Good Fences Make Good Neighbors: The Rio Grande Arrival/Departure Shelter

"Where the power of the wall is to deny, the power of the door is to permit, and allow entry. 1" Borders are represented on maps as thick, predetermined lines that delineate, separate, and segregate one area from another. A whole is divided into two or more parts. Borders become boundaries and, in reality, are abstract and intangible, often responsible for creating both geographic and political havoc. In between a border are thresholds that signal a transition between layers, spaces, times, and countries. This project engages within this Liminal space, an in-between of the threshold.

Prompted by humanitarian and political crises, thousands of people are fleeing their homes in search of safety and protection from danger, including persecution for protected reasons such as race, religion, nationality, or political opinion. Many, like unaccompanied minors, travel dangerous paths to seek asylum at one of these borders, which promise safety and security from the violent conditions in their countries. In the USA and elsewhere, seeking asylum is a human right. Simultaneously, thousands of people whose claims for asylum are unsuccessful are detained, deported, or repatriated.

In 1873, Sebastian Lerdo de Tejada, the 27th President of Mexico (1872 to 1876) declared, "Let there be a desert between strength and weakness." The United States of America and the United Mexican States share a historically-contested 1,954-mile border. Any wall separating two countries belongs to both countries. This thesis considers borders as more than places that close or delimit one place from another, but also as opportunities to expand into living and organic spaces. Borders both delimit and negotiate between two sides of neither a single state nor a single place but as thresholds which hundreds of thousands of separate lives navigate every single day along the border regions.

This thesis explores how architecture focused on empowering at-risk asylum seekers can shape the border space. In particular, the chosen design proposes a Halfway House on the threshold space between the twin-sister borderplex of Laredo, Texas, United States of America, and Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, Mexico.