Over the past decade, the number of migrants deported or expelled from the United
States to Mexico has nearly doubled. This situation is due to a rethinking of the
legislation of both countries, through which immigrants have been represented and
associated as “criminals”, “delinquents”, “drug traffickers” and “invaders”, this
has led to the migrant population being in uncertainty and in constant risk of being
removed from the United States, even without having committed any crime, so that their
civil rights are violated without any legal protection for them.
Between 2000 and 2011, the number of migrants expelled with a deportation order from
the United States to Mexico grew by 95%, from 150,644 to 293,966 people (Department
of Homeland Security 2011). In addition, during the government of Donald Trump, former
president of the United States, the “zero tolerance” policy was announced, which indicates
that anyone who enters the United States undocumented will be detained and face criminal
charges. In the case of families, the children are separated from their parents.
In Trump’s anti-immigrant narrative, Mexican migrants were his favorite enemy, among
his most controversial statements is that of: “When Mexico sends its people, it does
not send the best” or stating that it would be Mexico who would pay for the wall.
Some of his initiatives are stalled in Congress, others were partially fulfilled or
were rejected by various courts, but his decisions have had consequences for thousands
of migrants, especially of Mexican and Central American origin.
For these reasons, in this issue of INTER DISCIPLINA magazine entitled Deportations, we analyze and reflect on the acts of expulsion of migrants, mainly of Mexican and
Central American origin, carried out by the US government for several decades and
the economic, political, psychological and social impact it has had for both nations.
The dossier of this number is made up of 8 research articles where the deportation
processes between the United States and Mexico are studied and analyzed from a migratory,
political, social, psychological, journalistic, legal and human rights approach.
The first article is entitled: “Containing unwanted migration: securitization discourses
used by the United States to externalize its border to Mexico from 1988 to 2020”,
its author, Elisa Ortega Velázquez analyzes how the United States has contained irregular
migration from Central America in the last thirty years through the discourse of securitization
of migrations, which has represented migrants as a threat by associating them with
drug trafficking, terrorism and invasions. For its part, the Mexican government increasingly
abandons migrants to their fate, under the motto of having a “safe, orderly and regular”
migration, while deportations of people from Mexico and Central America grow.
In the article: “Are migrants a public charge? Anti-immigrant measures and deportability
in the United States”, coauthors Enrique Camacho Beltrán and Karla A. Valenzuela Moreno
part of the fact that in August 2019, Donald Trump’s government included one more
element to its Zero Tolerance policy: the Rule of Public Charge, which put at risk
the immigration status of those who use certain social services, thus making part
of the migrant population deportable. The article argues that public charge by itself
should not be sufficient reason to justify deportability. The coauthors propose the
concept of “fair public charge”, to allow equitable assessment of the contributions
of migrants in the country of destination.
In the article entitled: “The challenges of the labor insertion of the migrant in
Mexico: an approach from integration through Civil Society Organizations”, the coauthors
Aaraón Díaz Mendiburo, Roberto José Domínguez Moro, Pedro Genaro Méndez Castillo,
Diego Morales Govea and Claudia Elisa Reséndiz Muñoz argue that, despite the existence
of a legal framework, specific public programs and policies and the support of international
bodies and civil society, the chances of a migrant acquiring a formal and well-paid
job are scarce, due to the existence of several obstacles, for example economic, political,
social and cultural; so it implies quite a challenge. Likewise, the coauthors were
in charge of searching for Civil Society Organizations dedicated to the attention
of migrants to learn about their work and the information they have regarding the
problems that exist around the integration of migrants into the labor market in Mexico
City.
The author Oliver Ernesto Velasco Rentería in his article “Youth and migration. The
construction of a category for human rights”, carries out a study on the immigration
of young people, its lack of recognition in Mexican legislation and the consequences
of this situation on human rights and public policies. The main proposal of this document
is to introduce categories and concepts where the vulnerability and exclusion of young
immigrants are visualized, with the purpose of providing more effective public policies
in this sector of the population.
“The emotional impacts of deportation: the case of Ana Laura, a view from social work”,
is a text written by Aaraón Díaz Mendiburo, Montserrat Valvidia Ramírez and Ana Laura
López; who analyze the migratory process from deportation, especially through the
case of Ana Laura and, from the perspective of social work, explore the impacts and
challenges that deportation implies in a context of uncertainty, violence and with
few job opportunities.
In the article, “Peace Journalism for Migration”, written by Susana Jeanine Mondragón
Aguilar, the coverage of migration in two Mexican digital media is addressed, and
the need to build journalistic narratives on migration that inform from ethics and
social inclusion.
Alejandra Patricia Gómez Cabrera writes the article “The stigma of the deported. An
approach to their representation in political cartoons”, through which she analyzes
several political cartoons that have been published in the press by Mexican cartoonists,
who have portrayed in an ironic way the stigmatizing discourse with which immigrants
are represented in the politics of the former US President Donald Trump. In addition,
it is based on various theorists to analyze and understand the stereotypes with which
immigrants are represented, with which being deported becomes their total identity;
their personal and social trajectory is reduced to the idea of a threat and a prohibition.
Daniel Peña Serret, through the text entitled “The Mexican Congress on the migration
issue: convergences and divergences of party positions in the LXIV Legislature”, studies
the positions of political parties on migration problems in Mexico; the first year
of the LXIV Legislature of Congress was delimited as a case. The analysis is quantitative
and qualitative, characterizes such positions and identifies convergences and discrepancies,
based on three variables: composition of commissions, proposals on the agenda and
bills and proposals of agreement that each party presented. The results show that
irrelevant proposals predominated to adapt the legislation, reactive agreements towards
migration policy, few proposals to be accountable to minorities, as well as allocate
more resources and support the work of civil organizations that serve the migrant
population, and a precarious vision that does not take advantage of advances in the
investigation of migratory phenomena.
In the Interview section, Frambel Lizárraga Salas talks to Ana Laura López, a Mexican
who had the need to migrate to the United States because the economic situation was
not very good when she married very young, she lived in the United States for 16 years,
until one day she went to change her immigration status and was deported from that
nation. Upon her return to Mexico, she received no support from the authorities, so
she weaved her own networks and on December 16, 2016, she founded the Colectivo Deportados Unidos en la Lucha, which aims to be a safe space, where the human and labor rights of migrants are
respected.
The Independent Communications section is made up of 9 research articles. The first
of these is entitled: “The use of literacy in Higher Education students: case study,
Faculty of Social Sciences, Autonomous University of Sinaloa”, written by Karla Marisol
Aguirre Sánchez, through which reading strategies were investigated, according to
their use in Higher Education and the strategies used by students in solving open
questions, as well as in providing the academic community with a design of methodological
strategies in various disciplines, with the purpose of improving the academic quality
of future professionals through of language.
Cristian Daniel Torres Osuna wrote: “Famous Latin American songs and their discourse
on transit migration: from undocumentation to vulnerability and violence”, where he
studies the relationship of this migratory phenomenon with the discourses that originate
from musical products of both national and international themes. In this sense, the
author develops a critical analysis of the discourse of the five most famous Latin
American songs (Mojado, P’al Norte, Clandestino, El inmigrante y José Pérez León) that address the central theme of transit migration. Torres Osuna also analyzes
this phenomenon from theoretical approaches on migratory transit, in which the vulnerability,
deportation and labor uncertainty of migrants are observed.
In the article: “The yuxtaposition of plurality and concentration in the printed media
in the West”, the author Sergio Miguel Hernández Medina, shows us a theoretical reflection
from the political economy of communication on the different ways of conceiving freedom
of expression and plurality in media companies in Europe, the United States and Latin
America.
In the text: “The response strategies, the protection of workers’ rights and the change
management of Mexican companies in the face of the Covid-19 crisis”, the author Eréndira
Fierro Moreno examines the extent to which response strategies and rights of workers
influence change management in the face of the crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
For its part, in the article: “Economy, urban growth and local climate change in the
Metropolitan Area of the Valley of Mexico”, the authors Jorge Zaragoza Badillo and
José Ramón Guzmán take historical and theoretical aspects of how Mexico City has grown
with its respective accelerated, disorderly urbanization, and climate change which
has had economic activity as a background with its respective migrations to and within
the area.
In the article “Exploration of the development of interdisciplinary competence in
teacher educators through the design of statistical projects”, the coauthors, Gessure
Abisal Espino Flores, Ana Luisa Gómez Blancarte and Santiago Inzunza Cazares, study
the use of statistical projects as a resource to promote an interdisciplinary competence.
The objective of the article is to explore the development of these characteristics
by teacher educators from different disciplinary areas during the planning of a statistical
project.
In the text “Emotions, reactions and learnings identified by young participants in
a serious game on environmental education”, the coauthors Ana Lucía Maldonado González,
Blanca Lilia Acuña Bustamante, Juan Carlos Pérez Arriaga and Érick Acosta Flores;
analyze emotions, reactions and learnings identified in students of the Universidad
Veracruzana from an experience with the serious game in environmental education, called
Save the Earth, therefore they recognize the urgency of acting collaboratively as
humanity to face and overcome the environmental and climate crisis.
Isabel Rodríguez Peña, author of the article “From energy security in the 70’s to
a sustainable vision, a review of the literature”, identifies the central themes within
the literature on energy security since the oil shock at the end of the last century.
Likewise, the scope and limitations of the contemporary vision are discussed: the
incorporation of environmental issues and the implications that this has in recent
debates and evaluations of the subject are highlighted.
In the text “Incorporation of the principles of the Latin American perspective of
human rights to postnormal science for environmental risk management in Latin America”,
coauthors Gabriela J. Aguirre García, Suhey Tristán Rodríguez, Ricardo Hernández Martínez
and Manuel Alejandro Lizardo Jiménez incorporate some principles of the Latin American
perspective of human rights to the decisional guide of postnormal science, and a theoretical
framework is generated that argues about the multicultural aspect of Latin American
peoples. Some principles of the Latin American perspective of human rights are linked
with the methodological criteria of postnormal science.
In the book reviews section, there are two texts, one of them is entitled: Gender, migrations and human rights by Mayra Alejandrina Hernández Gurrola, who explains that in this text, coordinated
by AImudena Cortés and Josefina Manjarrez, topics with the guiding axis of migration
and from a gender perspective respond to the thesis that the migrant population has
countless risks when crossing borders because they lack institutional protection by
the countries of transit and destination, but the situation is aggravated for women
due to their gender condition: they are more exposed to suffering sexual and gender
based violence.
Frambel Lizárraga Salas reviews the book Transit migration along the Mexican Pacific route. Sinaloa Case: Analysis of the phenomenon
and its actors, coordinated by Brianda Elena Peraza Noriega. In this text, the process of migration
in transit is analyzed, especially along the Mexican Pacific route, which includes
the states of Guanajuato, Jalisco, Nayarit, Sinaloa, Sonora, Chihuahua and Baja California;
places where migrants trace their path and in turn face violence, discrimination,
racism and xenophobia, without receiving protection of their human rights by government
authorities.
With this number, Deportaciones, we invite to the reflection, sensitization and awareness around return migration
from the United States to Mexico, a situation in which it is noted that the number
of detained immigrants who lacked criminal convictions has increased, and they have
been expelled from the United States only because of acts of discrimination, racism
and xenophobia, thus denying them job opportunities as well as quality of life, so
their futures become something governments’ have no care of.