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.