Breathe
By Cristina Reyes
June 20 marks World Refugee Day, which seeks to honor and dignify all people who for various reasons have had to migrate or have been displaced from their places of origin. In countries such as Mexico, human mobility has posed several challenges that have resulted in a migratory crisis, especially due to the militaristic approach of public policies aimed at containing the migratory flow.
Migration management in Mexico is characterized by prioritizing national security over the protection and respect for human rights, thanks to the influence of U.S. immigration policy. This perspective is known as securitization, and sustains that undocumented international migration is a national security problem, as if it were terrorism or foreign invasion, therefore, it feeds the narrative that it is a "threat" and reinforces the application of more restrictive and arbitrary measures against migrants.
Thus, in the face of a discourse that is admitted and replicated in the population of a country, people in public office choose to implement policies based on the securitarian model, in order to contain and control the supposed "danger" that migration implies. This has been the justification for Mexico's migration management policy to increasingly include the Armed Forces, with the objective of containing and deterring the mobility of people.
The militarization of migration in Mexico has resulted in an increase in human rights violations against people in transit through the country. Various civil society organizations, as well as international human rights mechanisms, have documented that migrants and asylum seekers are victims of mistreatment, arbitrary detention, deprivation of liberty, extortion, kidnapping and even forced disappearance. In particular, women and girls in a situation of mobility are systematically victims of sexual violence and human trafficking[1].
On many occasions, it is the military authorities that perpetrate or are involved in acts against the freedom, integrity and dignity of people in a situation of mobility. One of the most mediatic cases was the fire at a Migratory Station in Ciudad Juarez on March 27, 2023, in which migrants who were deprived of their freedom were not allowed to leave during the fire, and in this event 40 migrants were killed and 28 more were injured. The then delegate of the National Migration Institute (INM) in Chihuahua was a rear admiral who had retired from the Mexican Navy and was prosecuted for being considered one of those responsible for what happened at the station. He was charged with homicide and malicious injury, as well as improper exercise of public service.
According to the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH), among the main authorities involved in human rights violations against migrants are the INM, the National Guard -a security force that should be civilian but in whose composition 8 out of 10 members are military-, the Secretariat of National Defense (Sedena) and even the Secretariat of the Navy (Semar). The magnitude of the use of force by these authorities is excessive; they can even lethally attack people who do not represent risks or threats, simply because they are migrants.
Militarization is a trend that is not only reflected in migration management, it is also one of the global causes of the violence that drives people to leave their places of origin and has aggravated the refugee crisis, as we can see with the genocide in Gaza or the war in Ukraine. This is not a new phenomenon and, sadly, it has been increasing and has strengthened globally. In Mexico, the so-called war on drugs has resulted in the forced displacement of people in various municipalities. According to INEGI's 2020 Population and Housing Census (CENSO 2020), 262,411 people, the majority of whom were women (53%), reported having been forced to migrate internally due to insecurity and violence. This violence has not ceased despite the fact that the military deployment has been justified by the federal government precisely to eradicate it and, on the contrary, the violence has become more complex and aggravated.
On World Refugee Day, it is also important to raise awareness about the causes of forced mobilization by violence and the need to put people's human rights at the center. The militarization of security and migration management has not only aggravated the human rights crisis of people in mobility, it has also been an insufficient response to the phenomenon of migration. That is why in Mexico we must demand a significant limitation to the functions carried out by the Armed Forces in migration control tasks and, instead, that the federal government formulate public policies aimed at ensuring safe transit and effective refuge for those who request it. Above all, because in Mexico migration is not a crime, it is a human right.
About the author
Director of Strategic Litigation at México Unido Contra la Delincuencia A.C. (@MUCDOficial). Law degree from CIDE and specialist in Mexico's adversarial system from Escuela Libre de Derecho. Defender of children's and women's rights. She worked on the implementation of the adversarial criminal justice system in Mexico. In MUCD she has litigated cases against militarization and criminalization of cannabis users.
References
[1] McAuliffe, M. and A. Triandafyllidou (eds.), 2021. World Migration Report 2022, International Organization for Migration (IOM), Geneva, p. 277.
The opinions expressed are the responsibility of the authors and are absolutely independent of the position and editorial line of the company. Opinion 51.
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