[Auto-generated transcript. Edits may have been applied for clarity.] Hello and welcome to the Migration Oxford podcast on Rob McNeil.
And I'm Jackie Brodhead. I'm Jackie. Today we're talking about people on the move in Mexico.
I want to ask you a really probably stupid and possibly basic question, but why does Mexico matter so much?
Yeah. Thanks, Rob. One of the things that we discussed is Mexico.
Maybe unfairly in our imagination, we often think of it as a country of origin, you know, a place where migrants come from often to the US.
I guess that's probably because of how much U.S. politics kind of dominates a lot of what we talk about in migration.
But actually, Mexico is increasingly it is a place of transit from all over Latin America,
but it's also a place of destination for migrants, often unplanned destination when their migration jetties are stopped.
And so Mexico becomes this place that has all different types of migration, all happening at the same time,
and is a country in a space that is having to manage the politics of migration happening in another state, namely the US.
Uh, but also manage the politics of migration within its whole continent as well as within its country.
So I think, you know, we talk about countries of immigration and countries of immigration.
I think Mexico's a really interesting country to talk about because it has all of the above happening at the same time.
We don't think as often as we should about what it means to be in that position and how migration is understood by migrants themselves,
but also by people living in Mexico.
One of the other things that was raised is the idea that the southern border of the US is not just a border between the US and Mexico,
but is a border essentially between the global North and the global South,
between essentially power and those kind of who are to some extent held back.
So how how much do you think that combination of the really fundamental economic disparities that we see playing out in the space of Mexico,
and also the symbolic nature of that border? How much do you think that those really matter in modern global debates about migration?
It's a really interesting idea, isn't it? For more of our speakers, um, that you'll hear shortly,
and I think it does highlight one of the crucial underlying themes of nearly all of our conversations on migration, I think, which is inequality.
And I think what's really interesting is to like foreground inequality,
rather than having it as this sort of background, sort of simmering issue that's there all of the time.
I think our speaker also talks about it as a, as a, a border, um, in terms of racism as well.
And obviously that's something that we speak to much more commonly when we think about ideas of migration and resistance to migration in particular.
I think that it's a useful way of seeing how inequality drives and shapes migration.
I think I'd like to think a bit more about how useful it is as a unit of analysis.
We're still grappling with is global North and global South the best way to kind of divide things up on my thinking about migration?
But I think in this context it does give us a different perspective.
Rather than just thinking about this issue as a border between two nation states.
Actually, we're thinking about it through that prism of inequality, and that seems like a good point to move to a really interesting conversation.
I'm joined now by April Rios Rivera, doctoral researcher in migration studies here at the University of Oxford and an international
consultant on forced displacement and refugee well-being in East Africa at the world Bank,
and also by Maria Lina Hernandez,
regional protection coordinator at the Danish Refugee Council and graduate from the MSC in International Human Rights Law, also here at Oxford.
And finally by Moretti Sara Luna,
an independent researcher focusing on migration and protection in the Americas and a fellow at Georgetown University.
Hello to everyone. Um, I will start with you when I thinking about people on the move in Mexico, our topic for today,
we're thinking both about a country of origin, a place of transit, and often an unplanned destination for many migrants.
How would you characterise mobility to and from Mexico, and how has this changed over time?
So I'll give a bit of context in that in the last few decades, the landscape of migration in the Americas have undergone rapid changes,
not only in migrants profiles, but also in mobility patterns and in migration and asylum governance.
So mobility from the south to the north, so from Latin American countries to countries like the US and Canada continues.
But Latin America and the Caribbean has become largely a space of inter-regional.
People leave due to different reasons. Operation and conflict between criminal groups.
But policies against crime and drugs as well. And socio economic and environmental deterioration.
That all has led thousands of Latin Americans and Caribbeans to seek safety in better conditions abroad.
Within Latin America, Mexico has become a so-called mixed migration hub.
Thousands of people temporarily settle and permanently transit.
So for some migrants, Mexico represents the last country before reaching the north.
It symbolises the ante room of the so-called American dream and, for others,
its restrictive migration policies, its geography have created a vertical border.
It is filled with obstacles that limit migrants agency.
It leads them to involuntary immobility, insecurity and lack of protection.
So for decades, migration issues in Mexico have mainly focussed on on the country as a space of origin.
That is, Mexicans out migrating to countries like the US.
Uh, but Mexico is also a space of transit, more prominently since the 80s with the civilian workers in, in, in Central America.
But Mexico is also a space of settlement, a space of immigration, of return migration.
We are likely to see more of that, um, in the coming years as as Trump returns to power.
Um, also space of internal displacement and transit migration.
But the contemporary role of Mexico as an unplanned destination for many forcibly displaced people,
largely in response to US border externalisation practices that are implemented mostly by Mexican authorities.
So you see, very broadly and quickly,
there are three broad factors that have transformed Mexico into space of unplanned settlement for forcibly displaced migrants.
One of them is what I call and others as well the asylum trap.
So refugee status has been used as a de facto transit permit in Mexico, and it is one of the only way to secure legal status in Mexico.
But applying for asylum in Mexico requires the applicant to stay in the state.
Um, where they they started. They file their asylum claim.
They have to remain in states like Chiapas, uh, especially in the city of Tapachula, bordering with the mala, until they acquire, uh, a status, um.
Upon applying for asylum,
the migration authorities are required to provide the migratory documentation that allows migrants to move freely in the country,
but also to access services and jobs. But last year, in 2024, the national migration needs to reduce the issuance of of cards,
claiming that migrants have been using these cards that they are provided upon applying for asylum,
uh, because they are arguing that they are using them as transit documentation.
Another important factor is the securitisation of the Mexican territory, uh, through its military.
Uh, um, in the country, there are many cases of migrants reporting that they have been detained,
even when possessing a document that allows their mobility throughout the country.
So we have an asylum trap, and we have contention policies that limit migrants mobility in Mexico,
some migrants to make it to Mexico City or northern, uh, states and cities like Tijuana,
or other places where they don't only wait for migration documentation in Mexico, they also wait for access into the into the US until,
um, until January this year when Trump took power, uh, back in in the US, migrants seeking asylum in the US were using CBP.
One application our phone app.
Through this app, migrants were able to request applications to ask for asylum in the US, but waiting for that application took months.
So that's another factor that half retain migrants in Mexico.
So it is a waiting space that has transformed the country into a space of unplanned destination.
Thanks so much, April Mara.
April's, talk to us a little bit about how profoundly impacted Mexican migration governance is by what's happening in the US.
I know that there were some quite significant changes under the Biden administration
in June of 2024 that that significantly kind of changed rights to asylum.
But obviously, they're incredibly significant changes that are planned, including mass deportations under the Trump administration.
And I wonder if you could just outline these developments on their impacts.
We are speaking out. The U.S., I live here in California, which probably has the largest.
Population outside of Mexico, together with Texas and what we see here.
I want to speak out their long term situation so that the wider picture for those who are listening to this post podcast later in the year.
Yesterday it was inauguration of Trump and he has already started to sign executive orders.
And we know from the political campaign that unfortunately, the migration system will change for the worse,
most probably in the next four years, and that it will hurt basically each and every migrant who doesn't have a green card.
So all of us who don't have a permanent residency will be affected by these measures.
But in the long term, the main issue is the lack or the difficulty to access regularisation to access real large data.
This is why I wanted to focus mainly on the promise of Donald Trump of deporting as many undocumented migrants as possible,
because this is a historic issue that the US has of not providing legal pathways that are accessible for different groups of migrants.
I like the word migrant. I don't like the word immigrant.
I don't like the word undocumented migrants, but I use them because they see the vocabulary that is used in the US.
So undocumented immigrants, and which we can also call it regularised.
So people who have not been able to regularise their status are divided into very different genius
groups that are right in the US in different historical moments because of different causes.
Like I would even mention a human unnatural that atrophies in different moments of history in Central America, in Mexico,
civil wars and different historical events that needed protection for them, you know, so asylum, but also economic migration.
So migrants arrive here for a host of different reasons, and many of them, which would be something like 12 million people in that being undocumented.
What is their issue here? They don't have protection against deportation.
And these is the large group that Trump is threatening to deport most of them.
So 85% of them are Mexicans and 11% are from the Northern Triangle of Central America.
So the destination countries want the deportation starts are quite specific, and they are, of course, undocumented migrants from other regions.
But these make their board of those who will be deported.
It is thought that logistically Trump could deport 4 million people, which is kind of like four times or more what he deported in his last presidency.
So in his last term, we know that these people, for the most part, are very well integrated into your community.
So they have lived here for several decades. They work here.
In fact, many industries depend on migrant labour, manufacturing, agriculture, services, construction.
And if you live here, you know that migrants work in those areas.
This is the way it is, which is why it would be such a large loss of workforce for the US to deport of these undocumented migrants.
Migrants contributions to the federal, local and county tax systems is calculated in tens of billions of dollars per year.
Those contributions go to federal benefits like Medicare, um, you know,
pensions that the migrants, undocumented migrants themselves don't benefit from.
So also with our work, even if we are undocumented or if we are not completely regularise, contribute to the well-being of US citizens.
What do I mean by all of these? I think the main message is that, uh, most of these people who may be deported are very well into the economy,
and the human costs of deporting them will be huge.
It will be an enormous cost in terms of human rights and their well being of immigrants.
Um, yeah. This is probably what we are coming back to in the next four years.
Maria Elena, what we've heard from April and Maria, we can hear the kind of internal and external pressures.
And tensions that Mexico is really facing at the moment.
And we haven't even mentioned as much the kind of influence of organised crime on this.
And I, I wonder how, uh, NGOs, governmental actors, people working on this issue in, in Mexico,
how are they working to try to manage these tensions whilst also trying to
promote human rights and also highlight why these rights are being violated?
Well, all these pressures, policies and practices that, uh, Abril and Mara spoke about translate into considerable humanitarian needs.
And what I would like to describe as a protection crisis in Mexico.
Mexico is an upper middle country. And as such, there is not an official humanitarian emergency.
Uh, as we can see in other humanitarian context, in the sense that we don't have, uh, full scale humanitarian architecture,
where in NGOs, civil society organisations, the UN can access, uh, quickly to different funds to respond to these, uh, needs.
However, the consequences of these policies and practices do have a similar impact on people.
And both, as we can see in other contexts in the world.
When we look at the types of violence, coercion and deliberate, uh, deprivation that migrants experienced throughout the drought,
and these experiences have, uh, physical and psychological consequences that are very concerning.
At the same time,
what we see is that because of the nature of the so-called mixed migration movements and the different practices that are really explained,
we see that people are really hard to reach.
They will choose routes where their friends are invisible because they there's not many regular migration pathways.
So in a way, there's also a lack of evidence, uh, that it's also exacerbated by the fact that this is a very politicised topic.
One of the strategies that we have at the Danish Refugee Council is first to document the magnitude of the crisis and its
consequences through gathering evidence from migrants themselves and use it towards evidence based responses and advocacy.
So one of the things that we do is, uh, collecting qualitative and quantitative data, um,
in the places where you offer a humanitarian response and that allows us to really tailor what we are doing,
but also advocate to respond to these, uh, human rights violations and ensure that duty bearers fulfil their obligations.
For example, between November 2023 and October 2024.
94% of the people that we've reached who were, um,
transiting Mexico or where in Mexico have been victims or have had witnessed some type of violence during their journey.
And those type of violence will have been robbery, extortion, but also kidnapping.
94% is it's a very high number and it's very important to see the magnitude of that.
That means that we are talking about very vulnerable individuals.
So when we see that, and at the same time, we look at the combination of overwhelmed asylum systems, not only in Mexico but throughout the region.
Limited pathways for regular migration, increasing restrictions to access your, uh, to US territory.
We see migrants who are in Mexico now waiting in a more precarious condition.
And we see also, at the regional level, a shift, uh, towards a securitisation approach to migration management instead of a human rights approach.
And that leaves people on the move at very high risk throughout the journey, but also pushes them to opt for more dangerous routes.
In many cases, these routes are controlled by organised crime.
So again, it's a perfect combination for a protection crisis.
People on the move have become also a commodity. And Maria Elena, I was just going to ask you were talking there in one direction.
People who were, uh, who were trying to get to the US or trying to get somewhere else.
Mara spoke about people who in the future might be returning.
Do you see the work to kind of highlight who might never have been in Mexico or haven't been there for a very long time?
Um, do you see the challenges with working with that group as different?
Or do you actually think that some of them will be quite similar, or that that will just be additional pressure that's added into the system?
I think it's an additional pressure added to the system when we when we look at the profiles of Transit Mexico, it's it's a variety.
That's impressive. Um, it's people from all around the world and everyone will experience those human rights violations quite differently.
The vulnerability will increase. For example, if a person does not speak the language, the ability will increase, um,
depending on, um, the appearance of the person or the type of networks that they will have.
So there's many perceptions. For example, that certain population groups are a better target for organised crime.
So again, when we look at these flows, it's not that one way street.
It's uh, it's more complicated. And I think that for humanitarian organisations also create a lot of, uh, a lot of challenges,
because by the time people on the move reach the, the maritime border, they have already experienced some form of abuse in their journey.
And those journeys can be two weeks, can be six months have gone, uh, through different countries,
many countries where they might have experienced other types of violations,
including very serious human rights violations such as sexual and gender based violence, torture and arbitrary detention.
So for aid, for NGOs in general, this is very concerning.
Absolutely. April. Um, Maria Lynn used a really, uh, interesting phrase that which was rendered invisible.
Um, this idea that the the people at the heart of this often, um,
aren't really seen in these kind of large scale geopolitical currents that are and batting people back and forth or,
um, or the, the politics of the situation. And I know that you've done some work in your research of trying to kind of bring forward,
in some creative ways, the voices of people who otherwise might be quite voiceless in this process.
And I just wondered if you could tell us a little bit about that.
Yeah, I think it's very important, as Marielena was mentioning, to, uh,
keep in mind this intersectional approach and the fact that everybody is coping,
uh, differently to, to these obstacles and oppressive structures depending on the different markers of identity and, and other aspects.
So, yes, for my doctoral research, I collaborated with women and gender diverse migrants to explore how migration experiences transform migrants,
agency and open some ambivalent opportunities for empowerment.
And I use participatory arts based research methods to engage with my collaborators and explore these issues.
So. But it took a bit about art itself and and art as a useful tools to exercise collective agency and achieve goals.
And I would like to share when the case of one of my collaborators who told me about her
engagement with an arts collective that performed social theatre in the streets of Tijuana,
uh, bordering, uh, San Diego in the US, she she fled what they did to gender based violence.
And she was amongst the many victims of child, uh, theft in her country.
Her child was taken away from her about 20 years ago, and she endured different forms of violence in her home country until she fled.
So she participated in, in this, uh, street theatre collective.
And she took part of several performances, appeared on TV in several occasions.
So this exposure helped her not only to express and raise a deep concerns, healthy, uh uh,
emotions and grievance around her, her losses and violent experience that she had endured.
But it also helped her connect with the Catholic priest and migrants.
Right. Defenders, uh, very well known Alessandra La Linda, who helped him, uh, reunite with her with her children in Mexico.
So art space initiatives can serve as platforms for migrants to accept, express and resist oppressive structures,
raise awareness of their lived experiences, and also foster empathy and solidarity within broader communities.
So in Tapachula and Tijuana, some of my collaborators.
So Tapachula in the south, bordering with the Mala Tijuana bordering the US, some of them mentioned murals,
murals around the cities created by migrants in collaboration with local artists and supported by organisations visualising their journeys,
their struggles in strength and resilience. So, of course, these are artistic initiatives cannot directly resolve the challenges that migrants face,
but they contribute to advocacy efforts for policy change.
They foster environmental migrants, feel represented and valued and support their psychological, uh, coping strategies.
And they are a way for migrants themselves, not organisations, but for migrants themselves to speak from their own platforms, from their own voices.
But where there is oppressive power, there is resistance, and there are opportunities for transformation and expansion of agency.
Thanks so much, April. Mara.
Turning back to the US and I guess sort of fairly stark contrast, perhaps, to the individual stories that Abril is sharing in the 2024 election.
We know that immigration was kind of the number one issue for late breaking Trump voters, according to the exit polls,
and that was with a kind of particular focus on the southern border and migration from Mexico,
dating right back to when Trump first arrived on the scene back in 2015.
There's a very stark contrast there between the way that that migration is presented in political narratives.
That's actually proved very enduring, and what Abril has been talking about, about a kind of reframing or different understanding of that migration.
The contribution that you described earlier, that it makes, um, both economically and culturally.
And I wondered if you could say a little bit about why this negative narrative has proved so enduring and what might come next.
First, to clarify the border between Mexico and the US.
In other words, you Mexican, the U.S. it is a border between the global North and the global South.
It is a border between the US and Latin.
America, which is very clear in the racist tones of everything we heard from convict Trump during the past year,
and Eddie Sawyer that there's a racist,
xenophobic intent against migrants of colour who are arriving at the border, specifically Latin American migrants.
It is not. The Ukrainians, for example, receive a different treatment during their own crisis.
And until now, Latin American migrants from all nationalities are at risk of human rights violations at the border.
It is not only Mexicans regarding resistance to those narratives and to these measures in general within the US.
As I mentioned before, I live in Northern California. I live a very, very far away from the border.
It would be a 12 hour ride if I wanted to go by car, but here there is a lot of resistance to and when it comes to government,
land and resistance and in by my own policies, there is a re known a US national policy called sanctuary cities.
There are 11 sanctuary states in the US, and there are dozens of tens and tens of sanctuary counties and cities.
They were created during the Army in the 19th to protect migrants from the Northern Triangle of Central America, who were fleeing civil war or so on.
Natural hazards on my went from all over the world not to be deported.
So what these sanctuary jurisdictions do is to have ordinances, policies,
a measure of net to provide help to the federal government in their deportation projects.
Um, and that would be a government in response.
But there's also NGO organisation, there's a network of their rapid response networks in California,
uh, across the state, not only in the border, but also here in Northern California and beyond.
What they do is to be very aware of Ice raids.
For those who are not familiar with their situation during the last Trump administration,
the way he was able to deport 1.5 million people was by ramping up Ice raids.
So these means that Ice, which is a type of law enforcement,
would go to workplaces or to public spaces or to people's houses to arrest them and start the deportation process.
These networks were created to, um, first of all,
provide legal information to undocumented migrants because many times they don't know that they can avoid,
they can prevent speaking to Ice policemen or Ice representatives.
So that is important also to give them information about family reunification and family separation,
and also to be present at those raids to try to protect these migrant rights.
All of the networks, all of the NGOs that participate in them are grassroots organisations, community based organisations.
The governor of California, who of course is a Democrat,
and in fact many other Democrat governors and politicians have also expressed their support to migrants.
And so the order has already mentioned that he is going to provide more funding
to these community based networks so that they can also ramp up their efforts,
because it will be necessary during the upcoming four year.
Thousands of people marched across 70 city.
Some cities have more than one might have been more or less.
And the series to show resistance and show that we think that these measures are crucial not only migration measures but also,
um, reproductive health and other human rights that will be affected during the Trump presidency.
And that is the most important factor, I think all of these that we are going to continue resisting these measures,
that we are going to continue being active members of our communities like we already are,
between parentheses, many undocumented migrants now are in fear of being deported.
So they go from work to their homes. This is also one of the consequences of these deportations, even if they don't happen at all,
are already having the consequence of infusing anxiety, uncertainty and fear in the American population.
Fighting against these is extremely important. It will be crucial in the next four years.
And for that, these type. Of mass demonstrations against the measure will be very important.
Thank you. Mara. Maria Elena. I thought it was really interesting.
Mara's characterisation of the borders between the global north and global South.
And that is a good example of the kind of bind in a way that Mexico is in,
and where it's stuck between these different situations that are not of its own creation, but it's impacted.
And I just wonder, you know, obviously you don't have a crystal ball, you don't know what's going to happen.
But how is this rhetoric and policy seen in Mexico in terms of public opinion and the NGOs working in the ground,
but also in terms of government policy and the way that they understand how this will impact what's happening over that.
There is a popular saying in Mexico that we are too close from the US and too far from God, and I think that's, um.
Uh, it's very colloquial, but sometimes in this, in these situations, uh, it's very accurate.
I think what might describe this very important.
Well, we have not seen the real implications of these political changes, and they have to materialise.
Uh, as we record these episodes, we still have to see how they're going to come into effect.
But there is a high probability that if the forecast we are expecting is, uh, it's aligned with these policies.
The humanitarian situation in Mexico will exacerbate.
And along with the um, associated protection risks that I described.
And the reality is that migration has always happened in the Americas.
Uh, this is not going to change. I've already discussed, uh, that Mexico is a transit destination, an origin country.
But Mexico also has many Americans and Canadians living in Mexico.
In fact, Americans are the first nationality in Mexico.
So this type of, um, of rhetoric. But but does is, is kind of exacerbates this imaginary idea of who are the migrants?
What is the danger, uh, etc.
And I think that this is very problematic as it resonates with multiple disparate discriminatory practices and insane phobia.
Um, but it also consolidates a shift, um, in duty bearers towards not meeting their human rights obligations.
And we see this around the world. I think that it is going to continue happening is that, uh,
migrants will end up using unsafe pathways, and they will be left at the mercy of organised crime.
Uh, in parallel with the idea of a more militarised, uh, immigration system in Mexico,
it will have, um, a very complicated effect on migrants themselves.
But I think that what happens is that this, uh, border that Mara was talking about, it keeps on being pushed.
Push south. So it's not only that imaginary border between the global north and the global South,
between the U.S. and Mexico, but the border keeps on being pushed.
To what? Similar to the Salvador, to Panama, to Colombia.
So that is also very important. The pressure will increase.
Um, elsewhere.
What we see from our evidence is that, uh, 94% of the migrants that we interviewed will face a risk if they were to return to their home country,
and 51% of those profiles are in need of international protection.
So that means that their their lives will be at risk if they were to return to their country.
Uh, that pressure will be wherever the border moves south.
So that leaves Mexico with, uh, in a situation where the asylum system is already overwhelmed.
That has a lot of challenges. But at the same time, Mexico may not be the safest country, uh, for many migrants.
So, um, it's very likely that migrants will stay in Mexico for a longer period of time in very precarious conditions,
with limited options to access protection.
The most important part is thinking about how to strengthen civil society organisation, uh, local networks, NGOs,
both national and international, into providing that support to refugees and migrants, uh, in Mexico and throughout the region.
We need to think about how to create those avenues of resistance, but also empowerment and enabling people to to claim their rights,
because at the end of the day, uh, states do have an obligation beyond this political rhetoric towards migrants, regardless of their status.
A moment of profound uncertainty and worry, I guess.
But thank you so much to all of you for your really important insights on both sides of that border,
and trying to understand and unpicks with what's going on.
Thank you. You've been listening to the Migration Oxford podcast.
I'm Jacki Brodhead, and I'm Rob McNeil.