Last week, more than 55 migrants from Central America (mostly Guatemalans) who had been piled in the back of a tractor trailer died tragically in a wreck in Tuxtla Gutierrez, the capital of Mexico’s southernmost state, Chiapas. Dozens more were injured. The question is: what were migrants doing in Tuxtla Gutierrez? The answer lies in understanding the collateral consequences of Mexican immigration policy over the last decade.

Chiapas borders Guatemala, and many towns in Chiapas have long been part of migration routes through the state. But Tuxtla Gutierrez has never played a major role; the capital of the state is situated near the center of the state, far from the border, far from the railways that migrants often use to move, and between the two typical migrant routes that run through the extreme north and south of the sate (see image below). However, since 2014, when Mexico began aggressively setting up immigration checkpoints along traditional migrant routes in Southern Mexico, smugglers have been seeking new options. The lack of checkpoints along the roads to and from Tuxtla Gutierrez put the city on migrants’ and smugglers’ maps.

And with migrants comes opportunity for profit. Back in 2019, while doing fieldwork in the Tuxtla area, I took a taxi from Chiapa de Corzo to Tuxtla Gutierrez—the same road where the tractor trailer turned over last week. When I mentioned my research to the taxi driver, he told me that he charges the 500 pesos per person (around 30 USD at the time) to transport Central American migrants from one side of Tuxtla to the other. “You can make a lot of money because there are more and more migrants passing through here,” he told me. In Chiapas—the poorest state in Mexico—truck drivers and others in the transportation sector are also aware of the lucrative business of transporting migrants.

The trailer that turned over last week was is said to be transporting at least 152 migrants, an astonishing number of people that included many women and children who had likely been in the trailer for hours as the driver took alternative routes across the state seeking to avoid checkpoints. This volume is a testament to how Mexico’s increased effort to deter the movement of migrants has also met an ever-growing number of Central Americans trying to reach the United States. These detention efforts have not lead migrants and smugglers to give up—instead, they have sought new routes aimed at avoiding detention. These routes are not the fastest routes, nor are they the cheapest. But, they do aim to avoid authorities and road blocks and surveillance by authorities, in an effort to achieve the ultimate goal—avoiding deportation. And Tuxtla, a major city that is not traditionally part of the migrant route, has ample transportation options and that is busy enough to allow migrants to go undetected. Thus, it finds itself suddenly in the fold.

Though smugglers may be assisting migrants in avoiding deportation (after all, that is their business), the horrendous conditions in which migrants are smuggled are not to be downplayed. In addition to the risks of crashes and accidents, we must consider many other risks, like asphyxiation, dehydration, spending long hours in containers without food or bathroom, separation from family members, and the list goes on. And migrants are paying exorbitant prices to migrate in these conditions. In 2019, migrants told me that the cost of hiring a smuggler to reach the U.S. was between the eight and thirteen thousand dollars, meaning that, from the smugglers’ perspective, that trailer was carrying almost two million dollars in profits.In other words, poor migrants pay thousands of dollars to criminal groups to move in these conditions, because of the pressure of the risk of detention and deportation.

While the U.S. has managed to elude any responsibility for the conditions in Central America that generate migration, it should not be able to elude responsibility for the conditions in which these migrants are forced to move. Central Americans and migrants from other parts of the world place their lives (and those of their families) in the hands of traffickers, they ride on top of trains and walk thousands of miles in caravans, because of U.S. pressure on Mexico to keep them from ever reaching the U.S. border. Last week’s accident is a direct effect of that. But, as the last five years have shown, making the migrant journey more dangerous does not change migrants’ minds; instead, it creates a scenario where 153 people are crammed into the back of a tractor trailer and forced to move in precarious conditions. Last week, 55 people from Central American who were spouses, siblings, sons, daughters, cousins, and friends died unnecessarily in Mexico in a truck accident on a road bound for nowhere, while being cruelly smuggled to avoid Mexico’s detention and deportation apparatus being implemented at the behest (and on the dollar) of the United States.

Two weeks ago, a new migrant caravan departed Honduras for the U.S., setting off panic in the Guatemalan and Mexican governments, and triggering both countries to implement forceful anti-migrant measures. This caravan’s departure has not made major news in the U.S., but it is entirely predictable—my study of Central American minor migrants shows that the flow of Central American migrants is cyclical. While changes in policy and open threats against migrants can effect temporary decreases in the number of Central Americans headed for the U.S., the forces driving such migration are unaffected by these measures; the only lasting effect of anti-migrant policies like those currently being implemented in Mexico and Guatemala, at the behest of the U.S., is to increase human suffering.

The Cycle

A visualization of Border Patrol data on unaccompanied minors detained along the southwest border since 2013 shows a constant fluctuation in unaccompanied minor arrivals in the U.S. 

In mid-2014, for example, a spike in arrivals was followed by an abrupt drop.  That period was the so-called “child migration crisis,” which made the news around the world. That crisis triggered the U.S to pressure Mexico into increasing the presence of immigration officials in Southern Mexico, with the goal of detaining Central American migrants well-before they reach the U.S. The two countries eventually formalized this agreement as the Southern Border Plan, and unaccompanied minor arrivals nose-dived over a relatively short period. However, by the end of 2015, the numbers began to rise again, despite the Southern Border Plan. My fieldwork revealed that migrants and smugglers alike found new routes to avoid checkpoints in Southern Mexico. But, in doing so, migrants’ journeys got longer, riskier, and more expensive. Moving through Mexico was getting more dangerous, and the U.S. border was being pushed further south. 

At the end of 2016, around the election of Donald Trump, there was another sudden drop in unaccompanied minor arrivals. This time, Trump’s anti-immigrant comments generated uncertainty among migrants about the safety of crossing the border. This period also marked the beginning of mass-detention and deportation of Central Americans throughout Mexico, not just along the Southern border. This forced migrants further into the shadows, putting them at further risk of being preyed upon by criminal groups. 

The Trump-factor didn’t last long. By May 2019, the number of unaccompanied minors detained at the Southern border reached a historic high. And then, again, the numbers fell off. This time a significant change in Mexico regarding migration enforcement was afoot. The Mexican Guardia Nacional (the National Guard), newly formed by President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in June 2019, began to persecute Central American migrants. The Guardia National began patrolling new cities and towns where Central American migrants had typically moved relatively safely over the last few years. In response, youth began migrating more slowly, taking their time to move north and to carefully plan their route in order to avoid detention and deportation. 

Over the course of 2020, Mexican officials have continued to implement anti-migrant measures, and the COVID-19 pandemic largely halted migration. The results of these combined factors have been astonishing; in April 2020, just 965 minors were detained at the southern border, a 90% decrease from April 2019. 

Based on the data, we know what follows. Border detentions have slowly started to increase again, an indication that Central American migrants are undeterred. And, if the post- 2016 election migrant boom is any indication, this year’s record lows may reach similar highs. 

The Takeaway

So what do these numbers really mean? They mean that the U.S.’ attempts to block minor migrants and Central American migrants generally fail to change the contexts that trigger migration in the first place. Enforcement, deportation, forcing migrants to risk their lives, a global pandemic—none of these deterrents change the violence, poverty, and desires that motivate Central Americans to leave their homes. Each data point represented in the graph above is a minor, a young person, a human, who, for some reason, is trying to reach the U.S. Whether or not the U.S. views that reason as “justified” is irrelevant—migrants find a way. Based on historic trends, migrants will find a way in historic numbers over the next few years.

Since 2014, Mexico has provided undocumented Central American migrants with free basic healthcare in its public hospitals. However, a 2015 study conducted by the Mexican research institution CIESAS showed that less than 2% of migrants that needed healthcare services were using them. Why? And how do Central American migrants—especially those making long, unguided trips across the country—manage their health while moving through Mexico?

Juan Carlos is a 46-year-old from El Salvador. When I first met him in a city just a few hours south of the Texas-Tamaulipas border, he seemed to be just like any other middle-aged migrant headed North.  But, he was carrying a small red thermos with him all the time.  When I asked him about the thermos, he answered, “My life goes in that thermos.” Juan Carlos opened the thermos and showed me two small plastic bags inside, one containing a single needle, and the other containing a glass bottle of insulin.  

Juan Carlos is diabetic and needs specific doses of insulin to regulate his blood sugar. His small bottle was almost empty, however, and he had just one dose left. When we met, he had been traveling for a week without an insulin injection, saving his last dose for an emergency. 

He had been to a hospital in Mexico once before. He explained that he had been told many times since entering Mexico that he would have access to healthcare, but he was hesitant to go to the hospital because he was afraid of being detained and deported. Still, as his insulin supply waned earlier in his journey, he had gone to a public hospital to ask for help. There, Juan Carlos was told that he would only be provided with insulin if it was an emergency; he would have to officially register and check-in at the hospital to receive any further care. “But,” he explained, “I had been assaulted a few days before and I had no documents to present to be able to register.”  He also reiterated his fear of deportation: “I can’t stay for too long in one place, I have no place to stay, and I am afraid I will be detained and deported if I stay near the hospital while waiting to be approved for medication.” 

Thus, instead of relying on the public hospital system, Juan Carlos had spent the past several weeks before we met traveling from NGO migrant shelter to migrant shelter, employing the minimal health services that some shelters offer. “Without these shelters, I would be probably dead,” he says.

During my field work, I have found this to be typical—migrants seem to avoid using the healthcare system in Mexico, despite knowing that it is free. They are often afraid that instead of being aided, they will be deported.  They also report suffering constant discrimination in the healthcare system and finding the system unnavigable (such as being asked for extensive documents, being directed from one location to another, etc.). Instead, migrants typically rely on self-medication for illness and wounds. This allows them to keep progressing northward and avoiding additional deportation risk. 

Not until they are on the brink of grave illness, infection, or insuperable pain do they tend to reach out to migrant shelters in search of help, saving any recourse for the formal healthcare system as a truly last resort. As a result, migrant shelters often end up receiving and serving many migrants with serious medical conditions, open wounds, and severe skin problems. They are also faced with migrants, like Juan Carlos, who have dangerously run out of medication. Many shelters offer basic health care services, like stocking basic medicine, and a few have volunteer doctors or nurses for a few hours a week. Still, they cannot provide services that would equate to those of a medical clinic or a hospital, and they have to prioritize their already-scarce resources, saving them for the worst of cases. In response, shelters have also attempted to fight for and defend migrants’ rights in the formal healthcare system. For many migrants, shelters can thus become shields against persecution. 

Juan Carlos was only at the shelter where we met for a couple of days. When he realized they had no insulin, he left early the next morning to continue heading North. Rather than waiting an uncertain amount of time for medical attention and risking deportation so close to the border, he decided to keep moving. 

While Mexico’s formal provision of healthcare for Central American migrants is praiseworthy, the country’s criminalization and persecution of migrants makes the healthcare system, in practice, nearly impossible to access. This provokes a situation in which migrants dangerously postpone addressing health issues, and it pushes the burden of their healthcare to less-equipped and under-resourced civil and religious organizations. And for what purpose? Why force migrants to choose between potential deportation or blindness, amputation, or death? NGOs, civil, and religious groups in Mexico use their limited resources to fight for healthcare access in Mexico, but much remains to be done.

In the Summer of 2015, I headed to Tijuana to do some field work for my dissertation. I took a taxi from the hotel where I was staying to the first migrant shelter I would be visiting there.  That shelter served all types of migrants who were arriving in Tijuana. Chatting with the taxi driver on the way, I told the taxi driver about my research on Central American migrants. His response: “Esos no tienen solución.” (“Those [Central Americans] can’t be fixed.”) He then set into a discourse about Central Americans’ irresolvable (and, as he saw them) natural tendencies toward crime. 

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I have found this discourse about the violence of Central Americans more or less intact wherever I go in Mexico. From grocery store clerks, to business owners, to restaurant workers, I have heard Mexicans from many different backgrounds voice their concerns that Central American migrants are violent and bad for their communities. When I ask these people how they know that Central Americans are violent, they tell me second-hand stories about Central Americans murdering people or robbing houses. Some liken all Central Americans to the “Maras,” the extremely violent Central American gang. Others describe Central Americans as poor people with different accents who are often begging at traffic lights and seeing what they can get from you (“a ver que te pueden sacar”). While many Mexicans are aware of the struggle that Central Americans face while crossing Mexico, and various individuals and organizations proffer them aid, I have found the amount of negative sentiment aimed at Central Americans in Mexico to be astonishing.

So, how do those sentiments affect the day-to-day lives of Central American migrants?  My research suggests that they certainly feel the prejudice. Many migrants tell stories of discrimination. They describe knocking on doors along their journeys and asking for water, only to be denied water once a would-be benefactor discovers they are Central American.  Others describe being treated as dangerous or threatening.   

One adult migrant from Honduras, “Josue,” recalls working construction in central Mexico. He was trying to make enough money to live while he and his son waited for their Mexican asylum applications to be processed.  His co-workers called him “El Mara,” even though Josue left Honduras fleeing the Maras.

“Desde el Primer día [de trabajo] me pusieron el Mara, por ser centroamericano.  Está bien por que es broma, pero también me enoja, por que me traje a mi hijo de Honduras por que las Maras lo querían reclutar, nunca pense que a mi me llamarían Marero.” (“Since my first day [at work], they called me ‘el Mara,’ because I’m Central American.  Which is fine, because they’re joking, but it also makes me mad, because I brought my son [here] from Honduras because the Maras wanted to recruit him.  I never thought I’d be called a Mara.”)

Josue described being the target of many jokes while in Mexico—about being a gang member, a murderer, a kidnapper, or a drug addict, all very far from his true past as a plumber from a small town. 

While Josue was picked on mostly in jest, stereotyping is a real problem for Central American migrants both in Mexico and in the U.S. For example, in 2017, Republican Jack Martins ran for County Executive in Nassau County, New York. In the midst of Donald Trump’s anti-Central American migrant rhetoric, Martins released a campaign poster showing three shirtless men covered face-to-waist in tattoos, standing in front of graffiti. The poster associates the men with the MS-13, a Mara group. The top of the poster read: “Meet your new neighbors!” To the side, the poster states that his opponent’s campaign is supported by “special interst groups” that “want to make Nassau County a sanctuary county for illegal immigrants and protect those convicted of violent crimes from deportation.” Similar to Josue’s treatment in Mexico, this poster closely links Central American migrants and violent gangs, when, in reality, many migrants are fleeing from the havoc wreaked by those gangs. Martins eventually lost to his opponent, but the sentiment reflected in his campaign ads continues to pervade anti-migrant politics.

Both, Josue’s experience in Mexico and Martins’ local campaign ad in New York demonstrate how Central American migrants are stereotyped in both Mexico and the U.S.  Those stereotypes affect Central Americans as individuals; they also have the dangerous ability to wrongly influence public opinion more widely.     

Not all migrants are “bad,” and not all migrants are “good.” But migration is a social issue, and a person’s migrant status says nothing inherent about them. Generalizations about migrants’ behaviors, physical appearances, or capacities is little more than badly-masked discrimination.

Angel A. Escamilla Garcia
January 27, 2019

The week, news broke of another migrant caravan departing from Honduras with the intention of reaching the Mexican-American border. News outlets estimate that this caravan contains at least seven thousand people, with some reporting up to ten thousand, and it includes a substantial number of families and minors. This, after three caravans, made the same trek in 2018. Such numbers make us wonder–why the caravan, and why now?

A look at the origins of the Central American migrant caravan is illuminating. In 2010, migrant shelters in Southern Mexico began conducting a yearly migrant Via Crucis (the Way of the Cross) to raise awareness about the plight Central American migrants on their way to the United States through Mexico. The Via Crucis was a march by migrants and activists, from a shelter to a nearby place symbolic for migrants, such as a roadblock or a train station. The name Via Crucis recalls the walk of Jesus carrying his cross before his crucifixion and seeks to reflect the tortuous route migrants take northward. Often, the participants of the Via Crucis themselves carried a cross. (See image below)

In March 2015, following the 2014 implementation of the “Southern Border Plan” along the Mexico-Guatemala border, the Via Crucis grew. The United States pushed for and partially funded increased immigration enforcement on and near that border. Pursuant to the plan, Mexico detained and deported more than 120,000 migrants in 2014.

Thus, following the implementation of the Southern Border Plan, the Via Crucis organizers announced their intention to march all the way from the southern state of Oaxaca (and later from Tabasco) to Mexico City. The leaders sought to meet with government officials and to make visible the harsh conditions that Central American migrants faced after the implementation of the Plan. The 2015 migrant caravan had less than three hundred participants and was stopped and harassed multiple times by federal and local authorities before eventually reaching Mexico City in mid-April. There, members of the migrant Via Crucis met with Secretary of the Interior Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong, and members of the National Commission of Human Rights, and they visited the Basilica of Guadalupe to thank the Saint for their safe arrival.

Despite these 2015 meetings, and continued annual migrant Via Crucis, little has changed for the undocumented migrants who walk, train hop, and hitch-hike through Mexico year-round on their way to the U.S. These individuals face daunting journeys. Through my research, I have witnessed migrants who have walked for days through deserts, forests, and swamps, all in order to avoid detention and deportation by Mexican authorities. In the process, dehydration, fungus, blisters, wounds, bug bites, sickness, and hunger become their routine. In addition to these physical realities, their undocumented status in Mexico turns the space they cross into a hunting ground for predators. At the hands of criminal groups, individuals, and officials, extortion, brutal beatings, rape, kidnapping, and death all are possibilities for migrants moving through Mexico undocumented.

Facing such great dangers, and inspired by the migrant Via Crucis, migrants in the last few years have thus begun to form their own large groups for migration. Their moving together creates a certain safety in numbers. By grouping together, they make themselves visible to everyone, including to authorities, to people that want to harm them, to the general public, to the news media, which helps prevent them from being clandestinely targeted by criminal groups and corrupt officials. These are the caravans that now dominate the news.

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This grouping aspect of Central American migration is not exclusive to the caravan. During my time in the field, it was common to meet all types of informal groups of people migrating together. When I would ask groups how they knew each other, the most common answer was that they had grouped together looking for protection or guidance. This includes youth that join up with unknown adults seeking some protection and women that find partners along the journey hoping to avoid potential sexual abuse.

Thus, though migrant caravans now make politically-charged headline news, they are neither new, nor do they represent a new “threat.” Instead, they are coherent social responses by vulnerable individuals who seek to reclaim some of the humanity that has been taken from them.