although he could only guess why, he imagined that the officers spoke with the ranch owner after being annoyed by the presence of the photographers, leading to his access being revoked. MP expressed his frustration: “It’s a very thinly veiled way for them to control the amount of media coverage, and I find it really dispiriting. They’re using old-school tactics to control media.” This geophysical control of border-adjacent land is one of the most influential variables affecting the representation of border crossings. It can either funnel photographers to specific areas or force photographers to embed with law enforcement.

Embedding with law enforcement (also called “ride-alongs”) enables photographers to access other migration scenes under the close supervision of the CBP or other border enforcement agencies. Many respondents who embedded recently indicated that these are not with normal patrol units but with a public information officer who usually is not actively working in the field: “If you’re with border patrol nowadays, you are with a PIO, public information officer, or a public affairs officer, you’re not with your general border patrol agent in the field,” IK said. Embeds with trained media specialists are one way for law enforcement to exert formal geophysical influence over what can be seen and what can be hidden from view. SL commented on the constructed nature of these events:

They’re only out in the field when they’re escorting you. When they take you out there, they’re doing the job of a border patrol agent, in terms of apprehending people and things of that nature. That agent wouldn’t be out there doing that if they weren’t escorting you. But it’s this trade-off . . . if you weren’t with them, then we just wouldn’t have any pictures at all.

CJ said PIOs often “put up a show.” She detailed how they were often well-groomed, handsome, and, in her experience, apparently of Latinx descent. NT characterized his experience less as an embed and more as a “media tour.” Many photographers described the dual purpose of these coordinated events as public relations image maintenance through demonstrations of border enforcement efficacy. PIOs would grant geophysical access to help serve an agenda that many respondents said is ultimately tied to political and economic objectives.

Law enforcement and photographers often have shared goals during these moments of close coordination, and sometimes, the shared goal is explicitly stated. AN described one ride-along: “We had been driving around for a little bit and hadn’t seen anything. He (the PIO) was like “I’ll make sure that you, you know, get some apprehensions.” While photographs documenting these experiences are not untrue or staged, they are controlled situations manufactured for the photographer. In many ways, it is akin to the classical notion of the political photo-op, a phenomenon that the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA) Code of Ethics commands professionals to “resist” (NPPA, 2017). Embeds also enable law enforcement to restrict the types of scenes photographers can access. SL was one of many respondents to note this ethical paradox: “Border patrol embeds are almost this weird accepted ethical exception in photojournalism.” He continued:

I tried to keep a really heavy dose of skepticism, keeping in mind where it was they were taking me versus where they weren’t taking me, what they were showing me versus what they were trying to keep me from seeing.

Many photographers indicated that they are more or less reluctant participants in this process and not necessarily satisfied with the arrangement. Respondents who identify as women were especially dissatisfied. KC detailed an experience where CBP officers tried to hug her, which she found unprofessional and demeaning. One photographer said that she was treated differently because “I’m a white lady, I’m a young person, they’re not intimidated by me. But it’s just gross. I hate it.” RS, who also identifies as a woman, detailed how law enforcement officers were always “super macho” and often “use the language of war.”

Other aspects of migration processes can likewise only be accessed through law enforcement coordination, processes that can take years of relationship building to become accessible. Detention facilities are particularly contentious because many are privately owned and have frequently been the site of scandals, such as family separation, unsanitary or unhealthy conditions, and other abuses of migrants (Arriola & Raymond, 2017; Dreisbach, 2023). RS said, “We don’t have a good sense of what’s going on inside of the detention centers and especially the privately-run detention centers.” Getting any visual accounts requires direct coordination. PW was allowed to tour two different public detention facilities in 2014, but representation was tightly controlled.

I was the only photographer that they had allowed in, and it was sort of like “Okay, so, first of all, the rule was you can’t take any photos of anybody’s face,” which is tricky when you have like rooms full of people. (PW)

KC revealed that a Washington D.C. media specialist was their guide in a detention center near the border and issued instructions that included no interaction with migrants, no photographing faces, and no photographing migrants’ documents. MP once capitalized on a new public information officer’s inexperience and was able to gain access and take photographs of a child detention center. The resulting firestorm could have potentially jeopardized many CBP officers’ jobs, but after careful bargaining, the photographer was allowed to publish the images. Other photographers indicated that certain migration events, such as repatriation flights, were also highly controlled and even included publication embargoes levied by ICE. Controlling what the public gets to see comes from the highest levels of the U.S. government, even if they are enacted by individuals on the ground. Photographers must be agile and tenacious to resist this embodied gatekeeping, but the situation on the ground is always fluid.

If geophysical control ever became absolute, photographers indicated they were willing to adopt an adversarial position to authority. When a large migrant camp in Del Rio formed of mostly Haitian migrants, border enforcement quickly became overwhelmed and blocked access to the Rio Grande River; officials even closed the international bridge between Del Rio and Ciudad Acuña. This move specifically kept journalists from seeing what was taking place in the camp and riverbanks. “Del Rio was a shining example of media manipulation on the part of Customs and Border Protection,” said MP. Not to be deterred, many photographers crossed into Mexico at another port of entry and drove back to Ciudad Acuña, where they began photographing from the Mexican side of the river. This was a scene far from business as usual. “It was a free-for-all; we literally did not get any access on the U.S. side of the border,” said IK. Most photographers worked from the middle of the river, where a dam created a shallow water crossing, or they stayed on the Mexican side. AN recounted being frustrated by the lack of access: “I tried talking to border patrol about that, but they weren’t having it.” Two intrepid photographers floated across the river on air mattresses and hid in the camp as agents began searching for them. “CBP helicopters were circling over us and drones searching for us, and they dispatched a patrol of agents on the ground to find us,” said MP. This scene illustrates the lengths to which border enforcement agencies will go to control access to newsworthy scenes of migration, including cordoning off the land and the air. A no-fly zone was implemented to keep photographers from using drones, but one photographer circumvented this by appealing directly to the Federal Aviation Administration to secure a short window each day.

The battle for physical access is one of the greatest challenges to making visual news about migration and has a strong influence on how migration is represented. Law enforcement agencies severely limit the scope of visual representation by denying access altogether, regulating physical movement (such as ride-alongs), and funneling photographers to private lands that the photographers cannot completely control. Above all, it can be incredibly arbitrary. During fieldwork, I attempted to document migration processes at the same location on a public road three times in a span of 24 hours. The first time I was yelled at, restricted from seeing the events, the CBP officer in charge told me to stand under a streetlamp “where I can see you.” I detailed this event to a veteran photojournalist who had planned to work at the same location that evening. He called into the local CBP office, told them I was a photojournalist, and a call came through to the officers on the ground that I was a “friendly”—a military term usually used to identify allied personnel, but in this context, to identify news media personnel who did not possess what they deemed hostile intentions. I approached again, and a different supervising officer told me I could photograph but could not photograph CBO officers’ faces or get too close. The next night, I returned to the same location and was able to photograph without any restrictions. This experience provided direct evidence for what many respondents recounted: access seemed arbitrary and unpredictable. While law enforcement does play an outsized role in this embodied gatekeeping, they are just one of the stakeholders that limit how migration is represented.

Private Landowners

Whatever property on the border is not federally controlled by DHS, CBP, or the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is privately owned and often even harder for photojournalists to access. Speculating that owners fear that publicity might attract more migrants to their land, NT said, “Private landowners usually say ‘No, absolutely not.’ They don’t like people to come into their land.” For many South Texas landowners—including many I talked to during fieldwork—migration has been a constant reality throughout their lives, and journalists seeking access is not uncommon. HS detailed how he waited for 10 days outside of the entrance to a ranch just to meet the owner. After first convincing the owner to agree to dinner, he then needed to convince him of his intentions, credibility, expertise, and trustworthiness. For many private landowners on the border, their property is their livelihood, and any access must come with guarantees of stewardship and respect. After 5 years, HS was the only photographer who has continued access to one particular ranch where he can witness individual border crossings, large groups of asylum seekers, drug smuggling, and many other border occurrences. Because he developed relationships with the owner and many other locals that transcend a professional arrangement, he can maintain relative autonomy from the law enforcement agencies that also have permission to operate on that land.

Non-Governmental Organizations

Several photographers mentioned NGOs—the charities and activist groups that run permanent respite centers for migrants, organize temporary camps, and provide aid in numerous other ways. Some migration processes, like border crossings, are ephemeral, and NGOs provide access for photographers to spaces where migrating people live temporarily or stop off for longer periods. One photographer, VZ, said he never embeds with law enforcement and always collaborates with NGOs as his first point of access to migrants. He explained his process: “You get in touch with an activist, a local organization, and they put you in touch with somebody else and that’s a big part of the way I do it.” Many other photographers collaborated with NGOs to meet and photograph migrants, but these arrangements were also temporary, and access was often revoked.

The physical structure of these permanent respite centers allows the organizations to restrict geophysical access. In one popular respite center in McAllen, Texas, the windows are blacked out, and the ubiquitous private property signs underscore the physical control by NGOs. HS described the directors of that respite center as the gatekeepers of news since the shelter was so busy and a common access point for photojournalists. But NGOs also attempted to restrict physical access even when their authority was more dubious. According to KJ, whenever an NGO did not have legal authority to physically control journalists from coming into temporary camps on public land in Matamoros, Mexico, the NGO would withhold news tips to selected outlets as a way to manage newsworkers. Many photographers relied on these tips and information, and if the NGO did not like the way a journalist depicted scenes or reported situations, they would remove the offending journalists from the information thread.

Since the Trump presidency, many photographers noted that their relationships with many NGOs changed drastically. CJ said that as right-wing and fringe media began to descend upon the border, migration advocates, lawyers, and activists began to formally gatekeep, preventing all media workers from speaking with migrants. According to both TN and CJ, people connected with Alex Jones (the conspiracy-peddling media provocateur) would “harass migrants here on the U.S. side as they were crossing or going into the shelters.” Consequently, lawyers and advocates hired security guards to escort migrants from one building to the next so that no journalist could speak with them. Migrant advocates, photojournalists told me, made no distinction between legitimate journalists, fear-mongering media personalities, or citizen watchdogs. IK said that migrant advocates “see me as an enemy.”

Both IK and CJ found this gatekeeping counterproductive to their explicit goals of making images that would provide a counterpoint to the demonizing rhetoric used to describe migrants. CJ, who is a local journalist, recounted instances where migrant activists would tell her how she should be representing migrants. CJ said she understood the activists are trying to protect them, “but they (migrants) are not children, you know. They can think for themselves.” KC detailed a similar interaction when a woman from an NGO approached her aggressively and “chewed my fucking head off” for photographing a migrant woman near a U.S. point of entry. Unbeknownst to the aggressive staff members, KC had been working with the migrant woman for a long period and even had signed release forms from her.

Many photojournalists chafed at the lack of access while simultaneously acknowledging that the NGOs were working in the best interests of migrants who relied on these spaces for safety. LN stated that these respite centers are not immune from law enforcement pressure. According to LN, law enforcement agencies would stop sending migrants to a certain respite center if the center continued to grant access to certain journalists. This jeopardizes the well-being of the migrating men, women, and children by denying them access to safe shelter, food, water, and the information services that these centers provide. Physical access is contingent upon many factors, and the relationship between NGO leadership and the photographers themselves is not isolated from other social pressures.

Of all the participants that influence the photographic encounter, migrants themselves have the least amount of geophysical control or physical influence on their representation. This, of course, is directly related to the nature of migration; the fact that the journey takes place on federal and private land means that migrants have no authority to physically control access. This is similar to other communities that news media marginalize—the unhoused, drug users, and those charged with crimes (Bock, 2021; Scott, 2021)—that are often photographed in public spaces where either the First Amendment or law enforcement guarantee photographers’ access. Yet, this lack of control is not predetermined or absolute. Many migrants in camps and respite centers can control the level of access they grant to photographers who want to document intimate moments, such as family relationships, or vulnerable moments, such as physical or emotional suffering. However, until on private property, migrants must collaborate with other stakeholders to legally restrict geophysical access.

Law Enforcement: Explicit and Implicit Influence

In Texas, at any time, up to seven law enforcement agencies were working on border enforcement. I directly observed CBP, ICE, the Texas Army National Guard, the Department of Public Safety State Troopers (DPS), the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, county sheriff’s offices, and local police. As the previous section detailed, photographers must often closely coordinate actions with law enforcement agencies. This necessity produces serious, even existential issues for news workers who have been taught to maintain autonomy and to hold the powerful accountable. Through interviews and direct observation, I found coordination with law enforcement subject to a paradoxical premise: Visual journalists can see more if they agree to say less in their captions, that is, if they leave out what they overhear, what officers or migrants tell them, or what they observe in terms of breaches in protocol.

Law enforcement made demands, whether explicit or implicit, that photographers needed formally to agree to if they wanted continued access. According to my interviewees, the demands vary from agent to agent and shift over time, but often explicit ground rules are established. Some of the rules are specifically related to image management interests of the border patrol officers, such as agreements not to quote officers. JS said officers tell photographers “not to photograph our officers doing this or don’t put . . . their badge numbers or any identifying parts.”

During one embed, AN noted he was only allowed to photograph the public information officer: “They always give you the same spiel about how, like, they could be targeted by cartels and all this other stuff, and I don’t really buy into that.” Some photographers regarded the explanation as partly true; but more likely, it was strategic public relations and image control. While light image maintenance may seem rather innocuous in a contemporary media ecosystem, some photographers detailed situations that approached overt censorship. IK was on a ride-along when they came upon plain-clothed agents making a large arrest in front of unmarked vehicles. As IK approached the scene, he was told to leave, although he was on a public street. IK said it gave him “this really weird and censored kind of feeling.” But, seeing no other option, he had to obey.

Ground rules are also set for photographing and interacting with migrants in specific situations. AN said he was not allowed to talk or interact with migrants during embeds. PW said she was able to “speak freely within a limited time.” RS stated she was “generally allowed to photograph individuals before they are taken fully into custody, so basically up until the point where they’re put into a transport.” But one time, she “had to stand behind them when they were originally first apprehending a group.” CJ was told once not to photograph the faces of unaccompanied minors. Other photographers had very similar experiences. Different law enforcement agents cited different reasons for these rules, according to the respondents, which indicated to them that ground rules were fluid and at times arbitrary. Freelance photographers especially expressed frustration and specifically indicated they felt unable to push back against these requests. A ruptured relationship may lead to being denied access, jeopardizing their livelihood and straining their relationship with the assigning news outlet. Some photographers were able to work within the formal rule structures. As MP noted, “As long as I didn’t break certain rules, I didn’t necessarily have to tell a story that was positive (for border enforcement).” Some photographers appreciated the explicit ground rules to alleviate ambiguity and confusion as to what was allowed and what was off-limits.

Ground rules directly influence how photographers can represent migration processes and whether, based on legal or safety considerations or not, they amount to discursive favors for continued access. Even when ground rules were not expressly stated, knowledge of their existence influenced photographers. Speaking of the process of coordinating with law enforcement, AN said:

It does feel more restrictive, even if, like they’re not going to come out and tell you, “Don’t take a picture,” you start questioning in your head, Can I take a picture of this? Or am I going to get yelled at? It’s doubly frustrating as a freelancer. The last thing I want to do is get myself on any kind of border patrol blacklist or screw anything up for that reporter with their relationship with border patrol. So, it’s like you’re being extra cautious because you don’t want to step on anybody’s toes, break any rules that you might not even know exist.

Freelance photographers mentioned to me this informal influence a total of six instances—more often than staffers, most likely because of the precarity of their position. If a staff photographer pushed the boundaries and lost access, they may have lost a story. But freelance photographers may have lost their jobs.

Many photographers detailed how CBP attempted to influence their images even when they were across the border in Mexico. GI recalled a time that CBP yelled from across the river, questioning him and directing him not to take pictures. “They saw me actually laughing. . . . I was like come over, cross the river.” TH detailed a similar experience: “They would shout at us, telling us we are pariahs, that we were just trying to make the cover of Time magazine.” In one instance, a CBP officer pointed a paintball gun at a journalist’s face who was on the Mexican side of the border fence. In 2019, NBC 7 San Diego broke a story from leaked documents that detailed a joint intelligence-gathering effort by U.S. and Mexican authorities that “created a secret database of activists, journalists, and social media influencers” (T. Jones et al., 2020, para. 1). According to the report, U.S. and Mexican authorities targeted photojournalists at ports of entry for extended questioning and inspection, once holding a photojournalist for 13 hours before denying them entry into Mexico (T. Jones et al., 2020).

Law enforcement’s influence on representation is not solely restrictive, and in many cases, it enables photographers to make pictures when they otherwise would not be able to. Many photographers mentioned that migrants did not perceive them as a separate or distinct party from law enforcement. Authority—signified by badges, guns, trucks, helicopters, and border fences and sanctioned by the U.S. Government—extended to the bodies of photographers during embeds and ride-alongs and influenced their interactions with migrants. Nearly every photographer interviewed acknowledged this inherently asymmetrical power dynamic and often felt conflicted. RS reflected on this phenomenon:

Unfortunately, when I’m working with CBP, I don’t always have an opportunity to engage with individuals. But what I do generally is just make eye contact and I make it very clear that I’m separate from the border patrol. But I mean I am in a position of power, right? I mean they’re being arrested or apprehended and I’m with people apprehending them. I’m very aware of that power dynamic. They (migrants) probably don’t feel like they can push back, but what I can do is study their behavior and their eye contact and when possible, introduce myself and explain what I’m doing and get some consent. But it’s imperfect.

Similarly, CJ put this power phenomenon in a larger context:

These folks have been traveling for a long time and being told what to do, consistently, so they’re just in a mode where they’re like “yes, yes, yes,” like, very obedient. So, when you have border patrol agents that are there, and you’re getting out with border patrol agents, you’re already with this authority level on par with border patrol. Do you think they (migrants) are going to tell you no?

The photographers thus carry with them the privileges associated with authority in ways that are not formal or explicit but through association. I experienced this firsthand whenever migrants asked me for advice about various processing procedures, indicating they saw me as an extension of law enforcement. Many photographers told me their strategies for differentiating themselves from authority to the migrating people, acknowledging that it was an issue. Their solutions were “a very imperfect science,” RS stated. Law enforcement influenced not only what could and could not be seen but also how others reacted to photographers and how they consented to be part of the photographic event.

Each of these dimensions of social influence—the formal censorship, the informal regulation, and the extension of power—affect how photographers approach the story of migration and, ultimately, how it becomes news. JS reflected on his coordination with law enforcement:

I do acknowledge that what I’m photographing is very much a highly edited version of this overall story. And you know, the truth will lie somewhere in between those things, but it’s up to you (the photographer) to kind of decide.

This quote highlights the important fact that law enforcement agencies do not strip all agency from photographers to choose how to represent migration. They may be the most frequent and most influential constraint, but law enforcement agencies do not monopolize representation.

Expectations and Pressures From News Organizations

As photographers negotiate a host of physical and social influences on the ground, they must simultaneously grapple with news organizations’ expectations. Assignment parameters, deadlines, editors’ opinions, and top-level guidance all significantly curtail photojournalists’ editorial autonomy and affect their work. Photographers indicated that collaborations with reporters force their cameras to focus on certain aspects of migration over others. Freelance photographers felt they could not push back on specific demands. Exacerbating this pressure to perform (or conform) was the ever-present knowledge that another photographer would easily fill their shoes if they declined an assignment or failed to meet expectations. At times photographers expressed frustration, but each acknowledged that this is part of the job and the nature of this type of work.

Perhaps one of the most frustrating realities about the U.S. news system is that photographers themselves (who are on the ground to report empirical observations about migration) rarely have the authority to dictate what is or will become news. Contrasting and shifting agendas in power centers in Washington D.C. and New York can ideologically shape what ultimately ends up in news. RS candidly described this phenomenon:

Let me put it this way: Under Obama, a lot of editors in New York didn’t really want to hear stories that were too critical because people kind of wanted him to succeed. Under Trump, every story had to be all his fault, which was kind of infuriating because Obama had such problematic policies to begin with. Trump was really just extending a lot of them.

These top-level agendas dictate what types of assignments get handed out, as well as what existing stories get picked up from independent journalists. These editorial decisions essentially choose the angle or framing of the story and thereby, scholars argue, facilitate political agendas (Entman, 1993; Gitlin, 1980; Reese, 2007). But aside from political agendas, assigning editors practically control which migration processes are covered and how those images and captions are presented. TN said, “The editor straight up told me, ‘We’re looking for people storming the border.’ I’m just like, hold up, did I just read this?” Many respondents expressed irritation about this scope of the story:

I always tell editors in meetings immigration is more than just the border. I’m really happy that I do get to be one of the people who gets to be asked to go to the border, but like there’s so many follow-up stories to do. (AN).

Likewise, SL commented on this social construction of migration in news:

What’s happening at the actual border is this flashpoint of two days, sometimes three days, at most, maybe. And so, concentrating all the coverage on just that three-day period, I felt was, really, a dangerous trap for us to fall in as journalists. That three-day period tends to be highly visual; it’s going to get a lot of attention on the front pages. But it only represents a very, very limited part of their immigration saga.

OQ stated quite candidly: “Migration is not the fucking border. I’m tired of just the same shit.” One photographer noted how news representations influenced perceptions of the borderlands more broadly. TN said: “People say really ugly things about the border. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve met up north that think that the border is a war zone—that it’s crime and people running rampant.” The consensus was that news organizations were not interested in visual reportage of “what is pushing people to flee” (KW) and that the obsession with border crossing unfairly focused on the “worst moment of their life” (GI).

When asked about pitching longer projects or follow-up stories, IK lamented that “there’s really not much interest in those kinds of stories.” In fact, longer in-depth stories are costly, and nothing guarantees how the story would shape up—it is a riskier bet than border coverage. The consensus among respondents was that pitches to editors for follow-up stories rarely succeeded. “I’ve pitched it and not had it go through,” said PW. Ultimately, news organizations need to focus on coverage that can draw viewers. LN opined that “there’s only a certain appetite for border stories, and that’s why we’re not there, day in, day out because I think American people don’t get up and pay attention to it day in and day out.” While taken together, my interviewees had produced many long in-depth stories, but most photographers regarded it as an exception to their general experience.

Time

Many freelance photojournalists in the data expressed frustration over the amount of time available to them to work on assignments, which varied from as little as a few hours to 17 days. Most freelance photojournalists noted that their usual assignments lasted 1–3 days, and on special occasions, 7–10 days. “I always need another day,” said PW. “I just feel like you can’t do as good of a job, ever.” This frustration seemed to be especially prevalent for wire service photographers: “A wire usually wants the photos today, or yesterday,” said CJ. IK expressed similar concerns: “You’d be like shooting and then you’ll be trying to move pictures to your phone and add a caption and then bam! I’m not going to sit here and be editing my photos when stuff is happening, I want to be watching the story.” Many of the interviewees indicated they would file photos throughout the day. When they didn’t, they’d be fielding frenzied calls and texts from the news organization.

Photojournalists indicated that fast turnaround times affected the depth and intimacy of their visual reportage, meaning they could not deeply engage with migrants, learn about their specific experiences, or document a variety of situations. This often contributed to photographers’ disillusionment with the visual news industry that prioritizes fast news. Time is a resource that can enable the production of rich nuanced images to correct what otherwise would be superficial or stereotypical accounts. VZ said, “I am frustrated because sometimes I am shooting a good photograph, but then I know there’s not enough time to stay with them, to build the narrative.” Like many other photojournalists, VZ was committed to telling these stories: “So, in response to that frustration, I decided to come back to the border and to work on my own. That was the only way to really to really go deeper.” JS admitted that “there is a little bit more of a tendency to rush things when you are on (a daily assignment) because of the expectations to deliver on our coverage.” These reflections illustrate how the commercial news industry and their news cycles force photographers to “feed the beast” by continuously producing images, even when nuance and quality begin to decline. IK summarized the link between the resource of time and problematic representation:

I think the major failure of us as photojournalists—especially if you’re working for a wire, where the majority of work comes from—is we want fast news. We just want general coverage, illustrations per se right? I mean, it’s not something that’s done on purpose, but what I’ve seen it causes this perception of these “dark kind of hooded people.” When you see pictures of groups of migrants, and all the faces are blurred out, (it’s) as if they’re some kind of criminal.

More senior wire photographers painted a very different picture. SL said:

Specific to the border, I think working for a wire actually made me feel like I had way more freedom and flexibility. Immigration in the Rio Grande Valley was such an ongoing story that it was rare that was there was something that was truly breaking on that day.

MP, another staff wire photographer, echoed this sentiment, although, in his experience, the lack of formal deadline pressure did not equate to the absence of pressure: “To be honest, my office doesn’t pressure me. When we are on the schedule, all the pressure comes from yourself and no matter how long you’ve been doing it, or whatever success you’ve had.”

Financial Insecurity

The time a photographer is able or willing to spend working on migration stories is inextricably tied to the financial cost of producing news images. In the contemporary news climate, freelancers are rarely able to refuse an assignment, even if they disagree with the focus or the angle. “If I don’t want to work, oh, they’ll find somebody else to send instead of me like that, in a split second,” said CJ. Freelancers referred to themselves as the industry’s “bastard stepchildren.” They are never really “part of the gang” and are simultaneously the most “vulnerable” and the most “loyal.” Freelance photojournalists may be loyal, but as KW said, “ I don’t think that publications have a lot of loyalty to us.”

The latest State of Photography report (Pixley et al., 2022) detailed that almost a quarter of the 1,325 respondents “expressed a high degree of precarity (little to no financial security)” (p. 14). OQ characterized photojournalism’s financial outlook as “bleak,” and KC says making a living as an editorial photographer is “pretty impossible.” KW, who has won major photography awards, said “I’ve been doing it for a long time and still don’t have a sustainable income.” TN detailed that once he received a heads up from his editor about budget cuts, he started taking odd jobs to make ends meet. RS explicitly mentioned that she limits her work trips to “7 to 10 days max” because, “personally I got really burned out, and beyond that, it’s too expensive.”

Freelancer TH said that on one 6-week project, he spent an estimated $5,000—putting all of the expenses on a credit card. After weeks of hard work following migrating people from Mexico City to Tijuana, he “ended up selling it and only making $900 back.” Freelancers must often front the cost of travel, lodging, and food on assignment, not to mention the cost of photography gear and specialized safety equipment such as insect-repellent clothing, headlamps, and GPS locators. On another long-term project, TH estimated that he spent thousands of dollars over years of documentation and published it in the former New York Times photographer blog, Lens blog, for a total of $350. After a moment of reflection, TH said, “But I would do it again. It’s a privilege actually to be able to work.”

Lack of Editorial Control

After editors communicate the scope and angle of the story and photographers make the photographs, the decision of what to publish returns to the editors. “It’s really not up to me, ultimately, like what gets represented what gets pushed out,” said freelancer PW. Editors decide on which images to publish or syndicate, how they are cropped and toned, and what captions will accompany them. Photographers’ intentions and editors’ intentions often did not match. “I’ll get a very good photo and they won’t even use it because it is not the kind of image they can syndicate,” said VZ. “So, I can do the image for me and try to give them a good set of images that can work for what they do.”

This often affects what situations photographers will focus on and what visual techniques (e.g., complex vs. simple compositions, informational vs. ambiguous subject matter, conventional vs. unconventional camera settings) they will use to make their photographs. CJ said: “Some of these photos . . . are not even that good, that is, not my best work, not even close to a mediocre job. But I know that they can use them.” Interviewees described a constant negotiation that at times turned contentious. GI expressed dismay at one news organization’s editorial direction, saying: “You are in New York in your fancy office with a nice temperature and I’m in fucking Juarez, burning myself down in this fucking desert. These are my images; this is what I like.” Many respondents characterized these negotiations as a battle fought at many levels. GI noted that when he made his perspective known, his editor “fought with his boss, and his boss was fighting with his boss” up the chain of editorial command. Other respondents revealed that some hard-earned reporting work would be stripped from their captions when the images were ultimately published, which also put photographers and editors at odds with each other.

Wire service photographers have an additional worry about where the photographs will ultimately end up. KW said, “Pretty regularly my photos appear on Breitbart and the Daily Caller or whatever, and it’s horrible shit.” Wire photographers noted that after they send their images for publication, partisan outlets can “put those photos in any context they want.” Once the photographs are published for syndication, the photojournalist has no control at all.

Drug Cartels

Many photojournalists detailed how the specter of the drug cartels loomed over their work and influenced how they went about their job. Across the border from Texas, for example, drug cartel members directly engage in embodied gatekeeping, as OQ said: “They tell you to leave, and you take their fucking warning.” Another photographer recounted being followed and photographed by suspected cartel members over a series of weeks. In most other cases, the influence of cartels was a social influence derived from the knowledge of who they were and the implicit threat of physical violence. Celeste González de Bustamante and Jeannine Relly’s (2021) in-depth study, Surviving Mexico, reports the enormous danger of being in periphery zones that are far from power centers. They report that 156 journalists were killed in the borderlands of Mexico between 2000 and 2020, and an average of one per month between 2017 and 2020. Many photojournalists in this study described the sense that they were being watched while photographing in temporary migrant camps or Mexican cities. SL mentioned several times “where I was pretty confident there were people connected to the cartels who were hanging about the camp and listening in on what was happening.” Multiple respondents stayed close to the international bridges or even worked exclusively on the bridges unless migrant camps were formed on the other side. RS described the risk of photographing migrant border crossings from the Mexican side: “It would be extremely dangerous to photograph; you’d have to be so fast. . . . I’m not going to stand on the banks because that would be extremely foolish.” Similarly, LN explained how fear of the cartels—and the threat they symbolize—limits his ability to photograph.

I don’t go over there by myself, and I don’t go in very far usually if we cross, you know, stay within a couple blocks of the bridge. You know there’s been a couple times, where we’ve gone in by escort to a shelter or something, but you always feel like somebody’s watching.

Given the threat of violence from cartels, many news organizations had security teams in place on the ground during specific migration processes. Photojournalists said that the security team eased anxiety and added a layer of safety, but sometimes this amounted only to a chat where the group would check in. Respondents indicated that security personnel often gave advice and vetted drivers and fixers. Sometimes security personnel were at odds with the wishes of photographers and would explicitly veto or advise against photographers’ plans. OQ, who is an American citizen, had often photographed in Ciudad Juarez. Yet one time when he was on assignment for a national newspaper, he was overruled. “Our security guy was like hell no, that’s a legal nightmare,” said OQ. Many local photojournalists employed in border cities in Texas said their employers restricted them from entering Mexico to work. Often this was related to insurance and liability, a finding de Bustamante and Relly (2021) also detailed.

While the cartels operating on the U.S.-Mexico border near Texas create significant problems affecting photojournalists’ work, other locations pose fewer or at least different risks. This is an example of the “multiple” U.S.-Mexico borders (Correa-Cabrera & Staudt, 2014). NT recounted spending many nights on the Mexican side of the border wall in California and Arizona and was more concerned with Mexican law enforcement stopping him than cartels. OA explicitly wanted to contest the “danger” narratives on border cities. Yet, even OA noted certain best practices for working in Tijuana: “I was always with people, many friends who are fixers and local journalists. If I had to go to specific areas, I would not go by myself and I would always let people know where I am.” The “buddy system” was a common theme across interviews, and many photojournalists even wore GPS trackers while working in Mexico. The psychological effects of organized crime and other risks inherent in periphery zones (e.g., robbery, getting lost, exposure to elements) influence photographers to limit how much time they will spend working in frontier regions and on the Mexican side of the border. This has serious consequences for the knowledge potential of the photographs: When migration is always represented from the U.S. side of the border, the issue of migration is symbolically seen from a U.S. perspective.

Migrating People and Agency

Many photographers described their representation practices with consternation due in part to the tension between news industry demands and ethical principles that they developed through direct interactions with migrating people. Many of my interviewees indicated that the issue of simple consent and informed consent needed more discussion because, for many migrants, their representation in news might cause them harm. When informed consent could not be obtained—because of embodied gatekeeping, explicit rules from law enforcement, or language barriers—AN stated: “You kind of have to consider the worth of the photo. The worth of potentially putting someone in danger.” The power dynamic between migrating people and photographers is often asymmetrical, but photographers seemed hesitant to say to me that, in the context of this relationship, they held all the power. There are both formal and informal ways that migrants can consent to their image being made even in spaces that they cannot control. However, this often depends on photographers initiating a conversation first.

At the temporary camp of 2021 in Del Rio, Texas, migrants were able to influence and control their representation in the makeshift and temporary shelters, especially because law enforcement had closed off the banks of the river. Two photographers who had clandestinely crossed back to the U.S. side were able to interact with migrating people and photograph those who consented. CJ noted that many of the Haitian migrants did not want their pictures taken, but she only learned this once she was close and inside the camp. But one man called her over to his family and said, “Hey, I want you to photograph us.” Because of the unique circumstances of the Del Rio situation—and the antagonistic relationship between photographers and border enforcement at the time—migrants could communicate their wishes directly to photographers, actively consent to the process, and withdraw participation. The cohesive unit of photographer and law enforcement evident elsewhere had been fractured, and photographers no longer held implicitly sanctioned power.

IK noted that photographing in charity shelters allowed migrants more agency to choose whether they agree to be photographed compared to situations with law enforcement on public property. IK states that this results in more intimate and personal stories that combat the narratives of criminality. LN said photographers were able to “piece together a much fuller story” through longer interactions, and many other photographers indicated that this was a more ethical approach. IK said that going into a shelter felt more like “you are coming into people’s homes,” and this influences photographers to photograph with more sensitivity. Similar examples came from the former camp in Matamoros, Mexico. CJ noted that the relatively stable location of the camp enabled her to tell stories about love, connection, and leadership during the journey to the United States. These humanizing accounts seemed to be made possible when photographers and migrants could interact directly, and mediating entities (e.g., law enforcement, migrant activists) were removed from the equation.

Whether or not photographers were able to request formal consent, many more photographers learned to watch body language and other non-verbal cues as to whether migrants were willing to be photographed. RS explained her process:

I try to study their reaction and their body language to make sure that they’re not traumatized by my presence. I’m often conflicted about it. When I am not sure, then I tend to not photograph that person, even if I would like to.

Photographers claimed that they looked for extended eye contact and for people who seemed curious and interested in their cameras and what they were doing. JS also mentioned that if he sees anyone show “a kind of hesitancy,” he thanks them and moves on. No photojournalist in the pool said they ever filed an image after a migrant explicitly told them not to. “For every person that says no, there’s a person that says yes, and they can be that stand-in for that representation,” said JS, who detailed he routinely saw a hundred border crossings a night. Yet, for every photographer with enough experience to develop these best practices, there are others who prioritize the shot over the comfort, safety, and well-being of the migrants. PW recounted one such instance:

I had been on one of the bridges between Mexico and the U.S. interviewing migrants who were waiting on the bridge to try and seek asylum. And there was one woman there who didn’t speak English or Spanish, but she made it clear to me, she did not want to be interviewed, and did not want her photo taken. So, I didn’t. I moved on. Later that night, the wire had a photo of this woman with her hand in front of her face and the caption says she was crying. How I interpreted the photo was she was actually shielding her face. She said she didn’t want her photo taken, and I was appalled. I just felt like, what are we doing?

Photojournalistic Identity and the Broader Industry

While government actors ideologically influence how migration should be constructed, another diffuse influence comes from the community of journalism. The photojournalism community does more than share meanings and interpretations of events; it reproduces norms (Bock et al., 2017; Lough, 2021) that can put social pressure on photographers to achieve, succeed, and gain prestige in an ultra-competitive industry. These higher-level social pressures exist simultaneously and interact with the expectations of news organizations. JS reflected on this occurrence:

The structure (of the news industry) almost demands that you go and make these pictures, like these high dynamic pictures of people getting detained, those like cliché photographs of immigration. And because this is just such an evidence-based industry, we’re almost forced. Our hand is forced.

Freelance photojournalists must make images that simultaneously please their editors and might make them more marketable or well-known in the news industry. Many respondents talked about how this pressure produces “parachute” journalists, that is, photographers who drop in for a short time to make highly dynamic, even sensational images and then quickly leave. AN said: “I don’t usually like when people decide to kind of parachute into a situation like that, just to build their portfolio or whatever. Showing up in a hotspot just because it’s like the thing to do, it’s really, like, disappointing to see.” The most rewarded news images are dramatic scenes of violence and conflict (Greenwood & Smith, 2007; H. S. Kim & Smith, 2005), and publication of dramatic scenes on the border—especially when migration images garner prestigious awards—encourages other photographers to come down and make similar work. JS explained why he “was willingly complicit” in single-minded focus on dramatic scenes of apprehensions:

I felt like I had no choice, in my own defense. But as soon as I felt like I had established myself as a photographer on migration, I made it a point to stop doing that and come back for more intentional stories that are looking at more of a narrative and kind of a less myopic view of migration.

Certain signifiers are known to conform to what the journalistic community understands as “good images.” The visual conventions that heighten the effect of dramatic scenes of violence and conflict (Greenwood & Smith, 2007; H. S. Kim & Smith, 2005) are light and signifiers of law enforcement. The darkness of night crossings and processing force photographers to use whatever light is available; most often, this is the flashlights and headlights of law enforcement. This creates an unfortunate dramatic aesthetic, constructing scenes of contention or conflict that did not conform to what I saw firsthand at such crossings. IJ explained that he avoided artificial lights and chose to use only ambient light because this was more accurate and conformed to a core tenet of photojournalism: non-manipulation of scenes. The resulting images show shadowy figures emerging from the water illuminated by headlamps (See online Supplemental Material for examples). It appears as if National Guard members are “catching” them. In reality, these were asylum seekers surrendering to authority. Conversely, HS placed LED lights on the banks of the river to provide some illumination and likened it to using a flash, which is well within photojournalistic ethics and standards. The photos showed more detail, such as migrants’ clothes and facial expressions, but these photos also made law enforcement officers’ guns, uniforms, badges, and balaclavas more noticeable. When a person is depicted opposite of law enforcement agents, they are also depicted in opposition to the connotations of those symbols—connotations such as law, order, and safety. This contributes to the criminalization and victimization of migrating people. Ultimately, these decisions can be seen to hinge on the individual photojournalist’s current sense of identity: The objective recorder (Good & Lowe, 2017) uses only available light, while the “witness” (Good & Lowe, 2017) uses artificial light to make visible migration processes.

Many photojournalists, however, made unconventional images. Drawing on non-hegemonic migration discourses to construct their images, they saw themselves as “advocates” (Good & Lowe, 2017). Several told me about how their technical choices provided counter-narratives. OA, for example, developed rules to consciously differentiate her work from conventional and ubiquitous images of migration she had seen elsewhere. She explained her decision to photograph only from the Mexican side of the border: “That was one of my rules that I chose to follow. Normally we are told that Mexico is the other side, Mexico is across the world. And I just wanted to reverse this.” OA mentioned a conscious subject-photographer distance that would neither exaggerate “the pain and suffering” nor show the border wall from beneath as a “huge dramatic monument.”

Photographers acknowledged the difference between a long lens that compresses space and an intimate social distance conveyed with a wider-angle lens. Although longer lenses magnify objects, the focal compression forms an image that feels like looking at someone far away—as if through binoculars. Wider angle lenses force photographers to be physically closer, which can convey intimacy. AN stated his reasoning: “It goes back to not wanting to be this looky-loo. If I’m going to be in that situation, I’m going to be right there with those people, I’m going to be in the river.” Likewise, MP said longer lenses often fill a frame with crowds of faces or people. “I don’t concentrate only on the numbers, the ‘hordes’ of people. I don’t make that a majority of the story, I always try to show the human side of it.”

Many photographers, especially wire photographers, told me that they understood that conservative media might pick up their images and use them to denigrate, marginalize, or even demonize migrants. At times, this directly influenced their technical choices. During a nighttime border crossing, JS said:

I specifically chose a slow shutter speed to obscure their identities, without sacrificing contexts and information and artistic value. Let’s say a propagandist or a right-wing organization picks this up on the syndication site. I don’t have much control [but] at least have the control over this mother not being identifiable.

Photographers constantly make complicated ethical and representational decisions, but the most impactful one is deciding when to—and when not to—photograph. CJ said she once saw a migrant woman hiding, trying to evade authority. CJ purposefully did not photograph the woman so as not to alert the border patrol officers with whom she was embedded: “I looked back, and I saw a woman behind a wall, a person that wanted to evade border patrol. I saw her and then I just looked away. I didn’t say anything because I knew that border patrol was driving around.” She worried her actions would negatively affect the woman and therefore chose to contravene the organizational and hegemonic influences of border enforcement documentation. SL described a very different situation, where putting his camera down was the most humane, ethical decision he could make. But this meant going along with border patrol officers:

They (Border Patrol) basically said, “Hey listen, you know it’s really hot out here, these people are really dehydrated. We want to get them out of the sun as quickly as possible, so we’d like to put some of them in the back of this pickup truck because it’s just a dirt road, where there are no cars. If you photograph, that’s going to get us in trouble.” I said, “Yeah, that’s fine.” . . . I put my camera down because the alternative is they’re just going to be out here, in the heat longer.

Even though embodied and discursive structures influence how migration is represented, photographers exercise deliberate decision-making continually. Their decisions are mediated by their individual motivations, ethics, and experiences working on the border.