This past Friday, February 9th in Arriaga, Chiapas, a massive operative was carried out against some 500 Central American migrants aboard the Chiapas-Mayab freight train. Participating were hundreds of migration officials, members of the PFP (Federal Preventative Police) and AFI (Federal Investigation Agency), in another of what have been increasing aggressions against Central American migrants. What was later characterized by migrants and others as a violent aggression left a number of migrants beaten, including a woman 5-months pregnant, and others severely injured like Yolanda Amita de León Méndez, who's foot was amputated after getting caught under the train. In addition 116 were detained for deportation, including 44 Guatemalans, 32 Hondurans, 27 El Salvadorans, 12 Nicaraguans and a Cuban. ,
Without giving credence to reports of blatant human rights violations, the Subsecretary of Population, Migration and Religious Matters, Florencio Salazar Adame, reported in a February 12th press conference that agents involved in the action respected the human rights of all those involved in the operation, which was carried out to protect the security of the Mexican citizens. Contrary to these claims, however, are numerous reports from support organizations, human rights centers and migrants themselves, who affirm that this incident follows recent with patterns of the criminalization of Central American migrants in Mexico. Despite the ever-increasing economic importance of migrants in the Americas, there is nevertheless a trend to criminalize such undocumented peoples, casting them as criminals or terrorists rather than people simply seeking to survive. Through an overview of the broader context of migration in the region, precedence can be seen for these types of violent actions in the U.S. and increasingly in Mexico as well.
In the Sierra Madre del Sur, and stretching down to the lowlands and coast of Chiapas, it's hard to go very far without seeing 'travel agencies' advertising 'tours' to border destinations - Tijuana, Ciudad Juárez, Nuevo Laredo. Nor is it uncommon to see large pickups with license plates from Chihuahua, Tamaulipas and other northern states, many of which belong to coyotes bringing migrants north in their search for work in the U.S. - the land of promise. Mexicans, Guatemalans, El Salvadorans, Hondurans. Not terrorists or criminals, merely people seeking a better life for themselves and their families. Since the explosion of northward migration in the wake of the economic restructuring programs promoted by the U.S., and backed by international financial institutions in the 80's, the coast of Chiapas has turned into a corridor for Mexican and Central American migrants leaving their homes and families in search of work.
Leave it to the Market:
Neoliberal Reforms and Migration
"ECONOMICS ARE THE METHOD; THE OBJECT IS TO CHANGE THE SOUL"
--MARGARET THATCHER
The Reagan-Thatcher era of the 1980's witnessed the ushering in of neoliberal reforms throughout Latin America and the world, liberalizing trade reforms purportedly aimed at creating employment and economic opportunities in the de-developed countries of the 'thrid world'. In Latin America, these reforms followed years of economic crises and U.S. backed intervention in civil wars and counterrevolution, and promoted the economic integration of the Americas through the removal of trade tariffs and subsidies. These reforms came by many names - NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement), FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas), PPP (Plan Puebla Panama), SPP (Alliance for the Security and Prosperity of North America) - but decades after their continued implementation, promises for economic prosperity ring hollow in the face of massively increasing poverty, inequality, state-violence and the largest 'peace-time' migrations that the world has ever witnessed.
Particularly hard-hit are the rural sectors of Mexico and Central America, as massively subsidized crops from large agri-business farms in the U.S. flood domestic markets and make the lives of the region's campesinos unsustainable. In addition to this flood of subsidized agricultural goods, thousands more have been forced off their land through the continued privitization of communal land, the construction of hydroelectric dams, and the opening of new mines. Faced with few other alternatives, millions have made the difficult decision to leave their land and families to gamble on a dangerous and unsure journey north to seek work in the fast-growing maquiladora industry, the region's sprawling megalopolises or in the U.S. In addition to the nearly 13 million undocumented migrants currently working in the U.S., the populations of capitols Guatemala City and Mexico City have been exploding as the countryside slowly empties - some estimates put their populations at 6 and 25 million respectively.
Despite xenophobic debates as to the legitimacy of these migrants, they now serve as a foundation for economies throughout the region, contributing billions of dollars in revenues in the U.S., and sending billions more back to their own countries. In the U.S. the disappearance of this source of labor would drive agricultural, meat-packing, restaurant, landscaping and numerous other industries into crises. Similarly, in Mexico and Central America, remittances sent home from migrants in the U.S. are often the largest sectors of the economies (lagging only behind petroleum in Mexico).
More than a decade after the implementation of the first 'free-trade' agreements, it has become clear to the majority of populations - particularly those south of the Rio Grande - that they have only resulted in further impoverishment and inequality with the flow of natural resources and migrant labor heading north in exchange for increased U.S. imposed economic and cultural values. Hand in hand with this 'economic integration' comes the increased collaboration of security forces through the SPP and other bilateral agreements. Following in the tradition of the torture and counterinsurgency training that militaries throughout Latin America have received at the School of the Americas (recently changed to the Western Hemispheric Institute for Security Cooperation - since the former initials were so easily modified to represent its true nature, the School Of Assassins) these new agreements provide for deeper collaboration between domestic security forces in order to 'combat organized crime and terrorism.' The reality of these accords, however, is more akin to the stripping of domestic civil liberties in the U.S. following the 'Patriot Act' - further training of domestic security forces, less transparency and accountability, and unprecedented investigative powers. Given all of this, in order to understand the true nature of the operative in Arriaga, it will help to first touch on the situation of migrants in the U.S.
U.S. Border Creeps South
In the U.S., the last year has witnessed widespread debates over the basic rights of undocumented migrants currently living and working in the country. With Republicans and the Bush Administration taking a hard-line on illegal migration, and the Democrats' inability or unwillingness to change the terms of the debate, projects have been initiated to expand the steel wall that already demarcates hundreds of miles of the U.S.-Mexico border as well as to further militarize the region. Despite the emergence of massive grassroots resistance to these plans, the debate has created an atmosphere of xenophobia and hostility towards migrants despite their invaluable economic and social role in local, state and national communities. Carole Keeton Strayhorn, Texas comptroller, has estimated that in Texas alone the 1.4 million undocumented workers contribute some 17.7 billion U.S. dollars to the economy, not to mention their immeasurable social contribution to local communities. However, in spite of overwhelming evidence to the massive economic and social contribution of migrant workers, restrictions have been tightening in the past years creating a hostile environment for migrant and other minority workers.
Even though arguments in favor of migrant labor can be made using the same 'market logic' preferred by legislators and business owners alike, the walls continue to be constructed and severe legislation is being passed in several states. Currently in Texas, there is legislation to criminalize undocumented workers, leading to the possibility of fines up to 2,000 dollars and 6 months in jail with charges of 'criminal trespass of an illegal foreigner.' In Colorado, where some of the harshest anti-migrant measures were passed a year ago, massive labor deficits are being faced in the restaurant, hotel, medical services, construction, landscaping and other industries since hostile conditions have depleted sources of undocumented labor. Currently, legislation is being reviewed that would compensate for this loss by using prison-work programs to fill these vacancies - gleaning from the U.S.'s overflowing prison industrial complex and creating an ironically post-modern form of slavery.
Along with this wave of anti-migrant legislation, there has been an explosion of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement - a new branch of the Department of Homeland Security) raids, allegedly targeting companies that knowingly employ undocumented immigrants. Throughout the country, these raids have targeted locales thought to be employing this form of labor, culminating this past December when ICE officials conducted raids at 6 Swift & Co. meatpacking plants detaining a total of 1,282 workers (261 in Greely, CO; 145 in Hyrum UT; 230 in Worthington MN; 90 in Marshaltown IA; 261 in Grand Isle, NB; and 295 in Cactus, TX). Although supposedly aimed at breaking up criminal rings distributing false identifications and stolen Social Security numbers, only 65 were arrested on criminal charges, most of them minor and unrelated, leaving the operation a failure, except for deporting migrants and breaking up poor families. In like manner, all of these operations are carried out to ensure the 'security' of U.S. citizens, and to break up dangerous organized crime rings, and in like manner, ultimately end up affecting poor families trying to get by.
In Mexico, despite the reality of migration to the U.S. with remittances comprising the second largest sector of the Mexican economy, there are nevertheless increasing signs that this criminalization of migrants is being replicated. Similar rhetoric is employed by both governments to justify such repressive actions, and in the case of the latest operation in Arriaga, Chiapas, it was to protect the security of the Mexican citizens and to break up illegal human-trafficking circles. Such claims, however, ring hollow against the reality of migration in this part of the country, and particularly those who risk boarding the Chiapas-Mayab freight trains to head north.
Until October of 2005, thousands of Central American migrants from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador would board the Chiapas-Mayab freight train in Tapachula hoping to continue north to the U.S. Of the hundreds of thousands that migrate north each year, those attempting to take what was called the 'death train' were often the most marginalized, unable to pay coyotes steep rates for escort to the northern border. But since the passage of hurricane Stan in 2005, more than 200 kilometers of tracks between the border-city of Tapachula and Arriaga were destroyed and never replaced. Since then, migrants crossing at this southern border point face a 200 kilometer journey on foot in a heavily patrolled region of the state, where they are subject to assault, rape and other abuses at the hands of regular citizens and authorities alike. It is estimated that of the roughly 700 migrants that board the train every third day in Arriaga, some 10% succeed in their journey north, while the rest are maimed, detained, assaulted or deported. The very same rhetoric of 'security' and 'fighting organized crime' that is so common in the U.S. is now being used in Mexico, defying the reality of migration and covering up the fact that the poorest of these migrants, honest people looking for work, are the ones really being targeted.
"Peace Time" Migrations?
"POLITICAL LANGUAGE ... IS DESIGNED TO MAKE LIES SOUND TRUTHFUL AND MURDER RESPECTABLE, AND TO GIVE AN APPEARANCE OF SOLIDITY TO PURE WIND".
-- GEORGE ORWELL
Looking past the doubletalk that characterizes the discourses of both U.S. and Mexican governments, it is not hard to see the human suffering that is really at issue in any debate about the 'legality' of people. From this it must be understood that any debate around issues of migration that does not address the structural problems - economic, political and social - at the root of this question is necessarily doomed to frivolity. The very fact that the unprecedented migrations currently happening in the Western Hemisphere are characterized as the largest 'peace time' migrations needs to be questioned. When the Zapatistas rose up out of the obscurity of the Lacandon Jungle in 1994 to declare war on the Mexican government, it stemmed from the understanding that these are not at all times of peace, and the ushering in of neoliberal reforms in Mexico was seen as a death sentence for indigenous and campesino peoples throughout the country and the region.
The migrants that suffer from this new wave of operatives on both sides of the border are not merely unlucky, but rather are victims of a war that was waged some time ago against them, their lands, resources and traditions. Thatcher, whose administration along with Reagan gave birth to the neoliberal era, described it most candidly as a fight not just over economics, but also over peoples' souls. Discussions of migration that neglect peoples' rights to remain, to be with their families and to preserve their culture, are necessarily incomplete. Beneath the surface of the official rhetoric lay fundamental contradictions, how can you take away peoples' means of subsistence and then criminalize them for seeking new means?
The recent aggressions against Central American migrants in Arriaga are further indication of the extent to which hard-line xenophobic migration policies being promoted in the U.S. are making their way to Mexico's southern border. The terms of the debate on migration on official levels in the U.S., Mexico and throughout the region do not allow for questions of how to create a world 'where many world fit' - where people will retain autonomy and control over their own lives and means of subsistence. In a world where the harsh realities of poverty and inequality stand in stark contrast to the 'realities' evoked by official discourse, we will not move anywhere until we move beyond the smoke and mirrors and call reality by its name - neither hollow words nor giant steel walls will be able to hold reality at bay forever.
SOURCES:
-Centro de Medios Libres
-La Jornada:
- Redada contra indocumentados de CA en la frontera sur: 100 detenidos
- Proponen en Texas como delito el ser indocumentado
- Por falta de inmigrantes, Colorado utilizará reos para trabajar en los campos del estado
-ICE's Swift Plant Raids Netted Only Poor Folks Caught Up in the `War on Illegal Immigration'
~chris~
