Nice words but lousy action: Mexico’s migration governance

Guest post by Amalia Campos-Delgado. Amalia is Assistant Professor of Law & Society at the Van Vollenhoven Institute for Law, Governance and Society, Leiden University. She holds a PhD in Politics from Queen’s University Belfast and is member of the Mexican National System of Researchers -SNI, Level 1. Her research interests include border securitisation, externalisation of borders, immigration-control bureaucracies, and migrant care work (X: @amalia_cd). This is the fourth post in the Border Criminologies' Global Compacts Thematic Series. 

Does Mexico, as one of the promoters and signatories of the Global Compact on Migration (GCM), match its words with its actions? At the risk of spoiling this post (and scaring the audience) the short answer is no. The values extolled at the international level on migration governance and migrants’ human rights do not translate into real action. In my article, I draw on document analysis, archival information, and interviews with irregularised migrants in Mexico and use the concepts of euphemisms and dysphemisms to delve into various settings in which this mismatch is evident. 

Actions speak louder than words

At the Intergovernmental Conference on the Global Compact for Migration in Morocco in December 2018, the back then Mexico’s Foreign Affairs Secretary, Marcelo Ebrad delivered an emotional and progressive speech in which he questioned the exclusion and criminalisation of migration, as well as close-door policies. Mexico, he told his fellow representatives, “is going to make you proud of the Compact we have adopted for safe, orderly and regular migration. We are going to change things and our actions will prove the truth of our words”.

However, the years that followed his moving speech were a grim confirmation that words do not always translate into deeds, and that actions speak louder than words. Mexico did not become a country that respects and defends the human rights of irregular migrants on its territory, nor did it become a safe place for those in search of a better life; rather, violence and abuses have drastically increased in comparison with previous years. 

Euphemistic rhetoric and dysphemistic practices... or kind words and mean actions

The discourse of migration governance in Mexico is full of euphemistic tropes, ranging from the framing of Central American migrants as ‘siblings’ (nuestros hermanos centroamericanos), to the administrative and on-the-ground language. For example, the apprehension of migrants is called aseguramientos (assurances); when migrants are in the custody of the Mexican Migration Institute, they are not referred to as detainees, but are said to be alojados (housed); immigration detention facilities are referred as estaciones/estancias migratorias (migration stations/migration stays). 

While euphemistic rhetoric conceals the brutal reality experienced by irregularised migrants in Mexico, the practices of blatant brutality are simultaneously applied within the country, intentionally aiming at aggravating migrants' experiences. In short, Mexico’s actions are the embodiment of dysphemistic practices.

Ernesto, a male migrant from Honduras, summarised this rationale of Mexican migration enforcement: ‘the problem’, he said, ‘is that they think: if I treat him well he will return, but if I treat him badly he will wish he had not come here, he will not return’ . By reflecting on his own experience in Acayucan, Veracruz, where he was denied medical attention, Ernesto poignantly unravelled the use of cruel and illegal practices as a strategy to deter migration. 

In my article, I point to three dysphemistic practices in the context of migrant detention: (i) bureaucratic negligence, referring to the deprivation of migrants’ access to and violation of their rights, either through intentional misinformation about administrative processes and/or the underperformance of state agents in these procedures; (ii) precarious and abysmal infrastructure, pointing to the appalling infrastructure of detention centres, where conditions are intentionally degrading and hostile to irregularised migrants; and (iii) temporal borders and spatial fixation,  problematising the use of time and spatial management mechanisms as an extension of the apparatus of punishment and migration deterrence. However, it should be noted that, as the vast literature on violence and hostility experienced by migrants on their journey demonstrates, these practices are not limited to this domain, but are present in all areas of migration law enforcement.

Deadly consequences

On 28 March 2023, the massacre of migrants in the custody of the Mexican authorities in Ciudad Juarez became a grim reminder of the mismatch between Mexico’s international commitments to protect migrants and reality. This case showed the lethality of the dysphemistic practices in migrant detention, as well as the widespread use of euphemistic terms by the government apparatus to sugarcoat the deplorable circumstances faced by detainees. This massacre shed light on the indolence of the government, but also of the population, which,confronted with the horrors of its own daily life, is gradually losing its capacity for shock and outrage at the horrors faced by migrants in the country.

However, it is crucial to say that the Mexican case is not an exception, but an example of the two-faced nature of global migration management. The lauded promotion of international agreements, such as the GCM, that extol the protection of migrants’ human rights and serve as a platform for state representatives to adopt a strong moral position and be applauded, while these same agreements serve as the basis for the securitisation of border partnerships and public policies that restrict mobility and limit and violate migrants’ human rights. The reality, then, is that irregularised migrants around the world suffer daily from the harsh, brutal and, in most cases, deadly dysphemistic practices of states that, despite their adherence to these conventions, act brazenly and with impunity.

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