Almost two months into the Donald Trump administration in the United States, there has not been a mass deportation affecting the Mexican border region. The shelters created in anticipation by the Mexican State and civil society are still not at full capacity.
However, the shelters report an increase in the number of Mexican women and children affected by forced displacement caused by violence or natural disasters, said Dr. Frida Güiza, professor and researcher at CETYS University Campus Tijuana during the Webinar Migration in the CaliBaja area: Perspectives from the border, organized for the media by CETYS University.
The reasons why these people left their place of origin are not resolved. “The UN reports some 400 thousand internally displaced people in Mexico, and there is no longer any possibility of escape to the United States,” she said. The most vulnerable population arrives at the border as victims of fraudulent offers of asylum in the United States and is stranded, seeking desperate measures such as placing minors in the hands of “coyotes,” who continue to offer their services despite the militarization of the border.
The outlook may worsen, added the specialist, due to the interruption of funds provided by US Aid, which provided financial support to numerous organizations that help migrants stranded at the border.
What has radically hardened is the discourse and a narrative that criminalizes migrants in the United States, said Dr. Hugo Méndez Fierros, professor and researcher at the Autonomous University of Baja California (UABC).
The specialist pointed out that at this time we are experiencing the greatest radicalization of a current that tends to “enemyize” migrants, a phenomenon that some analysts also call “crimmigration.”
“The stigmatization of migrants is at its highest point since the formation of this discourse in 1980. Today it has become common to call them criminals, parasites or equate them with organized crime. The impact so far is media-based, but it has had an effect: border shelters are seeing Mexicans arriving who voluntarily repatriate, for fear of being imprisoned.”
In the United States, changes are being seen in daily life, described during his participation Dr. Carlos González Palacios, director of Humanities and of the Center of Excellence in Human and Social Development at CETYS University. Some of them are fear even when at home, absenteeism from work, and family organization in case one of its members does not return home.
Likewise, a struggle is being maintained between the federal government and the so-called sanctuary cities with withdrawal of support, closure of shelters and legal demands.
González Palacios added that, according to estimates, the economic impact of the measures against migrants will affect the sending of remittances to Mexico, but also agricultural production and the construction industry in the United States, where undocumented labor can reach up to 70%.
In border cities, a mix of factors prevail behind the flow of people: forced internal displacement in Mexico, the population of various countries, and those who arrive due to deportations. It is a complex problem for the government and civil society, said Dr. Miguel Ángel Monteverde, professor and researcher at the College of Sciences and Humanities, Mexicali Campus of CETYS University.
He considered that people who are stranded at the border are trapped in a “limbo,” which affects not only the individual, but also their entire support network or dependents. “Tools of certainty for life are lost, and intense anxiety about the future is generated. It is the integral physical and emotional wear and tear of waiting. In light of this, the government at all levels can make a significant effort to include those arriving after having cut all ties with the country, providing documents to those who arrive after having cut all ties with the country, and of course treating this population in movement with respect for Human Rights.”
Looking to the future, the panelists recommended paying attention to the resistance mechanisms of civil society in the United States and to the philanthropic work that is organized on the Mexican side of the border.
“Human immigration has always been present, no policy is going to stop it. Governments and societies have to find a way to manage it in a humane way,” concluded González Palacios.
Source: ivpressonline
