This article examines the fantasies and fuckeries that shape Mexican nationals’ sanctioned border-crossing experiences between Mexicali, Baja California, and Calexico, California. Drawing on ethnographic research (2017–21) at four ports of entry, I employ a Žižekian critique of ideological fantasy to reveal how the border’s power operates beyond military force and physical barriers. I argue that border communities must recognise, internalise and negotiate the border’s power before experiencing it as either threatening (fuckeries) or desirable (fantasies). These fantasies – from escaping everyday Mexican life to achieving higher social status through US consumption – demonstrate how ideology materialises through the ways border-crossers find meaning in their journeys. Through intimate attachments to ‘tours’ of the other side, changing behaviours between countries, and social hierarchies tied to border access, Mexican nationals both question and ultimately reproduce the border’s power, offering insight into how geopolitical boundaries become internalised as lived experience.

Since 2001 there has been an increase in migration patterns by Indigenous families from remote communities to urban and semi-rural locations. Indigenous student emigration from remote Indigenous schools to urban and semi-rural schools is an emerging crisis as there are routinely inadequate service providers for Indigenous émigrés. Migration away from a particular location from which a person's ancestors, kin and Dreamings come (henceforward named as Country) to semi-rural and urban locations raises many complex issues. This article outlines Aboriginal Community Education Officers’ (ACEOs) role as support workers for Indigenous students who utilise an Indigenous ethics of care framework as a support mechanism to aid the transition of Indigenous students into new schools. The article draws on research undertaken between 2000–2008 (MacGill, 2008) in conjunction with current literature in the field (Pearce, 2012) to highlight ACEOs’ border work and ethics of care practices necessary for successful Indigenous student transitions as émigrés.