The development of border clusters and transit control regimes aiming to detain irregular migrants before they reach their destination countries is constructed upon a multidimensional geopolitical narrative driven by border security agreements. The Mexican Transit Control Regime illustrates that 16 years of trying to control migration in transit to the United States has not reduced it but has only succeeded in pushing migrants into dangerous routes and risky practices. Using mental maps as a technique to approach transmigrants’ voices, this article aims to contribute to the understanding of the ways irregular migrants in transit live and represent their journey.
Migrants’ journeys involve geopolitical, corporeal, and emotional dimensions. Yet, emotions, which are fundamental to understand the migrant experience, are usually overlooked. Following the ‘emotional geographies’ approach, this article analyses the spatial contextualisation of the affective and emotional experiences of irregular migrants in transit. Cognitive mapping methodology is proposed as a means to address the spatial and subjective dimensions of migrants’ experiences. The ‘testimonial maps’ of two Central American transmigrants in Mexico are explored. The emotional geographies of irregular transmigration underscore the emotional turmoil associated with the irregular migratory process(es). They shed light to the familiar arrangements made before the journey, the natural landscape as part of the control, the encounters with agents of the state and criminal actors, the sanctuary places, the acquaintances and fortuitous friendships, the resilience and adaptability needed for endure the journey, and, beneath all this, the multi-emotional dimension of the journey: love, sorrow, shame, courage, anxiety, fear, trust, kindness, and hope.
This paper examines Mexico’s governmentality of extracontinental migration in transit to the United States. It argues that, in the context of transit control regimes, exemption is instrumentalised as a bordering mechanism and practice in which transit states assume, react and utilise their role as a ‘transit’ country. By drawing on statistical information about migrant populations from Asia and Africa intercepted by Mexican authorities from 2010 to 2019, four arrangements are identified: (1) sporadic expulsion, (2) regularisation façade, (3) guardianship and (4) self-deportation. The analysis sheds light on the transformative and adaptive dimension of the Mexican Transit Control Regime and how this is geared towards maintaining its focus on intercepting and deterring Central American migrants in transit to the United States.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.