Since the beginning of her career in the mid 1990s, singer and songwriter Lila Downs (b. 1968) has weaved themes of Indigeneity and migration in her songs. Inspired by her Mixtec Indigenous, Mexican, and U.S. American heritage, Downs blends a variety of languages (Spanish, English, Mixtec, Zapotec) and musical styles (Mexican sones, rancheras, corridos, cumbia, jazz). Taken together, her heritage and musical fusions allowed Downs to consolidate her career as a “World Music” artist at a time of deep transformation in Mexico, with the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the Zapatista uprising of the same year, and later, the power transition after the 2000 Mexican presidential elections. Building on scholarship that explores the intersection of musical activities, migration, globalization, and the U.S.-Mexico border (Ragland 2009; Madrid 2011; Ramos-Kittrell 2020; Días Santana-Garza 2021), in this presentation I analyze Downs’s representation of the post-NAFTA border condition in her 2001 album Border/La Línea for Mexican and international audiences. Through musical and lyrical analysis, I examine two songs: “La Niña” (“The girl”) and “La Línea” (“The line”), in which Downs portrays themes related to neoliberalism, NAFTA, and the border, with references to the maquiladora factories, childhood, and labor. I argue that while Downs’s songs illuminate the conditions of vulnerable groups at the border, they also exhibit a “strategic exoticism” (Saavedra 2012; Guldin 2021) in line with “World Music” aesthetics. Ultimately, this paper contributes to conversations about popular music and neoliberalism in Latin America at the turn of the twenty-first century.