The tendency to the militarization of migration issues
In June 2024 in Mexico City, members of the National Guard and the INM evicted a large number of migrants from the Giordana Bruno plaza, located in the center of the city. The authorities removed all the tents and temporary shelters to clean the streets (Flores 2024). The INM and the National Guard transferred all the people out of the city without prior information. According to the information provided by the authorities, the immigrants were transferred to Morelos, Puebla, Hidalgo, Aguascalientes, and a large part of them to Chiapas. This type of actions violates the right of the people who have begun their local process in Mexico City, and if they are transferred to other cities without their consent, they will not be able to continue with their applications for refugee status.
From a legal perspective, many of the migration laws in Latin America have taken a step forward in recognizing and adopting a human rights perspective (Ceriani 2019). This humanitarian approach could be seen in the ratification of many international treaties promoted by the United Nations (UN) related to the freedom of movement and the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM). However, we can also observe a tendency to securitize the borders and use the military to control and stop the migrants. As Pablo Ceriani (2018) has pointed out, many Latin American countries have adopted a national security approach to migration that contradicts human rights principles.
This tendency to securitize the borders of nation-states is especially strong in countries of the global North that see the migration coming from the global south as a threat to their national security. In terms of Latin America migration, Mexico plays a significant role as transit and country of origin. Because of its geographical position and its proximity to the Unites States, different waves of migrants coming from the south and central America, but also coming from Africa transit through the country. This increase of people reaching the U.S from Mexico has resulted in a reinforcement of the migration policy.
The Mexican government is focused on stopping the flows, to achieve this goal, the borders, especially in the south, are being secured and the authorities have recently tended to control passports and access to the national territory. At the beginning of 2024, according to the Secretaría de Gobernación (2024) more than 130 countries required a visa to enter to Mexico. Some Latin American countries that required this official document are Brazil, Cuba, Dominicana, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, Perú and Venezuela.[1]
The illusion of the human rights
In 2018 with the arrival of Andrés Manuel López Obrador to presidency, the state´s approach to migration will follow a human rights perspective. The president presented a new migration policy (Nueva Política Migratoria del Gobierno de México 2018-2024) which was concentrated on migran´s rights and the social and economic development of the country. This policy was aligned to the principles established in the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, ratified by the Mexican government in December 2018. With the ratification of this compact, all members should work to respect, protect, and fulfill the human rights of migrants, regardless of their legal status (United Nations 2019).
The new policy was based on the principles of full respect for human rights, inclusion and gender perspective. The main purpose of the document was to generate “results, which dignified the treaty to the migrants, recognizing their positive contribution to the destination, transit and return countries” (Nueva Política Migratoria del Gobierno de México 2024: 9).[2] Although this law is open to all migrants, it has been specially targeted at the marginalized groups such as pregnant women, indigenous communities, children and young people, elderly people, members of the LGBTI community and people with some disabilities.
The militarization of migration: the case of the Guardia Nacional
According to the Migration Law, the only institution able to control and manage the detection of migrants is the National Migration Institute (Instituto Nacional de Migración (INM)). However, because of the Guardia Nacional (National Guard)´s creation in 2019, the president López Obrador gave the National Guard many facilities, one of which was to offer “assistance” in the control and verification of migration.[3] Nevertheless, as some social and academic institutions have pointed out, in most cases the INM neither supervises nor coordinates the National Guard. Thus, this institution is deployed in terrestrial and maritime borders, in revision points and supervises the migrations stations located in the country. This huge liberty gave the Guard the possibility to act without any supervision and to follow its own approaches.
The National Guard (NG) was founded in 2019 by the president López Obrador as a public security institution with a civilian, disciplined and professional character. The Guard was created to take control of public security and, when the occasion requires, to collaborate in security tasks that correspond to federal or municipal entities (Ley de la Guardia Nacional 2019). In the last years, the Guard has reproduced a military approach and more than a civil institution, it has been an extension of the military forces. Just at the end of 2023 the Republic Senate (2023) showed that 8 out of every 10 members of the Guard were part of the armed forces, either from the Secretary of the Interior (Secretaría de Defensa Nacional SEDENA) or the Secretary of the Navy (Secretaría de Marina SEMAR).
Since the collaboration of the National Guard with the INM, the migration issue has experienced an evident militarization and securization (Ortega Ramírez & Morales Gámez 2021; Moncada & Rojas 2022; Brewer & Verduzco 2023, IBERO 2024). This militarization can be seen on many levels. One of them are the reforms and structural changes that the INM has undergone in recent months. Within the institute, a tendency to work hand in hand with the armed forces has been promoted. As of the end of June 2024, in 21 out of 32 states in Mexico, the person in charge of the INM is or has been a member of the armed forces (Santos Cid 2024). The National Guard is present not only at the administrative level, but also at the strategic and operational levels. Both institutions, the National Guard and the INM have implemented many strategies to reduce the number of migrants reaching the United States.
Based on the actions taken by both institutions in the last months, I can identify at least five patters. The first is the one related to the reinforcement of the legal corpus to complicate all the processes related to the asylum request and visa expedition. The process of obtaining a visa or a permit to stay in the country has been strengthened and the institutions are asking for more proofs to approve the legal stay of migrants. The second pattern is about the increase of vigilance and control of people. This has been translated into the deployment of armed members at the border, the control of passports on roads, in buses, bus terminals, airports, and border zones. The third has to do with the relocation of people camping on the streets waiting for their regularization process. The number four is the detention of people who do not have the documents required by the authorities, and finally, the last one that I can identify is deportation. The deportation could happen after the relocations and the detention or also after the denial of the visa of the refugee status.
In 2021, according to the National Guard Annual Activity Report (Informe Annual de Actividades de la Guardia Nacional) approximately 2148 members of the National Guard were involved in migration issues, most of them were located at the southern border 1235, meanwhile around 913 were on the northern. As the document showed, soldiers participated in 41 repatriation flights, assisted 2 419 migration transfers, made 268 vigilance flights and 732 worked as security support for the INM personal.
As the IBERO report (2024) points out, the presence of the national Guard has resulted in more human rights violations, the increase of massive deportations and the reinforcement of transit restrictions for those who want to go to the northern states from México. Since the arrival of Andrés Manuel and the implementation of the National Guard the incarceration rates have reached historic levels. Just between January and May 2024, the number of arrests was three times higher than in the previous year (Vaquero Simancas 2024). Arrests have reached historic levels; just from 2018 to 2024, the number has increased almost 7 times. In 2018, the number of undocumented immigrants detained by the Mexican authorities was 131 445, and between January and June 2024, the number was 712 226, in the following months this number can reached the million (Unidad de Política Migratoria 2024).
This tendency to arrest people is followed by the use of force by members of the National Guard. The IBERO report (2024) indicates that many civil organizations have shown the disproportionate use of force during operations, detentions and relocations. In 202, the National Human Rights Commission (Comisión Nacional de Derechos Humanos (CNDH)) presented a recommendation on the excessive use of fore by the members of the Migration Institute, the NG and the Security Secretary (IBERO 2024). As the report points out, in many cases the authorities of the Guard used weapons and military equipment.
At the beginning of the migrant caravans in 2018, the government of López Obrador offered thousands of humanitarian visas to all these migrants from Central America who were seeking asylum in Mexico or simply wanted to cross the country safely. But even this policy has changed, and the number of visas has dropped dramatically, Between January and May 2024, the government issued 1 243 humanitarian visas, a small number compared to the 68 243 visas from the same period in 2023 (Vaquero Simancas 2024).
As can be seen, the participation of the National Guard, which acts as a military force, has increased the violence against migrants crossing the country. Although the new migration policy promoted by López Obrador exalts the human rights, in practice we can see that the policy has turned into the militarization of migration, which results in the huge number of detentions and the minimum number of visas granted by the Mexican state.
References:
Benítez Manaut, R., & Gómez Sánchez, Elisa. (Eds.) (2021). Fuerzas Armadas, Guardia Nacional y violencia en México. Friedrich Ebert Stiftung. CASADE. México.
Brewer, Stephanie; Verduzco, Ana Lucía. (2023). Transformación Militarizada. En Derechos humanos y controles democráticos en un contexto de creciente militarización en México. Ciudad de México.
Cámara de Diputados de H. Congreso de la Unión. Ley de la Guardia Nacional (2019). Diario Oficial de la Federación. México.
Ceriani Cernadas, Pablo (2018). Migration Policies and Human Rights in Latin America. Progressive practices, old challenges, Worrying setback and new threats. Policy Brief.
Flores, Silvana. (2024, junio 05). “Migración y Guardia Nacional desalojan campamentos de migrantes en la plaza Giordano Bruno en la CDMX”. Animal Político. https://animalpolitico.com/estados/desalojan-migrantes-plaza-giordano-bruno
Guardia Nacional (2022). Informe Anual de Actividades Guardia Nacional 2021. México.
IBERO. (2024) La militarización del Instituto Nacional de Migración y sus implicaciones en las violaciones a derechos humanos de las personas migrantes. Ciudad de México. México.
IBD. (2021). Migration Policy Regimes in Latin America and the Caribbean. Human Mobility Governance Series.
Ortega Ramírez, Adriana Sletza; Morales Gámez, Luis Miguel. (2021). (In)seguridad, derechos y migración. La Guardia Nacional en operativos migratorios en México. Revista del Instituto de Ciencias Jurídicas de Puebla. México. pp. 157-182.
Moncada, Alicia; Rojas, Eduardo. (2022). Bajo la bota. Militarización de la política migratoria en México. Fundación para la Justicia y el Estado Democrático de Derecho, México.
Santos Cid, Alejandro. (2024, junio 24). “Esto ya no es una cárcel: dentro del rehabilitado “centro de retención” de migrantes en Tapachula”. El País. https://elpais.com/mexico/2024-06-24/esto-ya-no-es-una-carcel-dentro-del-rehabilitado-centro-de-retencion-de-migrantes-en-tapachula.html
Secretaria de Gobernación (2024, marzo 1). “Países y regiones que requieren visa para viajar a México”. Instituto Nacional de Migración. https://www.inm.gob.mx/gobmx/word/index.php/paises-requieren-visa-para-mexico/
Senado de la República. (2023 diciembre 17) “Ocho de cada 10 elementos de la Guardia Nacional son de origen militar, destaca estudio del IBD”. https://comunicacionsocial.senado.gob.mx/informacion/comunicados/7872-ocho-de-cada-10-elementos-de-la-guardia-nacional-son-de-origen-militar-destaca-estudio-del-ibd
Strauss Center for International Security and Law (2020). Las políticas migratorias de Andrés Manuel López Obrador en México. Austin. The University of Texas. Texas.
United Nations (2019) Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 19 December 2018. https://documents.un.org/doc/undoc/gen/n18/451/99/pdf/n1845199.pdf?token=Fskyjz9rZIAoh0YpfS&fe=true
Unidad de Política Migratoria, Registro e Identidad de Personas. (2019). Nueva Política Migratoria del Gobierno de México 2018-2024. Secretaria de Gobernación, México.
Vaquero Simancas, Jorge. (2024, julio 9). “México acelera más de un 200% la detención de migrantes”. El País. https://elpais.com/mexico/2024-07-09/mexico-acelera-mas-de-un-200-la-detencion-de-migrantes.html
[1] For further detail see Ley de la Guardia Nacional published on Diario Oficial de la Federación, México, 2019.
[2] I translated the original text to English.
[3] To see the list in detail access https://www.gob.mx/inm/documentos/paises-y-regiones-que-requieren-visa-para-viajar-a-mexico
Tags: México
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