Research Group
BORDERING INFRASTRUCTURES / INFRAESTRUCTURAS FRONTERIZAS
August 18, 2022
4-6 pm Az Time / 6-8 pm hora CDMX
The migration phenomenon in Mexico has recently been linked to the proliferation of immigration detention centers and an intense militarization of borders, but also to less visible border production mechanisms such as the convergence between nature conservation and national security policies between Mexico and the United States, or disappearance and absence as epistemic infrastructures that produce ignorance. The discussion will focus on the formation and reorganization of legal, technological and natural infrastructures that proliferate on the borders between the United States, Mexico and Guatemala.
DETENCIÓN MIGRATORIA Y MILITARIZACIÓN FRONTERIZA EN MÉXICO / IMMIGRATION DETENTION AND BORDER MILITARIZATION IN MEXICO
Alethia Fdez. de la Reguera
Mexico is one of the countries with the highest numbers of immigration detention centers in the Latin American region. The detention of migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees has become a central practice for controlling and securitizing borders, especially since the National Guard acquired migration control and verification functions in 2019. It generates tension between the Mexican State's obligations to grant international protection to forcibly displaced persons and heightened border controls. In this presentation, I will expose some characteristics of immigration detention to understand the contradictions between international standards of immigration detention and the reality observed in Mexico, characterized by arbitrary detention contrary to the right to liberty of migrants established in international and national legal frameworks. I will also show that immigration detention centers operate in exceptional circumstances and in social and political isolation, which is why they are places where serious violations are committed against the human rights of people in mobility.
About Alethia Fdez. de la Reguera