Crossing the border: one frontier, two perspectives

Crossing the border: one frontier, two perspectives

The border between The United States and Mexico is a space of concerns and controversy. The debate of migration is use for political gain, while the crime organisations use the confusion to their advantage. This has led to misinformation and the discrediting of any facts that contradict the popular discourse on immigration, creating an atmosphere of fear and vulnerability.

Looking to the recent presidential debate in the USA, it seems imperative to look through the data to see the impact migration has on society on both sided of the border. 
What we see is that migration becomes a privilege for some and a stigma for others.

From the US to Latin America

While all the focus of the debate in the US is on migration from Latin America to the US, the Pew Hispanic Center established in 2012 that "The net migration flow from Mexico to the United States has stopped and may have reversed.” More people are now moving from USA to Mexico that the other way around, but what does it mean in practice? 
Looking at the data shows that many Mexican nationals are returning to their country but an important proportion of the people moving to Mexico are Americans. There are not so many studies that can shed a light why American citizens move south of the border but several interviews show that the weather, the affordability and the more calm and relaxed way of living are the reasons for choosing some of these countries as a new home. 

It is easy to assume that all the people who migrate to Mexico have the proper documentation, but this is not always the case. Many US citizens live in Mexico illegally, “1,000 US citizens were questioned over irregularities in their immigration status, according to Mexican authorities in 2011. They face a modest fine - up to $50 - if officials find them working without a permit or living in Mexico without proper documents” (BBC news, 2016). Even so, in Mexico is actually a crime to work and live there without the legal documentations. The Mexican authorities deport an American citizen a day approximately, the majority being fugitives from American justice.

Latin Americans crossing the border, the other side of the story

When people talk about Latin American migrants in the US, they are normally picturing a Mexican, and this used to be a safe assumption but nowadays the situation is slowly changing with an increasing number of migrants from other countries in Latin America also moving. In particular there is an increase in the number of people from Central America trying to cross the border.

Reasons for migration to the US from Latin America have both push and pull factors, with the most prevalent nowadays being people fleeing from violence in the region, or looking for rights such as freedom of speech, or better economic opportunities.

Among the economic push factors are the negative impacts of the free trade agreements, which are praised by some, but criticized by others as having a negative impact both north and south of the border.

Although billed as ‘free trade’ agreements, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), among other treaties, have given the U.S. a lopsided economic advantage in agriculture.
Some critics hold that Mexican farmers cannot compete effectively with U.S. agriculture because the U.S. government heavily subsidizes farming exports.  “After NAFTA, 2 million small farmers left the land,” said Mary DeLorey, an expert on Latin-America migration at Catholic Relief Services (CRS). “People are going all over to be able to find a job and support their family.”

There is also a pull factor stemming from employers looking for cheap labour. The Federation for American Immigration Reform found that:

"The farming sector [in the US] has grown increasingly dependent on a steady supply of workers who have entered the country illegally, despite the unlimited availability of visas for foreign agricultural guest workers. This has created a situation where presently half of all crop farm workers are unauthorized and have annual incomes that are $5,600 less than that of authorized workers working in the same sector" 

But perhaps violence as a driving force for migration is the most worrying.

In 2014, UNICEF estimated that by 2014 60.000 Children have fled to the USA. Children at the age of 12 or younger are the fastest growing group of migrants at 117%.

The vast majority come from Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. These are some of the most dangerous countries in the world. Overall, 1 in 3 global homicides occur in Latin-American, while it only makes up 8% of the global population. But the question remains, why are children leaving their country alone? Gangs and criminal organisations are targeting children in particular. The boys are forced to join the gangs from a very early age and girls are ‘recruited’ as girlfriends. The children who refuse the gangs demands face Rape, kidnapping and murder. 

This started in the 80s, 90s when the USA government deported members of different gangs members to Central America without considering the repercussions of their actions. As an example, El Salvador was in a civil war, so gang members brought more instability to the country.

UNHCR includes testimony from several children who came to the US to escape gang violence in their report.
This is the testimony of a 15 year old girl call Maritza: 

“I am here because the gang threatened me. One of them “liked” me. Another gang member told my uncle that he should get me out of there because the guy who liked me was going to do me harm. In El Salvador they take young girls, rape them and throw them in plastic bags. My uncle told me it wasn’t safe for me to stay there. They told him that on April 3, and I left on April 7. They said if I was still there on April 8, they would grab me, and I didn’t know what would happen...”
The journey is also really dangerous, criminal organizations control the routes north, and along the way children – and adults - also face kidnapping, extortion, and sexual assault but in comparison, this seems a safer choice to many than staying in their country. Mexico and USA had a bilateral agreement to control the violence in the area but they had been unsuccessful.

In 2007, the USA and the Mexican government signed an agreement for the regional security base on share responsibility. The main goal was decrease the flow of guns to Mexico and the rest of the region.  "Over 70 percent of the ninety-nine thousand weapons recovered by Mexican law enforcement since 2007 were traced to U.S. manufacturers and importers. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime reports that easy access to firearms is a major factor influencing homicide trends in Latin America and the Caribbean." (Sweig, 2015)

It is easy to see the correlation between easy access to fire arms and crime but it is equally easy to see that violence is the main reason why people flee their country, so by making the access to fire arms more restricted and decreasing the flow of arms, we will saving lives and people from the region will have one less reason to leave their country and embark in a dangerous journey.

Once in the US – those of the migrant population who are illegal work in precarious conditions – though they make up 5.1% of the US labour force overall and are relied on heavily in certain sectors such as agriculture However, they pay $80,000 more in taxes during their lifetime than what they access in benefits.

The Mexico/US frontier is a border that is a symbol of all the complexities of migration – the push and pull factors, the difference in treatment for different nationalities, the violence, migration as a political game, and the violation of human rights.