12 research outputs found
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The Implementation and Legacy of Mexico’s Southern Border Program, PRP 208
Over the last two decades, Mexico has enacted multiple domestic programs and international
initiatives to manage the movement of migrants and illicit goods across its southern border states. In July 2014, Mexico launched its most recent major initiative, the Southern Border Program (Programa Frontera Sur), amid the arrival of an unprecedented number of Central American minors traveling through Mexico to the U.S.-Mexico border. This report provides an analysis of Mexico’s Southern Border Program, setting it within a historical context, describing the program and its consequences, and examining its legacy.Public Affair
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Central American Refugees in Mexico: Barriers to Legal Status, Rights, and Integration, PRP 206
Mexico’s migratory laws outline a robust framework for refugee integration, but there are challenges with fulfilling the legal mandates. One primary challenge is a lack of institutional support for improving refugee integration at the federal, state, and municipal levels of government. In particular, financial resources and personnel have not kept pace with the increasing number of
refugee applications, leaving COMAR without the capacity to fully address the current situation. To fill the gaps, civil society actors have stepped in, but their efforts cannot substitute for developing long-term institutional capacity.
In addition to large-scale structural barriers, refugees face challenges in attempting to access employment, healthcare, and education. These challenges include but are not limited to low wages, informality, job market saturation, difficulty accessing financial institutions, burdensome bureaucracy, and a general lack of information about rights and procedures. This combination of challenges complicates refugees’ integration into Mexican society.Public Affair
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Mexico’s Migratory Policy Regarding Unaccompanied Minors: Obstacles to Accessing Services & Protections, PRP 205
This report explores the dynamics surrounding Central American unaccompanied minors in Mexico and their access to the country’s protection system. Since 2009, the number of unaccompanied minors from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras has increased significantly. Between 2009 and 2018, Mexican immigration officials apprehended approximately 80,000 unaccompanied minors, and hundreds of thousands more migrated through Mexico undetected. This report focuses specifically on Mexico’s immigration system for unaccompanied minors who are apprehended, and these minors’ ability to access legally guaranteed protections.Public Affair
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The Impact of Securitization on Central American Migrants, PRP 199
This report evaluates Mexico’s migratory policies as well as the legal mandates of government bodies whose agents regularly interact with Central American migrants. It documents advances such as the decriminalization of irregular migration and the enactment of laws that protect certain high-risk groups. It also covers backsliding, such as when migratory officials and police officers fail to comply with Mexico's migratory laws. Additionally, the report describes the abuse of authority, corruption, and high rates of impunity within the Mexican federal agencies tasked with implementing migration policy.
For over a decade, Mexico’s government has increasingly viewed migration policy as a national security issue. This report will examine how Mexico adopted this lens and how a national security approach affects migrants traveling through the country. Increased levels of militarization along Mexico’s southern border have coincided with elevated rates of detention and deportations for irregular migrants. These policies—including the most recent Southern Border Plan of 2014—have pushed migrants away from populated areas with heavier law enforcement presences, increasing their exposure to environmental and criminal risks. This report demonstrates how restrictive migration policies affect the risks that migrants encounter during their journeys through Mexico. It draws on data obtained from transparency requests, publicly available reports, and an original Migrant Risk Database.
Finally, this report makes several recommendations to various Mexican agencies and organizations involved in migration policy. These recommendations aim to improve security for migrants transiting through Mexico. They also seek to enhance institutional effectiveness in agencies that deal with migrants. They generally represent short-term steps that could be implemented by the next Mexican presidential administration to improve protections for migrants and the country’s overall migratory policy. However, for significant progress, Mexico will need to better address systemic issues that endanger migrants, including corruption, rule of law and access to justice, and the control of transnational criminal organizations.Public Affair
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Mexico’s Migratory Detention System, PRP 207
This report examines the evolution of Mexico’s migratory detention system, particularly with respect to legislative changes in 2008 and 2011 that decriminalized migration. Until 2008, irregular migration was a criminal offense, punishable with fines and jail time. In 2008, Mexican policymakers removed the prison sentences attached to irregular migration and turned it into an administrative infraction. This change was solidified in the 2011 Migratory Act. However, despite Mexico’s decriminalization of irregular migration, migrants continue to be detained in prison-like detention centers. This report examines Mexico’s current detention system and evaluates detention conditions across the country.Public Affair
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Organized Crime and Central American Migration in Mexico, PRP 198
The following report was researched and written in response to a request by the Mexican Federal Police for an evaluation of the interactions between organized crime and Central American migrants transiting through Mexico. Given that protecting migrants and combating organized criminal groups both fall within the Federal Police’s mandate, this evaluation also outlines how protecting migrants can help deprive organized criminal groups of a lucrative funding source.
Part 1 of this report provides background information on Central American migration to and through Mexico, including current migratory trends, their causes, and high-risk groups. Part 2 examines Mexico’s federal legal and institutional frameworks for addressing migration. Part 3 focuses on the interactions between organized crime and migrants and concludes with an
evaluation of current crime prevention policies. Finally, the report concludes in Part 4 with the laws and policies that govern the interactions between Federal Police forces and migrants and outlines international best practices for guiding these interactions.Public Affair
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Migrant Protection Protocols: Implementation and Consequences for Asylum Seekers in Mexico, PRP 218
In November 2018, the United States and Mexico negotiated the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP). Before MPP, asylum seekers were allowed to wait in the United States during their asylum cases. However, with MPP, asylum seekers are now forced to wait in Mexican border cities as their cases move through the U.S. immigration system. In January 2019, U.S. officials began to implement MPP in San Diego and then extended the program across the rest of the border. As of April 2020, more than 64,000 asylum seekers had been returned to Mexico as part of the program.
The majority of the asylum seekers returned to Mexico under MPP are from the Northern Triangle of Central America, although individuals from other nationalities have also been put in the program. As of March 2020, the highest number of MPP returnees were from Honduras, accounting for 35 percent of individuals in the program. This was followed by asylum seekers
from Guatemala (24 percent), Cuba (12.7 percent), and El Salvador (12.5 percent).
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers have exempted some groups from MPP, including unaccompanied minors, Mexican citizens, non-Spanish speakers (although Brazilians were eventually included), and asylum seekers in certain “special circumstances.” However, CBP officers have discretion regarding who is subject to the program, and these exemptions have not
been consistently implemented. Additionally, CBP officers have also included members of “highrisk populations” in MPP, such as pregnant women, LGBTQ+ individuals, minors, and people who are disabled.
Once asylum seekers are returned to Mexico, they face various challenges. Although the Mexican Migratory Law of 2011 guarantees asylum seekers the right to healthcare and education in Mexico, it can be difficult to access these services. Asylum seekers are also responsible for acquiring their own housing, even though they often have few resources. Further, they must navigate these situations while at risk of violence from criminal organizations or predatory actors. Criminal groups often target asylum seekers because they have no local ties or community and because they often have friends and family in the United States who can pay their ransom.
This report recommends that MPP be immediately discontinued. However, understanding that this may be difficult in the short term, this report provides additional recommendations to address the most egregious conditions under MPP.These include improving safety for asylum seekers, excluding at-risk populations, and providing asylum seekers with greater access to due process and legal representation.Public Affair
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Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s Migratory Policy in Mexico, PRP 216
On December 1, 2018, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador assumed office and promised to change Mexico’s migratory policy. Initially, López Obrador championed a humanitarian approach to migration, placing migrant rights defenders in key policy positions and directing INM to issue an unprecedented number of humanitarian visas. However, this approach
did not last. By June 2019, amid intense U.S. pressure, the López Obrador administration shifted its migratory strategy to an enforcement-based approach. As a result, Mexico has increased its number of apprehensions, detentions, and deportations. This report will detail López Obrador’s migratory policy and its consequences during his administration’s first year in office.
This report’s first chapter focuses on Central Americans’ decisions to migrate to Mexico and the United States. It covers the factors that historically led people to leave their homes, including civil wars and natural disasters, which set in motion today’s migration patterns. It also looks at the current factors driving migration, such as gang and gender-based violence, political instability, and a lack of economic opportunity. The report’s second chapter outlines Mexico’s legal framework for migration, which guides the López Obrador administration’s response to Central American migration. It also provides an overview of each Mexican federal agency involved in migratory policy.
This report’s third chapter covers the López Obrador administration’s migratory policies, starting with the initial push toward a more humanitarian focused policy. It also explores the López Obrador administration’s Central American development programs and the mounting challenges for Mexico’s underfunded refugee resettlement agency. Finally, the chapter also outlines the administration’s shift to an enforcement strategy and the National Guard’s deployment to the southern border.
The fourth chapter chronicles these migratory policies’ effects. It covers the policies’ effects for Mexico’s foreign relations, state and local level governments, civil society organizations, Mexican citizens, and Central American migrants transiting through the country. In particular it details how these policies have shifted migrants’ transit routes, increased crimes against migrants, and ongoing xenophobic attitudes in Mexico.
This report concludes with a series of recommendations for improving Mexico’s migratory policies. These include: 1) putting Mexico’s Ministry of the Interior back in control of the country’s migratory policy; 2) strengthening INM’s commitment to human rights through improved training and better infrastructure; 3); increasing the number of legal channels for Central Americans to work in Mexico; 4) expanding funding for Mexico’s refugee resettlement agency; 5) streamlining Central American development programs; and 6) reducing the National Guard’s role in migration enforcement.Public Affair
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Security Policy in Mexico:Â Recommendations for the 2018 Presidential Election, PRP 193
Public Affair