Eleventh Global Studies Conference

Abstract

The Northern Triangle region of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras continues to suffer from poor political and socioeconomic conditions, which drive ongoing migration toward the north. The flow of migrants is not likely to stop or slow down despite the various autonomous operations launched by the Mexican government to counteract it and despite those operations subsidized by the United States, such as the “National Institute of Migration” (INM), created in July 2014 under the “Southern Border Program” (PFS) and supported by then President Obama. What is new about this phenomenon is that Mexico is no longer a transit country for Central American migrants, but rather a receiving country where these people must exist in a state of precarious limbo. Our paper focuses on the estimated 300,000 Central American asylum-seekers who stay in Mexico and do not reach the coveted “north.” Informed by a sociopolitical framework and the narratives of migrants residing temporarily in shelters in central Mexico, our paper is twofold, exploring how Central American migrants from the Northern Triangle negotiate the new environment in Mexico, including economic survival, violations of basic human rights, and the bureaucratic hurdles and examining the economic and sociopolitical impact in Mexico caused by the Central American population. This paper demonstrates that not only is Mexico unprepared for migrants and hostile toward them, but the effectiveness of anti-immigration legislation in Mexico very much depends on the financial and logistical support of the United States.