Abstract

CASTILLO RAMIREZ, Guillermo. Securitization, borders production and Central American migrations in transit through Mexico during the covid-19 pandemic. Rev. colomb. soc. [online]. 2023, vol.46, n.2, pp.183-206.  Epub May 15, 2024. ISSN 0120-159X.  https://doi.org/10.15446/rcs.v46n2/101069.

In the context of the covid 19 contingency in Mexico, and from the approach of the theoretical proposal of the autonomy of migrations, this article, based on the review of various official sources and human rights reports on migrant populations in the pandemic, argues that, due to certain migration policies during the initial year of the health emergency (2020), the increase of state processes of territorial containment and border closures towards migrants originating from the North of Central America (NC) heading towards United States (us), and in irregular transit through Mexican territory. Both at the level of North and Central America, during the first year of the covid 19 emergency (2020) the Mexican territory served as a migratory control device on multiple scales: regional (in relation to the NC-Mexico-us migration corridor), national (about Mexico), and local (on the southern border with Guatemala and the northern border with the us). This was expressed in a border regime characterized by various policies, practices, and state discourses of the Mexican government on the control of cross-border mobilities of foreign populations, and strongly determined by the agenda of the (anti)immigrant policies of the us government of Donald Trump, in an explicit dynamic of externalization of borders (from the us to Mexico). This work shows how these processes were carried out through the productions of different borders. The borders not only materialized in obstacles and physical barriers (as walls, fences, sentry boxes). They were also expressed as surveillance and containment practices and actions towards migrant populations in transit (through checkpoints, deployment of security forces, immigration persecution operations, emptying of detention centers, and express deportations, among others). One of the contributions of this work is to show that, during the first year of the pandemic, migration from NC to the us decreased significantly. It is pointed out that this happened in the framework of the border securitization processes by the Mexican government, making the living and transit conditions of irregular migrants more precarious.

Keywords : border; Central America; covid 19; migrants; migration; securitization.

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