Externalisation, Access to Territorial Asylum, and International Law

Review Essay: Refugee Law, US-Mexican Politics, and the Formation of Migrant Caravans

“…The books make an important contribution to migration studies, both on displacement trends in Central and North America as well as on national and global refugee law and policy more generally. Although the regional Cartagena Declaration with its expanded refugee definition places the region in a unique position (Reed-Hurtado 2013, 5, 28), there are many similarities between Central America and other regions such as Australia-Pacific and the Mediterranean in terms of the militarization, outsourcing of border control, and safe third country agreements (see Cantor et al 2022). Furthermore, considering the overrepresentation of authors based in the main academic centers in the Global North—away from where most refugees live—(Hampton et al 2020), as well as the side-lining of non-English language perspectives (Ammann 2022), these books provide crucial insights into the rich research produced in Mexico.…”

“…Together, these books provide a crucial analysis of recent events in Central America and North America. Not only do they contribute a detailed account of the caravans as a regional phenomenon, but they also provide a specific example that echoes displacement trends and related laws and policies on a global level, as they relate to containment in the Global South, the outsourcing of border control to third countries, as well as increased militarization, detention, and deportation at the expense of protection (see Hathaway and Gammeltoft-Hansen 2014; Cantor et al 2022). Similar to other accounts of migrant protest in regions such as Africa (Lecadet 2017) and Europe (Amaya-Castro 2015), the books also evidence the massive resistance exerted by those who flee in their pursuit of overcoming barriers to movement, and the sophisticated legal “technologies” implemented in response, and which ultimately have led to further exclusion.…”