Shifting Border, Changing Laws: The Executive Branch of Government and the Treaty of Extradition between Mexico and the United States, 1876–1911

• Published in: Mexican studies 2022-11, Vol.38 (3), p.458-482
• Main Author: Valenzuela, David Adán Vázquez
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 20th century; Borders; Extradition; International relations; Presidents; Public administration
• ISSN: 1533-8320; 0742-9797; 1533-8320
• DOI: 10.1525/msem.2022.38.3.458

This article analyzes an important way in which the Porfirio Díaz government tried to empower the president to control Mexico’s northern border in the late 1870s. Just a few months after Díaz gained power, officers of the incoming administration attempted to gain exclusive authority for the Mexican executive over matters related to extradition requests. The president, Díaz’s allies argued, was responsible for the country’s foreign relations, and only he could decide on the surrender of fugitives to other nations. The article maintains that such claim aimed to build a legal apparatus that would strengthen the figure of the president to control what was then the key and problematic area of northern Tamaulipas. Furthermore, the article argues that the legal changes adopted regarding extradition matters contributed to shaping the early twentieth-century borderlands, although they failed to achieve their main objective. Thus, after the 1870s, the borderlands entered an unprecedented phase of transformation that, in many ways, revealed the inefficacy of the regime’s extradition policies.