Apprehended Moms and Deported Kids

Similar version cross-posted on the Casa Collective blog: http://www.casacollective.org/story/issue-67-january-2009/apprehended-moms-and-deported-kids-new-face-migrant-family-disintegratio

Apprehended moms and deported kids: the new face of migrant family disintegration

Virginia Fernandez is worried. Five days ago she was apprehended by migration authorities in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas. Her crime? Being a Honduran on Mexican soil without authorization. Now, she is awaiting her deportation back to her home country. Nevertheless, this impending deportation isn’t what’s most worrying Virginia. No, Virginia is worried about being separated from her three young children who were traveling with her when she was apprehended. Her children are also in custody of Mexican immigration and are also awaiting deportation. The problem is that Virginia´s children are citizens of the United States of America. They cannot be deported “back” to Honduras along with their mother because they do not hold citizenship there. Instead, Mexican authorities are required to try to send them back to the United States, effectively breaking up the family.

Cases of migrants getting apprehended on Mexico soil and deported back to their home countries are not uncommon. Each year, Mexican migration detains approximately 150,000 undocumented migrants. The grand majority of these migrants are Central and South Americans heading northward to the United States in search of work opportunities and better pay. Mexican immigration policy places restrictions on who can cross its borders and who can obtain visas. Therefore, the majority of these migrants headed northward cross through Mexico “illegally” (without the necessary legal documents). Because Mexican immigration policy also authorizes immigration officials to seek out and apprehend undocumented migrants throughout the entire country, undocumented migrants risk getting detained during their entire time crossing Mexico.

Many consider these immigration policies and practices of Mexico to be inspired, at least in part, by the immigration-related political agenda of the United States. In recent years, this agenda has typically focused on keeping out “undesirables” and keeping out the unauthorized. The immigration policies of the United States place strict limits on who can enter the country and receive visas and, in general, tend to favor rich individuals, people from first-world countries, family members of citizens, and individuals with special skills and education. The poor and relatively untrained who don’t have U.S. citizen family members (characteristics which apply to the majority of potential immigrants from South and Central America) do not fit in to any immigrant group “desired” by the U.S. and have few options for entering the country legally. As a result, many of these immigrants attempt to enter the country in undocumented fashion, crossing the U.S./Mexican border “illegally” (at points other than the regulated points of entry). One way the U.S. has responded to the phenomenon of unauthorized immigration across its southern border has been to aggressively ramp up enforcement of this border line. Migration authorities are employed to seek out and apprehend migrants attempting to enter the United States without authorization.

There are a variety of reasons why Mexican’s migration policies are considered to be influenced by the U.S. agenda of immigration controls and border enforcement. First of all, the U.S. holds a strategic interest in Mexico. Because Mexico is a common pathway towards the United States for migrants, the enforcement in Mexico plays a role in limiting undocumented immigration to the United States. Another reason why Mexican policies are considered to be influenced by U.S. interests is that there have been specific means through which the U.S. has had the opportunity to enter into dialogue with Mexican leaders and exert diplomatic pressure, such as in the meetings of the Regional Conference on Migration (a.k.a. the Puebla Process). Lastly, U.S. influence can be seen in the fact that Mexican immigration control generally focuses more on controlling northward undocumented flow than on southward movement. Though various Mexican leaders have disputed the claim that Mexican policies are inspired by the U.S. agenda, reasons such as these show that this influence is likely at work. Considering this, we can conclude that one major motivation behind Mexican immigration policy is to deter the entry of Central and South American workers into the United States.

The most ironic part of Virginia’s story, therefore, is that even though the efforts of migration is primarily focused on cutting off northward migration, in cases like hers, the apprehended family isn’t even trying to enter the United States. Rather, the family is in the process of “return migration,” headed back to the home country of the mother.

This is a phenomenon that has recently arisen and is being observed more and more often in Mexican detention facilities, says Sindy Hau, who works at a migrant shelter for children and women in Tapachula, Mexico. In many of these cases, Hau says, the mother decides to leave the United States because she is suffering from spousal abuse, poverty, or some other difficult situation. She determines that the best place to build a life for herself and her children is in the home country. After being caught by Mexican authorities, however, the family becomes enmeshed in a sticky situation. Before deporting the children, authorities work with the consulate of the country of origin in order identify somebody, most often a family member, to receive the children in their home country. If none can be located or the home situation is deemed unsafe for the child, then the child should not be deported and theoretically can enter into a process to obtain regularized status in Mexico. However, as Hau tells me, if the country of origin is the United States and the authorities are contacted, the U.S. consulate will demand that the child be returned to the country. Effectively, once the U.S. is called, the mother has no chance of keeping her children. The families are stuck in limbo, wondering whether or not to call, unsure of their next step.

This example shows how, when we consider the actual lived experience of migrants, immigration enforcement as outlined by Mexican policy can have many negative consequences that were, given their motivations, basically unintended. Even though the policies were created to detain northward migration and immigration, migrants heading southward to their own countries are also apprehended. And although the policies are focused on preventing and detaining labor migrants, they end up having severe negative “side effects” on the well-being of families, mothers, and children throughout Latin America.

Clearly, the story lived by Virginia and other women in her position is a fairly extreme example of the way these restrictive immigration policies lead to unintended negative side effects. Nevertheless, the example is illustrative of the bigger picture. There are a wide range of these types of secondary effects in the lives of migrants that result from the restrictive nature of both U.S. and Mexican immigration policy. For example, families migration together risk getting split up, either by harsh conditions they encounter along their path or after being detained. In addition, the difficulty of crossing into the U.S. tends to increase the length of time that families spend apart from one another because migrants who enter illegally don’t want to risk leaving the country and having to attempt the difficult crossing again.

What’s more, it’s not even clear that these restrictive policies actually serve to fulfill their objective of detaining and limiting immigration. For example, U.S. border enforcement revolves around the assumption that increasing the number of border patrol agents decreases the number of unauthorized entries across the border. However, evaluations of the effectiveness of this strategy have proven to be inconclusive. What is clear, however, is that increased border enforcement has a direct relationship with one of these “secondary effects” – the number of deaths of migrants attempting to cross the border.

United States and Mexican immigration policy and the immigration control agenda needs to be re-evaluated and to be considered in terms of how it is actually affecting the lives of migrants and their families. Even if the motivations behind the policies are sound (which can also be called into question); the severity of their side effects should be considered when evaluating the ethics and appropriateness of their usage. Stories like Virginia’s tug at our heartstrings. We must listen to these stories while also looking at the root causes of the problems they relate in order to advocate for truly responsible reforms to immigration policy.