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Guatemalan Transitory Migrants in Mexico: The Migrant Experience and the Shaping of Immigration Policies
- 2. KEY TERMS • Transitory Migrants: Their main goal is to transit through Mexico, usually to get to the United States • EMIF Sur: Survey on Migration in the Southern Border of Mexico • INM: National Institute of Migration • Coyote/Pollero: Human smugglers • La Bestia: Freight trains used by migrants to transit through Mexico • CDM: Migratory Detention Centers
- 3. THE MEXICO- GUATEMALA BORDER • 1882 Mariscal-Herrera Treaty • Along the Mexican states of Chiapas, Tabasco, Campeche & Quintana Roo • 1,149 km (713.96 mi) • Jungle, rivers and mountains • 10 ports of entry Usumacinta River, view from Chiapas (Photo Credit: Jacob Rus via Creative Commons License)
- 4. GUATEMALAN IMMIGRANT PROFILE – EMIR SUR 2011 • The majority of those surveyed were between 20 and 39 years of age • 31% of migrants had a middle school education or higher • 96.3% know how to read & write • 57.8% come from urban areas • 33.7% speak an indigenous language • 70% worked in the last month prior to migrating • Only 3.2% of those who had work experience did not work for one month prior to migrating • 73% was assisted by a “pollero” • 50.3% are the heads of their household • 99.2% were undocumented • 24.4% had previous migration experience • 52.7% intend to attempt to cross again
- 5. THE JOURNEY THROUGH MEXICO Map of Mexico (Photo Credit: Carport via Creative Commons License)
- 6. LA BESTIA Migrants traveling on La Bestia (Photo Credit: Peter Haden via Creative Commons License) La Bestia routes through Mexico (Photo Credit: Servicio Jesuita a Migrantes Mexico)
- 7. LA BESTIA • Allows migrants to transit quickly & without paying money • Dangers include: • Mutilation • Death • Robberies • Assault • Extortions • Sexual Assault (mostly women) Migrants traveling on La Bestia (Photo Credit: Jorge Sagastume via Creative Commons License)
- 8. POLICE • Supposed to turn undocumented migrants over to Migratory Services • Often accused of exploiting migrants • Bribes • Collaborations with gangs and other criminal groups • Documentation Network of Migrant Defender Organizations • Mexican authorities committed 18% of reported crimes committed against migrants Reported Police Abuse Federal Police Municipal Police Unidentified Authorities State Police Mexican Army INM **Data from Documentation Network of Migrant Defender Organizations
- 9. GRUPOS BETA • Pilot program established in 1990 • 21 groups in 9 states • “Vocation, Humanitarianism and Loyalty” • Mission: protect migrants’ rights & physical integrity regardless of migratory status • Give out pamphlets informing migrants on their rights and dangers Grupos Beta in the desert ready to help migrants (Photo Credit: INM)
- 10. MIGRANT PROTECTION • 21 Grupos Beta • More than 60 shelters • Dining halls • Estancias (Stays) • NGOs • Limited capacity to serve a population of about 300,000 Mexican, Central American and other migrants (Migrantes en Prisión: La incriminación de migrantes en México, 6-7) Migrants waiting outside a shelter in Mexico City (Photo Credit: Flickr user greensefa via Creative Commons License)
- 11. “The narrative is repeated periodically and at an exasperating pace during this serious humanitarian crisis: supposedly police officers have been professionalized, immigration agents are being certified and the protocols of evaluation are increasingly stringent, in addition to that, according to government discourse, there is a commitment to the respect of migrants’ human rights. However, this narrative is exhausted, the strategies are not functional for the necessities, because the catalogue of crimes committed against these populations has not been reduced, but worsened, according to enumerations by shelters, the defenders of migrants, organizations of civil society and other actors.” (Migrantes en Prisión: La incriminación de migrantes en México, 9) MIGRANT PROTECTION (Photo Credit: Chuy Mendez Garza via Wikimedia License)
- 12. • Migration Law of 1908 • Article 33 of the Mexican Constitution of 1917 • Migration Law of 1926 • General Law of Population of 1936 MEXICAN IMMIGRATION POLICIES Original Cover of the Mexican Constitution of 1917 (Photo Credit: Wikipedia user Hpav7 via Wikimedia License)
- 13. • Merida Initiative (2008) • Migration Law (2011) • Southern Border Plan (2014) MEXICAN IMMIGRATION POLICIES U.S. Secretary of Defense and U.S. Ambassador at the Merida Initiative Plenary in 2010. (Photo Credit: Master Sgt. Jerry Morrison, U.S. Air Force via Wikimedia Commons)
- 14. “Even when those who cross this border have options to enter the country through legal channels, many do not utilize them, especially transitory migrants who compose a flow that is predominantly undocumented” (EMIF Sur, 35) MIGRATION LAW (2011) The 2011 Migration Law was enacted by Felipe Calderon’s administration. (Photo Credit: World Economic Forum via Wikimedia Commons)
- 15. INM • Currently, in charge of implementing immigration laws • Reported that in 2001, more than 1 million undocumented migrants were trafficked through Mexico’s southern border INM Office in Mexico (Photo Credit: Thomas Lloyd via Creative Commons License)
- 16. DETENTION EXPECTED • Basic Rights • Hygiene, nutrition & health • Right to seek refugee • Right to be repatriated voluntarily • Protection from their home country’s consulate • Right to visits from family and legal representatives (Secretaría de gobernación) HAPPENING • Marginalization and abuses in CDMs • Similarity of CDMs to prisons • Detention is not supposed to be a punishment – administrative offense v. crime • Protection from consulates – especially children (National Human Rights Commission)
- 17. DEPORTATION • 2014 Southern Border Plan correlated w/ increase of 35% in deportations • Mexico and Guatemala have an agreement that ensures that deportations occur between 7am-5pm through specific ports of entry • Guatemalan Consulate involved in deportation process
- 18. FINDINGS • Similarity between the Mexican immigration system and the United States’ system • Both increasingly implementing security measures • Mexico-Guatemala border as a divide between the developed North and the poorer Central American countries • Increase in US involvement in Mexican immigration matters • Mexican collaboration with both the United States and Guatemala
- 19. QUESTIONS?
Hinweis der Redaktion
- The reason that they are transitory migrants is that they are not trying to relocate to México, but transit through the country to get to the United States. Not all Guatemalan migrants who cross the Mexico-Guatemala border are transitory migrants. There is a large group of migrant workers who seek employment in the border area. The border itself is very porous and there is a constant flow going to both sides for commercial purposes, as well.
- The Encuesta Sobre Migración en la Frontera Sur de Mexico (Survey on Migration in the Southern Border of Mexico, EMIF SUR) is an analysis of Mexico’s southern border produced by a collaboration between the National Institute of Migration (INM), Unidad de Política Migratoria (Migration Policy Unit), Consejo Nacional de Población (National Population Council), El Colegio de la Frontera Norte (College of the Northern Border, Colef Norte), the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Health, and the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare. Age: migrants part of labor force Ed & Literacy: Have some education, not poorest of the poor Urban areas Indigenous language: can assume most of them aren’t indigenous; implications of being indigenous **Coyotes charge from anywhere between $4,000-$10,000/person/journey according to British Newspaper (Daily Mail; http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2700946/From-bribing-drug-cartels-immigration-officials-paying-hotels-train-rides-Coyote-smugglers-reveal-costs-involved-smuggling-child-migrants-Central-America-U-S.html)
- Look at the terrain – difficulty of crossing
- Does not have a set schedule; sometimes it doesn’t arrive for 2 or more days which results in as many as 500 migrants accumulating along the tracks.
- Migrants who travel on La Bestia are in a protection gap because law enforcement is virtually absent, making them vulnerable to extortion, violence, robbery, rape. These risks are added to the risks of mutilation and death that come with boarding the train while it’s in motion and riding for hours. A study conducted by the Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (Latin American School of Social Sciences, FLACSO) found that 36% of the migrants that they surveyed had been victims of human rights violation, with a large population of Guatemalans stating that they had been suffered those violations on Mexican territory.
- Survey migrants – Central American, few Mexican on journey in Mexico Victims of crimes such as 52% robberies, 33% extortion, 4% kidnappings, 3% threatened, 1% human trafficking 167 cases; 35% involved the Fed. Police, 31% Municipal Police, 16% Unidentified authorities, 10% State Police, 4% Mexican Army, 4% INM
- Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Tamaulipas, Veracruz, Tabasco, Chiapas & Oaxaca 6 groups in southern Mexico, 5 of them in Chiapas
- Despite all of these resources, there are still many abuses and more needs to be done.
- ----- Meeting Notes (4/21/15 12:13) ----- Ben Anderson - Imagined Communities how national consciousness forms
- Currently, no laws prohibit Guatemalan migrants from transiting through the country. The problem is that many of the migrants cross into Mexican territory without authorization because they do not have the means to obtain it. Migration Law of 1908: Set restrictions for admissions of foreigners- public health threats, anarchists, & people gov’t deemed ‘useless’ Article 33: Executive power to expel any foreigner whose presence is inconvenient or undesirable w/ no legal action Migration Law of 1926: the first time that Mexico considered the trafficking of undocumented migrants a crime; created the registry used to document the inflows and outflows of nationals and migrants. Ley de Población: categories classifying migrants- transmigrantes (transitory migrants), visitors, local visitors, immigrants, emigrant – control demographics
- Merida Initiative: focuses on border security in terms of fighting drug-trafficking cartels and other security threats: US has given Mexico over $2.3 billion in security aid; in 2011, the US declared they would increase assistance to help both Mexico & Guatemala improve their border security (Washington Office on Latin America, WOLA) 2011 Migration Law: “The Migration Law states that the principles of Mexico’s migration policy is “Unrestricted respect to the human rights of migrants, nationals and foreigners, regardless of their origin, nationality, ethnicity and migratory status, with special attention to groups who are vulnerable, such as minors, women, indigenous people, adolescents and seniors, as well as people who have been victims of crimes.” Southern Border Plan (2014): The purpose of the plan is to order Mexico’s southern border and protect migrant rights
- Migration Law (2011) – includes visa for visitors and visa for transit that lasts up to 180 days, but have requirements that most Central American migrants can’t meet most are economic migrants, but in order to get the visa, they must prove that they have the economic means to pay for their trip (travel, housing, food) or must have an invitation from an organization in Mexico to participate in an activity that they will not be paid for (CNN-Mexico: http://mexico.cnn.com/nacional/2012/11/16/la-nueva-ley-de-migracion-pide-requisitos-imposibles-a-migrantes). Forma Migratoria de Visitante Local Forma de Visitante sin permiso para realizar actividades remuneradas
- 1 million data (“La migración en la frontera sur: Su violencia y sus delitos” Salcido, 147)
- Comisión Nacional de los Derechos Humanos: stated their concern about the high rate of marginalization and abuses against migrants during their stay in migration stations in Mexico, as well as for the the lack of interest or inability to solve this phenomenon, which hasn't’t been addressed Similarity to prisons: need better living conditions; detention centers have cells w/ metal bars, locks, beds are bases made out of cement
- Plan Sur has resulted in an increase of 35% in deportations, (from 80,079 to 107,814 deportations) with the majority being from Central America; speaking in terms of children, the increase was by 117% between 2013-2014 (8,350 in 2013, 18,169 in 2014) (Boggs, WOLA) http://www.wola.org/commentary/update_on_mexico_s_southern_border_plan_new_routes_more_deportations_and_widespread_human Even then, police corruption influences the # of deportations; take bribes, work w/ criminal organizations, etc.
- “The Guatemalan border with Chiapas is now our southern border.” –Alan Bersin, Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for International Affairs