Understanding the securitization of migration ...

Decolonizing migration: Understanding the securitization of migration through the testimonies of Central Americans in transit across Mexico

Claudia Stephany León Ang Student Identification Number 553438 MSc Migration, Mobility and Development

“This dissertation is submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of MSc Migration, Mobility and Development of the School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London)” Date of submission: 15 September 2014

Word Count (Excluding Declaration, Table of Contents, Illustrations, Acknowledgements, Bibliography and Annex): 10,000

Decolonizing migration: Understanding the securitization of migration through the testimonies of Central Americans in transit across Mexico Declaration

“I undertake that all material presented for examination is my own work and has not been written for me, in whole or in part, by any other persons(s). I also undertake that any quotation or paraphrase from the published or unpublished work of another person has been duly acknowledged in the work which I present for examination”. Claudia Stephany León Ang 15 September 2014

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Decolonizing migration: Understanding the securitization of migration through the testimonies of Central Americans in transit across Mexico Table of Contents Illustrations ……………………………………………………………………………..………..... 4 Abstract …………………………………………………………………………………..………... 5 Acknowledgements …………………………………………………………………………..….… 6 Chapter I: Introduction ……………………………………………………………………...…… 7 1.1 Background …………………………………………………………............................. 7 1.2 Research Prerogative …………………………………………………………………... 9 Chapter II: Literature Review ………………………………………………………………..… 12 2.1 Transit Migration of Central Americans across Mexico …………………...……….... 12 2.1.1 Transit Migration in Clandestine Spaces ………………………………...… 12 2.1.2 Literature on Transit Migration through Mexico …………………...........… 14 2.2 Securitization of Migration ………………………………………………………...…. 15 2.2.1 Securitization of Migration through the Rhetoric of Security …………...… 15 2.2.2 Legitimization and Institutionalization of Migration as a Security Issue …………………………………………………………………………………….… 17 Chapter III: Research Study ……………………………………………………………….…… 21 3.1 Introduction ……………………………………………………………………….…... 21 3.2 Research Methodology and Analysis Framework ……………………………........…. 22 3.3 Findings ………………………………………………………………………...….…. 26 3.4 Conclusion …………………………………………………………………….….…... 44 Chapter IV: Discussion ………………………………………………………………………….. 45 4.1 Testimonies Summary …………………………………………………………..….… 45 4.2 Concluding Remarks: Discussion in the Frame of De-colonial Thinking ………..…... 47 4.3 Notes on the Research Method ……………………………………………………..… 49 4.4. Research Limitations and Recommendations …………………………………...…… 49 Bibliography ……………………………………………………………………………………… 51 Annex: Full Testimonies ……………………………………………..………………………...... 58 3

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Decolonizing migration: Understanding the securitization of migration through the testimonies of Central Americans in transit across Mexico Illustrations FiguresFigure 1.1 Map of Mexico’s migrant routes, p.9 Figure 2.1 Migrants traveling on the top of a freight train pursued by military, p.20 Figure 3.1 - De-colonial thinking model applied, p.23 Figure 3.2 Migrants at “La 72”, migrant shelter in Tenosique, Tabasco, p.28 Figure 3.3 Women and children on a freight train across Mexico, p.31 Figure 3.4 Women mutilated by a train, p.33 Figure 3.5 “I have worked with drug traffickers to support my family, until I fled for the safety of my children”, p.37 Figure 3.6 Migrants in a demonstration demanding “Freedom of Transit”, p.43

Note- Figures 2.1, 3.3 and 3.4 are part of the collection ‘Sueños en Tránsito’ (‘Dreams in Transit’), campaign for raising awareness on the situation of migrants in transit; presented since 2011 by Estancia del Migrante González y Martínez, A.C. (EMGM), migrant shelter in Queretaro, Mexico.

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Decolonizing migration: Understanding the securitization of migration through the testimonies of Central Americans in transit across Mexico Abstract This paper will unpack and analyze the effects and impacts of the securitization of migration on Central Americans in transit through Mexico, with specific focus on migrants’ testimonies. This is done in order to advocate for the recognition of migrants’ voices as reliable sources of knowledge in understanding the process of migration. This study is developed through the lens of de-colonial thinking, as this helps to understand the securitization of migration and the violence performed against migrants as part of the rhetoric of modernity and the logic of coloniality of power, based on the ‘racial’ social classification of the world population (Quijano, 2000, 2010). Migrants disclose how such a securitization dehumanizes them, and also how their collective resistance builds a common memory out of the tragedy, able to promote healing justice and restore their silenced histories. Migrants’ testimonies encourage us to think de-colonially about the whole migration process and to de-link from the idea of migration as a security concern.

Keywords: securitization, transit migration, Central Americans, testimonies, de-colonial thinking

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Decolonizing migration: Understanding the securitization of migration through the testimonies of Central Americans in transit across Mexico Acknowledgements To all those migrants, who despite the harsh journey still resist and teach us life. No matter how inhumane the landscape may seem, they are survivors of a history that needs to be told. Thanks to them, because their voices and histories have taught me to be a better human being, and to believe in the necessity for a fight for a world without borders. It is because of them that this fight will always be alive. To all those activists, pro-migrant advocates and grassroots organisations in Mexico, who have been my colleagues, teachers and companions. Thank you. Your fight is always in my heart. You inspire me with your work and strength. Special thanks to Estancia del Migrante González y Martínez, A.C., my best school before undertaking this MSc. Your work represents pure solidarity and fraternity for me. Thanks to my family and friends, who are an integral part of this work. Thanks to all of you for your invaluable support, for believing in me, caring about me and cheering me up with your warm words. Special thanks to my parents, who are my two greatest teachers in life and also a great inspiration to me. This work is the result of years of personal struggle and dreams. I cherish SOAS and all my professors who opened the doors to me and let me to be part of such an incredible university. I will always be thankful to Chevening and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the United Kingdom, who helped me to make this dream come true. Thanks to the Decolonial Summer School of Middelburg, which arrived in my life when I needed it the most and helped me to regain my beliefs about a world where many other worlds could coexist. Special thanks to my mentor Walter, who always transmitted me humbleness and kindness in all his teachings and answers. Thanks to all of the organisations who shared their work of years of documentation with me. I really hope that this paper may help to portray migrants’ voices in order for them to resonate with more strength in their struggle for justice.

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Decolonizing migration: Understanding the securitization of migration through the testimonies of Central Americans in transit across Mexico Chapter I- Introduction

1.1 Background Mexico’s position between Central America and the United States places it as one of the world’s main migratory corridors. According to the International Organization for Migration, IOM (2011), around 150,000 migrants enter Mexico each year through its southern border while en route to the U.S. However, grassroots organisations estimate that this number is up to 400,000 people per year (United Nations Report on the Human Rights of Migrants, 2009). These figures refer to those traveling without legal documentation. From the view of the state they are “irregular” or “undocumented”; with most of them coming from Central American countries such as Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.1 The Mexican corridor represents a ‘vertical border’ of more than 3,500 kilometers of danger and violence (González, 2011) for migrants in transit, whose experiences have made them refer to this country as “the cemetery of Central Americans”.2

Currently, migration is considered a security concern in public policy due to the emergent consensus on global (in)security, intensified after the events of 9/11 and the U.S. ‘War on Terror’ (Bigo, 2008). The perception of migration as a security problem has led to the securitization of migration through discourses and state’s practices (Bigo, 2002, Faist, 2004). In Mexico, such securitization has been institutionalized through legal measures to

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The 2013 report on migrant statistics by the National Migration Institute (Instituto Nacional de Migración) shows that in that year, Mexico deported 77,232 individuals from the northern triangle of Central America (Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador), representing almost 97% of all deportations. 2 In 2010, a mass grave was found with 72 bodies of executed migrants in San Fernando, Tamaulipas, northern Mexico (LAWG, 2013). After this episode, additional clandestine graves sites have been identified all over Mexico: Only since the beginning of term of Mexico´s President, Enrique Peña Nieto, in late 2012, “at least 400 people have been found in such graves in 13 states” (Castillo, 2014).

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Decolonizing migration: Understanding the securitization of migration through the testimonies of Central Americans in transit across Mexico control the entry and flow of unauthorized migrants and different detention and deportation efforts (Vogt, 2013), while at the same time increasing militarization and policing of the southern border.

As a result, the flow of migrants has been reoriented to more dangerous routes (Anguiano and Trejo, 2007), and because their presence is prohibited, migrants in transit across Mexico have to become clandestine (Coutin, 2005), experiencing their journeys through regions controlled by criminal organisations and corrupt officials that turn migrants into objects of abuse and violence.3

While en route, Central Americans embody migration not only as a livelihood strategy but also as a lived experience of structural and historical forms of violence, as seen through the commodification of their bodies and lives as part of their journey (Casillas, 2011; Vogt, 2013). During their transit through Mexico, migrants are victims of mutilation of their bodies, physical and psychological assaults, kidnappings, rapes, torture, as well as trafficking, forced recruitment into criminal gangs, sexual exploitation and murder (Centro Prodh and Casa del Migrante Saltillo, 2011).

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The 2011 Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) Report on migrant kidnappings reveals that between September 2008 and September 2010, 412 cases of abductions with a total of 22,302 migrants kidnapped were documented. Out of 11,333 kidnappings that occurred in the last 6 months of this two year period, in 8.9% of them officials from the three levels of the government were involved.

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Figure 1.1 Map of Mexico’s migrant routes (Dudley, 2013)

1.2 Research Prerogative

The objective of this paper is to unpack and analyze the effects and impacts of the securitization of migration on Central Americans in transit through Mexico, paying specific attention to migrants’ testimonies about their experiences during their journey. This is in order to advocate for the recognition of migrants’ experiences as reliable sources to understand the current process of migration.

Most of the testimonies presented here are the work of years of documentation by different migrant shelters across Mexico and pro-migrants advocates, who capture the systematic violence suffered by the migrant population during their journey. As migrants are the ones

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Decolonizing migration: Understanding the securitization of migration through the testimonies of Central Americans in transit across Mexico who live through what happens and experience the very act of migrating through their embodiment and survival, their words and narrative must form a key part of our understanding of migration (Fassin, 2008). This analysis will be conducted through the lens of de-colonial thinking4 which, for the purpose of this research, represents the most suitable framework for a critical analysis of migration and security. De-colonial thinking helps to unpack the roots of the so-called securitization of migration and the violence performed against migrants.5 These roots are grounded in the logic of coloniality of power, based upon what Aníbal Quijano calls the ‘racial’ social classification of the world population under European-Western world power (2000, 2010).6

Among the existing research on the securitization of migration, both traditional and critical security studies, as well as realist, constructivist and internationalist approaches, have failed to engage with the experiences of migrants in transit. They have also been unable to coherently explain the securitization of migration as a product of coloniality of power,

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De-colonial thinking presupposes the analytic of coloniality: the most general form of domination of the world through the logic of oppression and control of social life, economic and political organisations. Decolonial thinking is different from post-colonial theory and studies. Pos-coloniality presupposes postmodernity and is located in post-structuralism; while de-colonial thinking delinks from modernity and postmodernity. It focuses on the silenced, emerging from the ‘Third World’, hence, located in the dense history of coloniality and as a result of struggles for political decolonization and for the claiming of “minority” groups (Tlostanova and Mignolo, 2012). 5 De-colonial thinking and de-colonial options are led and shaped by “les damnés de la terre” (Fanon, 1967), people that have been humiliated, devalued, disregarded, disavowed and that confront the trauma of the ‘colonial wound’ (Mignolo, 2010, 2011; Tlostanova and Mignolo, 2012), which has reduced them to inferior human beings through an imposed racial system. 6 It was during European colonialism that categorization of human beings was established; producing the current system of racism that classifies humanity as part of the imperial order of the world which still rules today (Quijano, 2000, 2010; Tlostanova and Mignolo, 2012).

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Decolonizing migration: Understanding the securitization of migration through the testimonies of Central Americans in transit across Mexico which perpetuates the reproduction of imperial/colonial differences7 founded on racism, a system of social classification and “a device to deprive human beings of their dignity” (Tlostanova and Mignolo, 2012: 56). As de Sousa Santos et. al. argue: “the end of political colonialism did not mean the end of colonialism as a social relationship associated with specific forms of knowledge and power” (2007: XXXIV-XXXV).

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securitization of migration, as a result of imperial/colonial relations, needs to be more thoroughly analyzed in order to think de-colonially9 about the whole process of migration and to promote emotional justice10, to allow sensitivity be part of the theory.

This paper starts by contextualizing transit migration through Mexico and the securitization of migration in the country. The research chapter addresses the central research query aiming to understand the effects and impacts of the securitization of migration in transit across Mexico through migrants’ testimonies. The discussion chapter summarizes the findings of the testimonies, and concludes by discussing the securitization of migration in the framework of de-colonial thinking. This research ends by encouraging further dialogue in order to think de-colonially about the migration process, and to work on the promotion of emotional justice for migrants within the academic literature on migration and security. 7

In order to exploit and dominate, it is necessary to build discourses and systems of beliefs that set the “colonial differences” through the production of differences in values according to the imperial image of the supreme and the inferior. This has led to the hierarchical order of human beings, justified in the ‘racial’ configuration of people, their languages, religions, economies, social and political organisations, and so on. As Tlostanova and Mignolo (2012) argue, “modern imperial discourses have been founded on the basis of “colonial differences” at all levels of the social” (41). 8 According to Quijano (2010), coloniality is still the most general form of domination throughout the world today, despite the end of colonialism as an explicit political order. 9 The main objective of de-colonial thinking is ‘de-coloniality of power’: it is about undoing coloniality by delinking from the rhetoric of modernity (the justification for the continuing of imperial/colonial relations under the name of ‘modernity’, ‘civilization’, ‘progress’ ‘development’ and ‘security’) and the logic of coloniality (Tlostanova and Mignolo, 2012). 10 “Emotional justice requires that we find the feeling behind the theories. It calls on us to not just speak to why something is problematic, but to speak to the emotional texture of how it impacts us; how it hurts, or how it brings us joy or nourishment” (Yolo Akili, 2012; in Walia, 2013: 268).

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Decolonizing migration: Understanding the securitization of migration through the testimonies of Central Americans in transit across Mexico Chapter II- Literature Review

2.1 Transit Migration of Central Americans across Mexico

During the 1980s’/1990s’, Central Americans in transit through Mexico were mainly refugees fleeing the violence caused by military dictatorships repressing guerrilla movements (Figueroa, 1994). After the fall of Berlin Wall and the Peace Agreements in Central America (1990s’), the U.S. modified its migration policies, returning refugees to their countries of origin and demanding the Mexican government enforce its southern border (García, 2006; Casillas, 2008; Durand, 2008). However, it was after 9/11 that severe measures to control the flow of migrants became more evident. At the same time, a new wave of violence against migrants in transit began. This aroused new concerns within the academia but also among grassroots organisations that started to document and report migrants’ rights violations (e.g. Frontera con Justicia, A.C., 2005, First Report on Human Rights).

2.1.1 Transit Migration in Clandestine Spaces

Transit migration lacks of an agreed definition in international law and within academia (IMISCOE Conference, 2008) due to its complexity, ‘temporariness’ and liminal state11 (Coutin, 2005; Castagnone, 2011; Vogt, 2013). However, transit migration is generally experienced through a ‘fragmented journey’ (Collyer, 2007) that is not linear, but a constant construction of the ‘in-betweenness’12 of

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Transit as a liminal state places migrants simultaneously outside, yet inside national spaces. Migrants are ‘in transition’ while ‘traveling through’. “In transit, migrants are absent yet there” (Coutin, 2005: 196).

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Decolonizing migration: Understanding the securitization of migration through the testimonies of Central Americans in transit across Mexico spaces (Papadopoulou, 2008; Castagnone, 2011; Collyer, 2007) where migrants’ experiences develop. This state of ‘in-betweenness’ brings uncertainty and anxiety, representing a source of insecurity for migrants along their way (Papadopoulou, 2008). Insecurity is magnified when the journey is done in ‘clandestine spaces’ due to the prohibition of unauthorized entry into the state’s legal spaces (Coutin, 2005; Vogt, 2013). Coutin (2005) argues that this prohibition shapes migrants’ journeys, creating a kind of legally reproduced vulnerability when not having the proper documents. For unauthorized migrants, crossing Mexico becomes a ‘journey of terror’13 that has to be done underground. Migrants resort to using “coyotes” or “polleros” in order to be clandestinely smuggled, traveling through isolated regions where not only people but also illegal commodities, such as drugs and arms, are smuggled (Casillas, 2011; Vogt, 2013). Migrants, without any means of secure transportation, travel through mountains and deserts, hidden in compartments used for cargo, or on the top of freight trains. These trains have been named “La Bestia” (The Beast) or “El tren de la muerte” (the Train of Death), due to the dangers it represents to migrants (LAWG, 2013). These spaces overlap with criminal networks of human traffickers, representing high risks for those without the necessary documentation to travel safer.

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Migration entails a process ‘to become’ which means ‘not been there yet’, been in-between leaving and arriving. “The concept of ‘in-betweenness’ is about being underway, undertaking a process” (Baas, 2012: 7). 13 In 2010, Amnesty International released its first report on migrants in transit through Mexico. Rupert Knox, researcher and co-author of Invisible Victims: Migrants on the Move in Mexico indicated that “migrants face possible kidnapping, extortion, arbitrary detention and attacks by the authorities, during a journey of terror” (Godoy, 2010).

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Decolonizing migration: Understanding the securitization of migration through the testimonies of Central Americans in transit across Mexico 2.1.2 Literature on Transit Migration through Mexico

Being in transit is a vulnerable condition (Papadopoulou, 2008) and the limited literature on transit migration across Mexico has attempted to explore such vulnerabilities. Different approaches on transit migration have analyzed the commodification of migrants and neoliberal capitalist relations within migration (Green, 2011; Vogt, 2013), criminal violence against migrants (Casillas, 2011; Albuja, 2014), ‘clandestinity’ and embodiment of law/illegality 14 (Coutin, 2005), the humanitarian-aid network along Mexico (OlayoMendez, 2014; Olayo-Mendez et. al., 2014), the crisis of migrants’ human rights (Aikin and Anaya, 2013) and the links between migration and security (Calleros, 2009; Armijo, 2011; Herrera-Lasso and Artola, 2011; Benitez, 2011).

However, these approaches have been unable to grasp the racist, classist, patriarchal and imperial/colonial construction of the classification of people on the move (e.g. “undocumented” or “irregular”). Such categorization, in collusion with “capitalism, colonial empire, state building, and hierarchies of oppression” (Walia, 2013: 8), shapes migrants’ experiences and journeys.

The state and the idea of borders are taken for granted without questioning the logic of coloniality of power that is embedded in their creation “as the nexus of most systems of oppression” (Walia, 2013: 9). State and borders, as means of control, perpetuate the system of social classification and racism which deprives human beings of their dignity. The state appears as the referent object of security that defines the “legal production of migrant 14

When migrants are clandestine, they embody law and illegality due to the state’s jurisdictions that forbid their presence, “their bodies become an absent space surrounded by law” (Coutin, 2005: 199).

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Decolonizing migration: Understanding the securitization of migration through the testimonies of Central Americans in transit across Mexico ‘illegality’” (De Genova, 2002: 419). It has been granted the monopoly over the means of movement within its borders and the authority to classify people, thus defining threats out of “non-insured species-life”. 15 As a result, this has contributed to the securitization of migration and the criminalization of Central Americans in transit across Mexico.

2.2 Securitization of Migration

Security as a political concept implies power relations around notions of insecurity, threats and means of protection (Fierke, 2007). Within the academia, security has been taken as a framework of analysis for different concerns: military, environmental, economical, societal and political ones (Buzan et. al., 1998); moving from traditional approaches on security (about military threats to nation states) to a widening of the security agenda (through critical security studies). After 9/11, the migration-security nexus was reinforced (Faist, 2004), placing migration as a security issue.

2.2.1 Securitization of Migration through the Rhetoric of Security Smuggling undermines the state’s perceived control of its borders which the state intends to combat through policies of border control and law enforcement. Hence, transit migration has connotations of being a threat to the state’s authority (Papadopoulou, 2008; Düvell, 2008). Consequently, transit countries, such as Mexico, are put under great political pressure to contain ‘unwanted’ migration flows (Collyer et. al., 2012; Papadopoulou, 2008).

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In words of Duffield (2008), “underdeveloped life is, from a biopolitical perspective, non-insured” (150), meaning that, from a Eurocentric idea of development, “non-insured lives lack the insurance-based safetynets and welfare regimes of mass society” (Duffield, 2006: 70).

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Decolonizing migration: Understanding the securitization of migration through the testimonies of Central Americans in transit across Mexico However, the process of securitization of migration is a political construction, achieved through “what in language theory is called a ‘speech act’ (…), associated with perceived threats” (Buzan et. al., 1998: 26), where the securitizing actor uses the rhetoric of security to transform an ordinary political issue into an existential threat. Due to ‘historical absences’, there exist a hegemonic understanding of threat and security that privileges a ‘western-centric’ discourse on security (Bilgin, 2010). This view, taken as the model to be followed by non-western countries, has led to a global enforcement of borders and international migration management to control migrants’ flow. Therefore, securitization of migration is influenced by power relations, domination and subordination.

Securitization of migration in transit through Mexico demonstrates how national security has been incorporated as the core of migration policies (Farah, 2008). Armijo (2011) claims that such securitization, far from contributing to migrants’ security, has turned them into victims of organised crime. Therefore, migration policies linked to those of security violate human rights and provoke humanitarian crises, like the one facing Central Americans through Mexico.

Nevertheless, such a securitization does not prioritise the well-being of migrants, since the rhetoric of security has been built from a hegemonic view in order to dominate and reproduce the legal categorization of life, tracing frontiers according to nationalities and citizenships (Tlostanova and Mignolo, 2012). As Walia (2013) argues, “border

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Decolonizing migration: Understanding the securitization of migration through the testimonies of Central Americans in transit across Mexico imperialism16 denies justice to migrants who are its own casualties” (52), hence, state and borders are tools of coloniality of power denying this justice.

2.2.2 Legitimization and Institutionalization of Migration as a Security Issue The security rhetoric reinforces stereotypes of ‘potential hostile foreigners’ (Bigo, 2008), spreading intolerance and racism toward migrants. This in turn legitimizes control, surveillance and exclusion of migrants.

The 2011 National Council to Prevent Discrimination survey shows that 40.1% of Mexicans accept police interrogations based on suspicions of being in the country ‘illegally’. 41% support the detention of migrants unable to verify their legal status in the country. Another study by the Centre for Research and Economic Teaching suggests that around 80% of Mexicans support an increase in border controls while 66% support the deportation of unauthorized migrants (Salazar, 2012). This illustrates that public opinion largely supports measures to securitized migration.

After 9/11 migration was unilaterally subsumed into the security arena. Mexico was forced to cooperate with U.S. security prerogatives (Herrera-Lasso and Artola, 2011). Mexico’s opinion was not taken into account when defining certain policies and programmes to manage migration in the region. Examples of this are “several multibillion-dollar “security” agreements between the U.S. and Mexico” (Vogt, 2013: 771) including the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP) (2005) and Mérida Initiative (2007).

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“Border imperialism depicts the processes by which the violences and precarities of displacement and migration are structurally created as well as maintained” (Walia, 2013: 5).

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Decolonizing migration: Understanding the securitization of migration through the testimonies of Central Americans in transit across Mexico SPP, a regional-level agreement between Canada, the United States and Mexico, prioritizes U.S.’ security agenda and establishes the link between security, borders and migration; advocating for “smart and secure borders” (Munguía and Ortega, 2008). Subsequently, one of the main pillars established as part of Mérida Initiative was “Creating a 21st Century Border” (U.S. Department of State). In words of Pickard (2011), the “Mérida Initiative is the U.S. implementation of its broader security agenda” (Witness for Peace), in order to increase control, surveillance through new technologies, and militarization of Mexico’s southern border. In 2011, Mexico’s new migration law was adopted. This was partly due to the incident of 72 migrants murdered in Tamaulipas in 2010, and partly because of human-rights and civilsociety organisations’ lobbying and engagement in the design of the law. This law represents a great achievement to acknowledge basic rights for migrants in transit (Alba, 2013); however, actions of persecution against migrants still criminalize ‘undocumented’ migration (Salazar, 2012). Mexico faces consistent U.S. pressure to securitize migration and enforce its borders. For instance, Mexico has adopted a ‘strategy of interior enforcement’ (Alba, 2013), setting checkpoints throughout the country and expanding migrant detention centers. Until now, there are 59 detention facilities throughout 27 states in Mexico (Sin Fronteras, 2014), compared with 35 facilities, in 24 states, in 2012 (INM, 2012). According to the Rapporteurship on the Rights of Migrants of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (2011), “migrants’ detention conditions resemble those of charged for crimes […] and often detainee migrants have fewer rights than those convicted for crimes” (in Salazar,

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Decolonizing migration: Understanding the securitization of migration through the testimonies of Central Americans in transit across Mexico 2012: 190). In relation to migrant detention centers, Walia (2013) suggests that these facilities are part of the “expanding prison system” (55), hence, the criminalization of migrants is already implicit during their detention. Persecution and apprehension of migrants is a priority task of Mexico’s National Institute of Migration (INM). Its mechanisms represent the institutionalized securitization of migration that criminalizes migrants. In August 2014, this entity conducted a series of raids on hotels in Chiapas (southern Mexico) where migrants spend the night before continuing their journey. These anti-migrant operations were deployed with the intention of capturing unauthorized migrants and deport them (Proceso, 2014). Just one month before this event, the Programa Frontera Sur (Southern Border Programme) was announced by President Peña Nieto (Excélsior, 2014), to improve control and security in the southern border and facilitate greater support to immigration agents.

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Figure 2.1 Migrants traveling on the top of a freight train pursued by military (EMGM, 2011)

Despite the efforts to study different aspects of security within migration and migrants’ vulnerabilities, academic literature still needs to incorporate migrants’ experiences into the analysis. Understanding how migrants embody migration and its securitization through their voices, is essential to recognize such securitization as part of the rhetoric of modernity17 that reproduces the logic of coloniality. Without migrants’ narratives, academic discourse will be skewed in favor of imperial/colonial approaches rather than focusing on the experiences of migrants themselves in order to enable emotional justice.

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The rhetoric of modernity (to ensure “salvation” and “protection” from those categories of people representing a “threat” to certain societies) justifies the continuing imposition of interests and a worldview inherent to imperialism and coloniality of power (Tlostanova and Mignolo, 2012).

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Decolonizing migration: Understanding the securitization of migration through the testimonies of Central Americans in transit across Mexico Chapter III- Research Study

3.1 Introduction

In Mexico, it has been suggested that up to 70,000 migrants have disappeared during their journey to the U. S. in the past six years, with over 150 clandestine mass graves located along the migrant route (Osorio, 2014). However, Mexico´s national security agenda still prioritizes migration controls and border enforcements rather than migrants’ security.

Migrants, through their testimonies, provide an insight on migration and security and how their dehumanizing experiences are part of racist practices that “construct them as a different type of humanity” (Walia, 2013: 63), devaluating them.

The aim of this chapter is to present migrants’ testimonies in order to unpack and analyze the effects and impacts of the securitization of migration. Through their testimonies, migrants are able to restore their own humanity and relate their experiences with those of other migrants. By doing so, migrants disclose a common identity and build a collective memory, while being able to “process and come to accept overwhelming life events by working them through with a caring other” (Jackson, 2013: 16). Haim Bresheeth (2002) argues that the healing process is bound up with storytelling, in this case, with migrants sharing their experiences. By relying on migrants’ testimonies, first-hand evidence on migrants’ journeys enables to gather reflective information about the reality of transit migration across Mexico and the effects and impacts of its securitization. The choice of the testimonies may not fully represent the experience of all migrants in its entirety, nor does it reflect other 21

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Decolonizing migration: Understanding the securitization of migration through the testimonies of Central Americans in transit across Mexico circumstances during the transit. It does though offer a reliable first-hand account of the overall situation in Mexico as a migratory corridor.

3.2 Research Methodology and Analysis Framework Analyzing testimonies is a way of presenting spoken words and “a means to reveal the layers of interpretation and understanding” (Miller-Rosser et. al., 2009: 477) which surround a particular event. Testimonies are relevant to understand a wider context that otherwise couldn’t be fully appreciated or understood.

Miller-Rosser et. al. (2009) propose a historiography research methodology to interpret data obtained from testimonies. This method consists on collecting testimonies; reconstructing biographies to provide a sense of the context in which experiences develop; searching for the telling extracts (seeds of meaning) that build ‘commonalities’; and finding the collective meaning for interpreting all the testimonies in one single story.

This paper takes de-colonial thinking as framework of analysis. However, in order to analyze migrants’ testimonies, inputs from the historiography methodology will be applied to this framework for searching ‘commonalities’ and find a collective meaning to interpret migrants’ shared experiences during their transit.

The majority of testimonies presented here are part of the documentation of grassroots organisations and migrants’ shelters in Mexico. These testimonies are considered secondary sources within this paper, and the main research source. The literature review aided understanding the context where migrants’ experiences take place, however, testimonies by themselves are able to portray a sense of the environment lived by migrants. 22

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Decolonizing migration: Understanding the securitization of migration through the testimonies of Central Americans in transit across Mexico The following graphical illustration presents the model adopted in this paper with the purpose of assessing the central research question. This model is the author’s contribution, combining inputs of the historiography method and border thinking analysis, from the analytical framework of de-colonial thinking: Central Research Question: “What do testimonies of Central American migrants tell us about the effects and impacts of the securitization of migration during their transit through Mexico?”

Figure 3.1 De-colonial thinking model applied

This model portrays the way in which migrants’ testimonies will be analyzed and, in order to assess the central research question, the next three sub-questions are addressed: 23

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Decolonizing migration: Understanding the securitization of migration through the testimonies of Central Americans in transit across Mexico 1) What are the consequences of the securitization of migration on migrants’ lives?

2) How do migrants experience the effects and impacts of the securitization of migration as a collective and build a common memory?

3) How do migrants heal and resist the impacts of the securitization of migration and the logic of coloniality which it perpetuates?

Respectively, the topics that correspond to each sub-question are: 1) Consequences on migrants’ lives, 2) shared experiences/common memory, and 3) healing and resistance.

Level one is the first step of analysis where testimonies will reveal the logic of coloniality hidden behind securitization of migration as part of the rhetoric of modernity. Testimonies disclose the consequences of such a securitization, portraying how migrants’ lives are dehumanized and devaluated along their transit.

Coloniality of power emphasizes and maintains imperial/colonial differences which deny migrants’ dignity, humanity and voices, placing them in a space of dwelling, being, and thinking (Tlostanova and Mignolo, 2012) within the ‘colonial wound’18 created out of these differences and the racial classification of human lives.

Level two shows how this colonial wound is where border thinking emerges, grounded in the denial of dignity which, as a result, places subaltern voices and silenced histories of

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Gloria Anzaldúa came with the concept of ‘colonial wound’ in Borderlands/La Frontera, The New Mestiza (1999) when stating that: “The U.S. Mexican border es una herida abierta where the Third World grates against the first and bleeds” (25), and is applied within de-colonial thinking to express “those situations in which Europe and the United States inflicted and continue to inflict the friction of the civilizing, developing, and modernizing mission” (Mignolo, 2011: 64).

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Decolonizing migration: Understanding the securitization of migration through the testimonies of Central Americans in transit across Mexico migrants “as the central philosophical and political figure” (Mignolo, 2010: 312). This is what Tlostanova and Mignolo (2012) call “theorizing from the borders”, which enables migrants “to acquire political agency founded in the colonial wound and coloniality of power” (Mignolo, 2005: 395).

Level three is where the collective meaning results and, as part of border thinking, is where common experiences and memories are built out of the colonial wound, in order to reconstruct and restore oppressed and dispossessed lives. Through migrants’ testimonies, commonalities and shared experiences affected by the securitization of migration will be identified. Migrants’ testimonies provide information about how their similar experiences are part of the building of a common memory among migrants, depicting resistance and means of healing when recognizing themselves as a collective claiming their humanity. It is here where migrants enter “the social terrain not only as political actors but, more significantly, as epistemic ones” (Mignolo, 2005: 393). This is how de-coloniality of migration opens up a possibility for another option to think about migration, while delinking from the idea of securitization of migration as the current worldview on which migration is managed.

Level four is the potential result of common experiences/memory and the process of healing/resisting. Is the moving towards decolonization and the undoing of border imperialism. As Harshia Walia (2013) suggests:

Decolonization is more than a struggle against power and control; it is also the imagining and generating of alternative institutions and relations. Decolonization is a dual form of resistance that is responsive to dismantling current systems of colonial empire and 25

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Decolonizing migration: Understanding the securitization of migration through the testimonies of Central Americans in transit across Mexico systemic hierarchies, while also prefiguring societies based on equity, mutual aid, and self-determination (249).

In summary, the method suggested helps to analyze migrants´ testimonies through the lens of de-colonial thinking in order to understand the securitization of migration through migrants´ own experiences. The themes recommended were designed to answer different aspects of the central research question from a holistic standpoint. Through the findings of each topic suggested, an overall summary will be developed, concluding with an answer to the central research query.

3.3 Findings Theme 1: Consequences on migrants’ lives What are the consequences of the securitization of migration on migrants’ lives? The state’s classification of ‘documented’/’undocumented’, reduces migrants’ very existence into a paper. Migrants are defined not only according to their nationality but also through a document:

I am Honduran, without papers, I am twenty-one years old. I tried to cross to the United States. Without papers. [Migrant testifying. CNDH, 2011:96*19]

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*Asterisks after each reference means author’s translation (ref. Annex). 26

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Decolonizing migration: Understanding the securitization of migration through the testimonies of Central Americans in transit across Mexico After the announcement of the Southern Border Programme, new control measures have been implemented by the government, enforcing the securitization of migration in Mexico, affecting unauthorized migrants. Since August 2014, migrants have been banned from using their main means of transportation: the freight train (The Associated Press, 2014). This situation has forced migrants to travel by more dangerous routes, increasing their vulnerabilities:

Before we could stay in the village, but now we are exposed to everything, to the mountain, animals, cops, thieves, drug traffickers.

[Guatemalan migrant, age 38. The Associated Press, 2014*]

The institutionalized securitization of migration makes the journey more insecure and overlooks migrants’ security: I don’t agree [with the new migration measures taken by the Mexican government], because there will be more thieves, kidnappers and deaths. But migrants won’t stop their journey. We will always find other ways.

[Honduran migrant at migrant shelter in Arriaga, Chiapas. Becerra-Acosta, 2014*]

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Figure 3.2 Migrants at “La 72”, migrant shelter in Tenosique, Tabasco (Castaneira, 2014)

According to Osorio (2014), ‘undocumented’ migrants are criminalized without committing any felony; they are discriminated through a system reproduced by the securitization of migration, considering them as delinquents:

He [police man] said they handcuffed us because there were those who, when they were told they would be deported, they ran. But we told them that it was ourselves who asked the police for help, we would not run, that they could remove the handcuffs. The Mexican [migrant] wasn’t handcuffed, we were, because we are illegal migrants, they said.

[Honduran migrant who escaped with other Central Americans and one Mexican migrant from their kidnappers. They sought help from the police and instead they were handcuffed. CNDH, 2011:98*]

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Decolonizing migration: Understanding the securitization of migration through the testimonies of Central Americans in transit across Mexico Not only migrants’ access to justice is denied due to discrimination, but also because of corruption. Migrants are seen as means of profit making by criminal gangs and by corrupt government officials:

They took us to Reynosa [the kidnappers] and on the way, we went by the checkpoints of the National Migration Institute and the Federal Police who saw what was happening and still didn’t do anything. They just took the money they were given to keep quiet.

[Salvadoran women, age 24. LAWG, 2013:16]

Migrants’ testimonies portray the large scale of corruption within Mexico’s state apparatus. Criminal gangs are seen as taking the place of “current gaps in Mexico’s governability” (Casillas, 2011: 308), where there is no rule of law. Narcotrafficking organisations that profit from exploiting migrants are linked to the government structure that facilitates corruption:

I remember it was July 5th, the day of the elections. They took a lot of them [the hostages] out to vote. They gave them a voter ID card and told them to vote for a particular party—I don’t remember which one, but it was the one that won the elections, because they were all really happy [the kidnappers], and they even lowered the amount of the ransom for the people who had gone and voted.

[Salvadoran women kidnapped, age 24. LAWG, 2013:17]

Migrants’ lives are valued according to their ‘usefulness’, reproducing the same logic of colonialism applied to enslaved people. For Mbembe (2001), the enslaved person as an 29

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Decolonizing migration: Understanding the securitization of migration through the testimonies of Central Americans in transit across Mexico instrument has a price, and as a property, has a value. Therefore, the value lies on the usefulness of migrant’s body. “This ‘value’ is to be usable, and that usefulness makes them objects, tools” (Mbembe, 2001: 187), depriving migrants from their very humanity:

. . . There were migrants who had been there for several days and even weeks. Some did not have fingers or toes and some were missing hands and arms. The kidnappers had cut them off because their families had not responded or could not pay.

[Honduran migrant, age 20. LAWG, 2013:12]

Securitization of migration classifies migrants. When they acquire the “illegal” label granted by the state, migrants are again classified and graded by those who transform their lives into commodities:

I heard one of the coyotes talking on his cell phone. He was saying that he already had the good ones, and he would send the worthless ones over to the other guy… They just told us not to ruin their trip, that they had some great merchandise. They said that because they had 5 Brazilians and 2 Indians in the wagon.

[Honduran and Salvadoran migrants, age 27 and 34. LAWG, 2013:14]

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Figure 3.3 Women and children on a freight train across Mexico (EMGM, 2011)

Women are subjected to various forms of abuse and are frequently attacked during their transit. The director of a migrant shelter in Arriaga, Chiapas, suggested that “of every 10 women who pass through this shelter, six have suffered sexual assault” (Amnesty International, 2010: 16). While kept captive by criminal organisations, women are not only sexually abused but also forced to work:

They [kidnappers] made us women clean the house the whole time. We also cooked and washed their clothes. …They touched us and abused us sexually whenever they felt like it. They also threatened us by passing the machete by our breasts, saying they were going to cut off our breasts if we didn’t obey them.

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Decolonizing migration: Understanding the securitization of migration through the testimonies of Central Americans in transit across Mexico [Guatemalan women, age 23. LAWG, 2013:23]

Securitization of migration impacts significantly on women who suffer more than male counterparts during their journey. Women’s rights over their own bodies are completely lost. Harsha Walia (2013) argues that the state’s denial of legality ensures the control over the disposability of migrants and embeds their exploitability: … They have women who work fixing food and cleaning… they also beat the men with boards and sell off women as prostitutes. Every woman costs 5,000 dollars or so depending on whether she is pretty or just so-so.

[Salvadoran migrant, age 34. LAWG, 2013:17]

The coordinator of the IOM in Tapachula, Mexico, said: “Here the big problem is not just what you see, it goes further. It is a vision about things, a type of mentality. Women have a role with the aggressors, with the coyote and among her own group” (in Martinez, 2012: 53). Hence, women assume an established logic based on oppression: … When they released us we were all weak. The girl who came with me was not allowed to leave; we were given the option that only one of us could leave. She told me that she was staying; she said that as a woman, who had already been abused, could be released later, but that I would get killed for sure. It really hurt me to leave her there, but I knew that what she said was true.

[Honduran migrant, age 32. Report on Migrants Kidnappings, 2011:54*]

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Decolonizing migration: Understanding the securitization of migration through the testimonies of Central Americans in transit across Mexico When a human life is stripped of her/his humanity, then its value lies in its usefulness (Osorio, 2014), turned into a disposable life that can be thrown away: …We were on the train and I got to see how they [the robbers] stole from a boy and threw him off the train, he completely got smashed into pieces. I also saw a girl that was going back to her country and they demanded her for money. Since she opposed …, they pushed her off the train and the train also busted her.

[Honduran migrant. REDODEM, 2013:86*]

Figure 3.4 Women mutilated by a train (EMGM, 2011) Student ID 553438

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Decolonizing migration: Understanding the securitization of migration through the testimonies of Central Americans in transit across Mexico Dehumanization and devaluation of migrants’ lives are part of the consequences of the securitization of migration in transit through Mexico. Migrants’ testimonies demonstrate how control measures on migrants’ flow and their ‘undocumented’ status take away their humanity. These same measures push organised crime to devaluate migrants and make them their victims for profit making purposes.

Theme 2: Shared experiences/common memory

How do migrants experience the effects and impacts of the securitization of migration as a collective and build a common memory?

These experiences have left wounds in all the survivors of such humanitarian crisis, becoming part of a common memory that will never be forgotten by those who lived it:

Of course we will never forget, because we saw things that we never expected to see, like when one guy tried to escape, and they caught him and put him in a barrel for a week and then they threw him out, barrel and all… No one saw him again.

[Salvadoran migrant, age 20. WOLA and Center Prodh, 2010]

Many of the testimonies emphasize the experience as unforgettable. When recalling it in order to narrate what happened, the feeling of pain comes back, pain for one self and for others:

I'll never forget. No matter what they did to me. But what they did to all those women, that is what hurts me the most. They were seventeen. Seventeen women returning sadder each night, more wounded, beaten. I will not forget what I saw. 34

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Decolonizing migration: Understanding the securitization of migration through the testimonies of Central Americans in transit across Mexico [Testimony of migrant who was kept captive. CNDH, 2011:3*]

Remembering is part of the lives of those migrants who suffer the consequences of the securitization of migration. Nonetheless, these memories are also part of the collective memory of the Mexican population since this humanitarian crisis is a shared history where the Mexican society is also implicit. Hence, Mexicans also need to take responsibility in order to recover the memories of those who suffered the consequences of the securitization of migration in transit through Mexico:

Whenever they showed up, they beat us just to beat us. They used a really wide wooden board that had the Mexican flag painted on it that said “Remember me” so that we wouldn’t forget what we went through there. Of course we will never forget.


The wounds left out of these experiences emphasize the colonial wound which denied migrants’ dignity and made them victims of this crisis. Migrants carry these wounds along their transit, if they decide to continue, or back home at their return:

They beat me with pure fists and kicks, I only had internal injuries that from time to time affect me because it hurts me, but I have not done any medical checkup, so I don’t know if I have something else. Here I go with the wounds, the ones that are inside, the ones that hurt forever.

[Migrant testifying. CNDH, 2011:83*]

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Decolonizing migration: Understanding the securitization of migration through the testimonies of Central Americans in transit across Mexico These stories disclose the brutality by which migrants are treated during their transit. Nevertheless, these abuses and common experiences of humiliation, strength migrants’ care for each other and compassion, even in the toughest times:

There were about five kids who were 15 years old and they had had their fingers cut off. …. Although we couldn’t get close to them because the kidnappers would beat us, I helped one of the kids, his name is Eduardo and he is Honduran. …; they had cut three of his fingers off, two from the right hand and one from the left. I gave him my bread when the kidnappers weren’t looking…


While recognizing themselves as part of a same story of abuse and devaluation, migrants try to support their companions whenever is possible:

I became friends with a very nice Honduran girl, she was sixteen years old. They (kidnappers) used her every day. Once all the kidnappers raped her, they were about fourteen men. As one ended [raping her], they sent her to take a shower and then it was the turn of the next one. … I felt so angry about what they were doing to her, not even an animal deserves tremendous abuse... I had returned from the United States and I brought a chain and a golden watch, which the boss liked. He told me that he could let me go if I gave them to him. I told him that I would also leave with the Honduran girl, because she did not have any help [someone to pay for her release], and he agreed. The other captors did not like that idea, so before letting me out they hit me a lot, I got fourteen shoals.

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Decolonizing migration: Understanding the securitization of migration through the testimonies of Central Americans in transit across Mexico [Honduran migrant, age 22. Report on Migrants Kidnappings, 2011:29*]

Migrants tell how some of the people that kept them captive and abused them are part of the same story of domination and violence, equally devaluated and used as tools. This is part of the logic of accumulation through exploitation, using the same means of colonialism for the devaluation of life in order to obtain economic gains. In this case, perpetrators are used as instruments to abuse others and forced to extort money from migrants by force:

Sometimes, the men would hit us and at the same time they would apologize, saying that they didn’t want to do this but that the Zetas were forcing them to. One even prayed with us because he is a Christian.

[Honduran, age 27. LAWG, 2013:15]

Figure 3.5 “I have worked with drug traffickers to support my family, until I fled for the safety of my

children.” (Ruddick-Sustein, 2014)

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Decolonizing migration: Understanding the securitization of migration through the testimonies of Central Americans in transit across Mexico Throughout their journey, migrants create bonds among them. This is part of what Collyer (2007) calls spontaneous social networks. But for migrants these are friends and companions in need of each other to protect from danger:

I was crossing through Guatemala with a young guy who made friends with me. We were travelling together. When we got to Tenosique we ran into a group of seven other guys and we decided to join up with them. I told them that all of us should travel together and organize to defend ourselves.

[Salvadoran, age 35. LAWG, 2013:18- 19]

Migrants, while sharing what happened to them and to other migrants, reaffirmed themselves as part of a collective of survivors:

Now, it was my turn. I played dead.

I heard more shots. Moans. Then I heard the trucks going away. Silence.

I opened my eyes and I could see someone hiding in the bushes. We looked at each other. We went out walking together down the road ... Some people from the navy helped me and took me to the doctor. I survived.

[Migrant who survived gun shots. CNDH, 2011:102-103*]

Migrants who have lived through the same experiences recognize in each other a fragment of that shared story, a common history that is part of their memories. This is the history that is now being told by the once disavowed and dehumanized. Through the recalling, migrants

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Decolonizing migration: Understanding the securitization of migration through the testimonies of Central Americans in transit across Mexico contribute a significant portion of the history of the people of Central America, of the process of migration in the twenty-first Century and the aftermath of its securitization.

Theme 3: Healing and Resistance

How do migrants heal and resist the impacts of the securitization of migration and the logic of coloniality which it perpetuates?

The testimonies presented so far show the reality of violence which is a product of the securitization of migration. The system devalues the migrants who come to believe that owing to their unauthorized status, their own worth can be questioned: “Sorry, hope you do not take this as an offense, but there is something we do not understand. Why are you helping us? Why do you care?”

[Salvadoran migrant when offered help. Age 20, travelling with his other two siblings. Their mother was shot death by gangs in El Salvador. Martínez, 2012:34*]

Nonetheless, migrants resist as a collective of people who have been equally devaluated and similarly experienced a journey of violence. Frank-Vitale recognizes migrants’ bonds as a way to proclaim their own “existence in the face of oppression” (2011: 71). The trauma produced from the effects of the securitization of migration is part of many migrants’ lives, making a common story of resistance that is still alive: Everyday I dream that they kill me, that their wooden boards break my heart… Here, everyone at some point breaks apart.

[Migrant testifying. CNDH, 2011:76*]

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Decolonizing migration: Understanding the securitization of migration through the testimonies of Central Americans in transit across Mexico According to Jackson, “we speak of trauma as something that ‘shatters’ or ‘fragments’ a life, ‘tearing it apart’” (2013: 106). However, migrants who have been through a similar journey are able to understand the suffering of the other, thus “between the two of them, the suffering is controlled” (Loizos, 1981; in Jackson, 2013: 108). Despite the trauma, migrants resist and make their voices heard:

I am willing to tell the authorities where the house is [where kidnappers hold him captive], because I remember it well, and because I have sisters and it’s not right to do what they did to women in that place.

[Salvadoran migrant, age 20. WOLA and Center Prodh, 2010:8]

Most of the times, migrants are too intimidated to press charges and denounce due to fear and reprisals. Nonetheless, as Frank-Vitale argues, “every denuncia20 that is made shakes the foundations of the system as it exists and brings the migrants out from the shadows” (2011: 97).

The main means of support for migrants have become what Olayo (2014) refers to as the Mexican migration-corridor hospitality, a network of shelters and humanitarian organisations for migrants. In an interview, the director of migrant shelter “La 72”, in Tenosique, claimed that there are roughly 60 shelters along the migrant route providing humanitarian aid, advocating for human rights and denouncing crimes and violence against migrants while pressing official authorities (Radio Fórmula Tabasco, 2014):

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“Denouncement”, the first step for making a formal claim against an official.

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Decolonizing migration: Understanding the securitization of migration through the testimonies of Central Americans in transit across Mexico …My companions and I met with a catch of federal police, who fired us and released some dogs. We ran out until we got to a place they call Corazones, there we were mugged, three of the girls were sexually abused and they took away three other. We continued our way and arrived to Ixtepec, Oaxaca where we complained to Father Alejandro Solalinde21 about what had happened to us. Then the Father made the denuncia, investigations were made and it was found that the commander of the federal police was the one who planned everything.

[Salvadoran migrant. VII Report of Migrant Shelter Saltillo, 2011:15*]

It is in these spaces where border imperialism is challenged, “through collective solidarities and responsibilities to each other, rather than to the state or systems of power” (Walia, 2013: 78). For Frank-Vitale, shelters, besides providing humanitarian aid, are places where “migrant resistance is fostered and from which protest is organized” (2011: 4). Pro-migrant advocates throughout Mexico are working as a social national network to raise awareness and protest; supporting migrants’ resistance to ensure their plight is recognized and understood.

For instance, in January 2011, the Caravana Paso a Paso Hacia La Paz (Caravan: Step by Step towards Peace) took place along the migrant Southern route starting from Chiapas passing through Oaxaca. The movement aimed to protest about mass kidnappings occurring in Mexico’s southern region and about death threats suffered by pro-migrants activists.22 Migrants took part of this march; they spoke out against kidnappings, murders and all sorts 21

Founder of shelter Hermanos en el Camino (Brothers in the Road) in Ixtepec, Oaxaca- Southern Mexico. Priest Alejandro Solalinde, granted with the National Award on Human Rights in Mexico, 2012 (CNN Mexico, 2012) had been threatened to death and suffered from defamation due to his work helping migrants (Frank-Vitale, 2011). 22

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Decolonizing migration: Understanding the securitization of migration through the testimonies of Central Americans in transit across Mexico of violence they suffer along their journey. They claimed their humanity, dignity and right to exist that are threatened by the current situation. Such demonstrations are powerful: “a person’s humanity has been negated structurally and systematically, and [s/]he is standing up to reclaim it” (Frank-Vitale, 2011: 95). In such acts of resistance is where community is enhanced and where humanity is reclaimed and rebuilt:

I had never gone out in something like that, but honestly, it motivated me substantially. So much. Because they will become aware of the truth, not just here in Mexico, but this will get out to levels all over the world. They will see the march that migrants did and know the truth that they are violating our rights.

[Honduran migrant interviewed at shelter Hermanos en el Camino. Frank-Vitale, 2011:101]

Through migrants’ engagement in acts of resistance, they “put pressure on those entities who benefit from the invisibility of migrants, [and] instills in migrants themselves a sense of fight, a sense of justice” (Frank-Vitale, 2011: 100). Migrants’ testimonies demonstrate that as survivors and through their resistance they are “pioneers of a new system” (Solalinde, 2014, in Koman Ilel) based on solidarity and justice. These are also the bases to move forward to what Walia refers to as healing justice, in order to address “personal, collective and systemic trauma” (2013: 267).

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Figure 3.6 Migrants in a demonstration demanding “Freedom of Transit” (Castaneira, 2014)

According to Saltillo’s Migrant Shelter (2009), many Central American victims of kidnapping and violence don’t receive enough therapeutic support to overcome the various traumas of their experience. However, healing justice is about creating communities of caring and support through a “reciprocal vision of healing” (Walia, 2013: 268) among Central American and Mexican communities. The “re-construction and restitution of silenced histories” (Mignolo, 2010: 305), as well as the reconfiguration of communities of care, with shared ideals and new ways of social and political organisation, lead toward the creation of de-colonial projects.

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Decolonizing migration: Understanding the securitization of migration through the testimonies of Central Americans in transit across Mexico 3.4 Conclusion

The testimonies above, addressed the three themes highlighted previously, in order to understand the effects and impacts of the securitization of migration in transit across Mexico through migrants’ voices.

The testimonies of migrants provide reliable information about what happens during their journey across Mexico. This aids understanding the effects and impacts of the securitization of migration. Such securitization dehumanizes and devaluates migrants’ lives. As a consequence, migrants are subjected to systematic violence and abuses in hands of criminal organisations, in some cases, with the collusion of public authorities. Migrants’ testimonies highlight the corruption that permeates Mexico’s governmental apparatus and exposes how measures to institutionalize the securitization of migration contribute to greater violence in the country. The testimonies disclose the way in which, due to the effects of securitization of migration and its consequences, their shared experiences build a common memory out of this humanitarian crisis. These testimonies demonstrate how migrants are survivors who resist and rebuild their own lives; claiming justice and human dignity through community and solidarity networks from which they are able to start a healing process.

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Decolonizing migration: Understanding the securitization of migration through the testimonies of Central Americans in transit across Mexico Chapter IV- Discussion 4.1 Testimonies Summary Theme 1: Consequences on migrants’ lives

Testimonies of migrants demonstrate how securitization of migration leads to their classification with their lives reduced to an existence on a paper, owing to their “undocumented” status. The institutionalization of the securitization of migration, through measures of control and border enforcement, forces migrants to take more hazardous routes, increasing the risk and their vulnerability. Migrants’ testimonies also demonstrate that securitization measures take no account of the impact they have on the well-being of migrants. They expose how securitization perpetuates the racist logic of coloniality of power through the discrimination of migrants and denial of justice. This increases violence and abuses against them. Through their testimonies, migrants highlight the corruption that permeates Mexico’s state apparatus which is amplified by securitization. Migrants disclose the ways in which their lives and bodies are turn into commodities thus depriving them from their humanity and dignity. Through the same logic of colonialism- that was applied to enslaved people-, migrants are turned into disposable lives for profit making purposes. These testimonies reveal that women are the most affected by the consequences of the securitization, losing all rights over their own bodies. This intensifies the emotional and physical damage they suffer along the migrant route. Such expressions of patriarchal relations of domination dispossess women and force them to assume certain roles in order to exploit them. Dehumanization and devaluation of migrants’ lives appeared to be the most

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Decolonizing migration: Understanding the securitization of migration through the testimonies of Central Americans in transit across Mexico common consequence of the securitization of migration in transit through Mexico, added to an increased danger on migrants’ lives and the spread of violence by criminal gangs.

Theme 2: Shared experiences/common memory Migrants’ testimonies reveal common synergies and stories within the migrant population, experiences which are shaped by the securitization of migration. Throughout their testimonies, they described these experiences as unforgettable events individually and as a collective. These testimonies show how the affects and impacts of the securitization of migration have become part of a common history of the Central American population. In addition, migrants’ voices demonstrate that this situation is also part of a shared history with the Mexican society. This is despite the fact that it has been the migrants from Central American, who have been directly exposed to the impacts of securitization. Migrants talk about the wounds left by the journey: the physical, psychological and spiritual ones, becoming part of their lives after the events have ended; carrying the wounds with them, back to their countries of origin or their eventual final destination. Migrants, dwelling within the colonial wound, demonstrate how violence perpetrated against them, have make them feel compassion and solidarity for other migrants. Recognizing others and themselves as part of a shared story of dispossession and exploitation. In fact, they are also able to recognize many of their own kidnappers as part of a common history of devaluation and abuse, being forced to exploit migrants. As migrants reveal, shared experiences are enhanced due to the ties born out of the tragedy, for the necessity of protecting and caring for each other. Through their testimonies, migrants, as survivors, are able to rebuild and

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Decolonizing migration: Understanding the securitization of migration through the testimonies of Central Americans in transit across Mexico reveal fragments of a common history, a common memory, while reclaiming their own humanity.

Theme 3: Healing and Resistance

Due to their unauthorized status and the effects and consequences of the securitization of migration, migrants get to even question the value of their own life in the face of extreme physical, mental and psychological abuse. However, the testimonies disclose migrants’ resistance and strength. Migrants resist as a community, thus creating their own group identity through their shared experience which enables to overcome trauma, support one another and speak as one. Migrants, while speaking out and denouncing, not only do they resist but also they allow themselves to come out of the shadows. Migrants have found support in shelters, pro-migrant organisations and activists who care for them and foster their resistance. These support networks work hand-in-hand with the migrants, undoing border imperialism through common solidarities and responsibilities to each other. It is in this collective resistance where migrants become political actors, able to speak out against the violence perpetrated against the migrant community in transit through Mexico. Migrants claim their dignity and their right to exist, and through these acts they resist and recover. Together with their support networks, they set the bases for a reciprocal healing, based on community, rebuilding their lives and re-constructing their silenced histories.

4.2 Concluding Remarks: Discussion in the Frame of De-colonial Thinking Throughout this research it was demonstrated that migrants’ testimonies are able to reveal how the current process of migration and its securitization are grounded in the logic of

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Decolonizing migration: Understanding the securitization of migration through the testimonies of Central Americans in transit across Mexico control and oppression. Migrants’ accounts expose the effects and impacts of the securitization of migration, demonstrating how the system of racism that classifies humanity is emphasized through people’s categorizations, such as “documented” or “undocumented”, and how such securitization takes migrants’ humanity away. This study propose the de-colonial thinking as framework for analyzing migration and its securitization, in order to move away from the framework of security, and to reveal the roots and the logic of coloniality implicit on migration driven as a security issue. It was unpacked how the state apparatus and borders are tools of such logic to reduce people to inferior human beings. Through their testimonies, migrants are able to grasp the racist, classist and patriarchal elements surrounded such a classification of humans’ lives. Their experiences in transit through Mexico reveal how securitization of migration is part of a rhetoric used to build discourses and a system of beliefs to enforce colonial differences, placing migrants as “threats”, justifying not only their dehumanization but also the continuing imposition of Western political interests through a certain worldview on migration as a security concern. Therefore, discrimination and criminalization of migrants have taken place in a legitimized an institutionalized way. Nonetheless, this study highlighted how migrants, as survivors of violence and a system of oppression, are leading and shaping de-colonial projects in order to reclaim their humanity and create a different community based in understanding, solidarity and reciprocity. In order to dismantle physically and politically established borders, it is necessary to start by undoing structural borders created by colonial relationships of power. Migrants, through

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Decolonizing migration: Understanding the securitization of migration through the testimonies of Central Americans in transit across Mexico their humiliation and devaluation, confront the trauma of the “colonial wound”, transforming their silenced histories into subversive ways that move toward de-colonizing migration. Migrants’ experiences invite us to think de-colonially about the current process of migration and to delink from the rhetoric of modernity and the logic of coloniality (Tlostanova and Mignolo, 2012). This should be done in order to question and contest the roots of the so-called securitization of migration and the reproduction of coloniality of power implicit in this very idea. 4.3 Notes on the Research Method Due to the length of time, the testimonies of migrants provided in this paper were taken from previous documentation of pro-migrant organisations and advocates working directly with migrant communities. Nonetheless, these testimonies have proved to be reliable sources of information due to their main purpose, which is to denounce and seek justice for migrants. Migrants’ voices are trusted and not contested through rational judgments since they reveal a violent part of their traumatic experiences. 4.4. Research Limitations and Recommendations Due to the length of this paper, this research was unable to assess historical and structural violence in places of origin which can be considered push factors for migrating. Discussions on how possible de-colonial projects can take place, in order to delink from the securitization of migration, couldn’t be further developed.

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Decolonizing migration: Understanding the securitization of migration through the testimonies of Central Americans in transit across Mexico This research aims to encourage further discussions to think de-colonially about the current migration process. It calls for an engagement of the academia to enable emotional justice within the scholarship on migration and security in order to recognize migrants’ voices as reliable sources of knowledge rather than as objects of study. Academia needs to de-link from the logic of coloniality of power and knowledge, and start questioning its own roots and its own role to promote this justice. In addition, there is a responsibility in Western scholarship to question the structural colonialism grounded in the origins of the securitization of migration, and to incorporate other ‘knowledges’ emerging from ‘Third world countries’, many of which may not been part of academic institutions but that are reproducing relevant work in terms of the study of migration, working hand-in-hand with migrant populations with a clear purpose, that of demanding justice and dignity while decolonizing migration.

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Decolonizing migration: Understanding the securitization of migration through the testimonies of Central Americans in transit across Mexico Annex: Full Testimonies The testimonies presented throughout this paper were taken from ten different sources. Seven of them were found in their original version in Spanish without any English version. Therefore, fragments of the testimonies taken from these sources are the author’s translations. Along the research chapter, translations made by the author are marked with an asterisk * after referencing each quote. English sources: LAWG (2013), WOLA and Prodh (2010) and Frank-Vitale (2011)  Full testimonies from LAWG, 2013: Latin America Working Group (LAWG), 2013. Perilous Journey: Kidnapping and Violence against Migrants in Transit through Mexico. Introduction by Jennifer Johnson with translated testimonies from the Cuaderno sobre secuestro de migrantes. Edited by the Casa del Migrante Saltillo and the Centro de Derechos Humanos Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez. Latin America Working Group Education Fund, October 2013. Consequences on migrants’ lives ◊ My name is Nancy. I am a Salvadoran and I was kidnapped and held prisoner from April 13 to June 22. They got me in Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz.... They took us to Reynosa and on the way, we went by the checkpoints of the National Migration Institute and the Federal Police who saw what was happening and still didn’t do anything. They just took the money they were given to keep quiet. The kidnappers were telling us that we should take a good look at what was happening and realize that they had everything bought and paid for. One of the men started to harass us because he wanted to sexually abuse the women who were in the group. One of our male companions got angry and tried to defend us, but he couldn’t, because they raped him, too, and then they beat him to death. He fell to the ground dead in front of me, but before he died, he told me and my other two women friends to please talk to people and tell them what was happening. We circled the highway around Reynosa for about 15 minutes. Before we got to the safe house, they took us out of the car in a place where they rent cargo trucks, because they said that the Zetas were going to count us. Afterwards, they put us in a white pickup truck and we were all piled up in the back of the truck. We got to a very big house across the street from a soccer field. They had us in that house until the following happened: A Honduran woman by the name of Sara was pregnant and she had already been held prisoner for a long time. She just told me her name was Sara and that a time might come when she would forget her name, and she wanted me to remind her of what her name was if that happened. And it was true. After a few days, she couldn’t even remember her name and she just cried all the time. Then, the baby began to be born and no one helped her. In fact, they hit her so that she would stop complaining. The baby was born but the placenta never came out, and after two hours with no one helping her, she bled to death there. They took the baby and I 58

Decolonizing migration: Understanding the securitization of migration through the testimonies of Central Americans in transit across Mexico don’t know what they did with him. The kidnappers did nothing with Sara’s body. They left it there, and we had to be in the same room with the dead body until it smelled so bad that the neighbors realized what had happened and told the Army that something strange was happening in that house. I found out that people from Migration tipped off the kidnappers, so then they moved us somewhere else and left Sara’s body there. Afterwards, two of my women friends were freed because a ransom was paid for them and they went to turn themselves in to Migration in Reynosa. They told the agents there what had happened and then the Migration agents sold them back to the Zetas. They were brought back to the house, and they were killed and given as an offering to the Santa Muerte (the Saint of Death). They made all of us pass by and kneel in front of the altar with the two dead women there, in order to ask Santa Muerte for forgiveness. During this whole time, there were three Mexican men who were the bosses who kept coming in. They were looking for the women who were there, so they could have sex with us. The three of them raped me many times. They also proposed that I work for them; they wanted me to go to El Salvador and bring people for them, and they said that nothing was going to happen to me because everything was all arranged. First I told them I would, because I thought when they freed me, I could go and report them. But then I became very afraid and told them no. Then I had to wait until my aunt had gotten together all of the money they were demanding to free me. Two weeks later, she deposited the amount of money that they had asked for and I was freed. I remember it was July 5th, the day of the elections. They took a lot of them [the prisoners] out to vote. They gave them a voter ID card and told them to vote for a particular party—I don’t remember which one, but it was the one that won the elections, because they were all really happy, and they even lowered the amount of the ransom for the people who had gone and voted. Nancy, age 24, Salvadoran, single, 1 daughter [LAWG, 2013: 16-17] ◊ In the house where they took us . . . there were migrants who had been there for several days and even weeks. Some did not have fingers or toes and some were missing hands and arms. The kidnappers had cut them off because their families had not responded or could not pay. I can say that they had no respect even for age because there were about five boys who were about 15 years old and they had also had their fingers cut off. The poor guys were always moaning in pain and at night they cried a lot. They had fevers and little by little they were bleeding to death. Even though we couldn’t approach them because our kidnappers hit us when we tried, I was able to help one of the boys. His name is Eduardo and he is from Honduras. I think he is probably dead by now because he had been there for two weeks and he was very thin. They had cut three fingers off of him, two from the right hand and one from the left. I would give him my bread when the kidnappers weren’t looking because every day they came with a piece of bread and some water for each migrant. They always threw the bread at us, and they shouted at us and called us names. Daniel Palomo Coto, age 20, Honduran, common-law marriage, one daughter [LAWG, 2013: 12] ◊

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Decolonizing migration: Understanding the securitization of migration through the testimonies of Central Americans in transit across Mexico On Monday, August 3, when I was with my companions on the train tracks in the area before Chontalpa, I met three coyotes. They had several people in a wagon. A little way back, by the cement factory, they had alerted us about an immigration checkpoint up ahead. I heard one of the coyotes talking on his cell phone. He was saying that he already had the good ones, and he would send the worthless ones over to the other guy. He had warned us about the checkpoint so we had gotten off earlier, and we gathered around them. They just told us not to ruin their trip, that they had some great merchandise. They said that because they had 5 Brazilians and 2 Indians in the wagon. We thought they were good people and so we followed them. The coyotes offered to take us to the closest station because the next train hadn’t come by, so they made some calls by cell phone, and three white trucks arrived—kind of like cattle trucks, but with green canvas covering the grill on the back. About 40 of us migrants got into their trucks, and they drove us for about three hours in those trucks. They drove very badly and all of us started to get suspicious. Since we were very thirsty, we asked them for water, but they threatened us with their weapons. Soon we got to a gas station, and we all started making a lot of noise. We screamed that we were being kidnapped, and one of the migrants broke through the green canvas covering the truck. Someone heard us and called the police, so they drove on another five minutes when the police arrived and stopped the three trucks. The kidnappers spoke with the Federal Police and I heard one of the kidnappers talking by cell phone with a lawyer. After a while, the police said that we could continue. We asked if we should go with them and they said no, that we should get back into the kidnappers’ trucks. So we knew we had been sold out. Then, we started to run, but many were threatened with weapons again and told to get back on the truck. Among them was an eight-year-old boy, his father, and several women. Sandro Vázquez, age 27, Honduran, common law marriage, four children Alejandro Gómez, age 34, Salvadoran, single, three children [LAWG, 2013: 14] ◊ A group of about 35 of us migrants were travelling by train: 32 men and 3 women. We were passing through Chontalpa when several hooded men stopped the train. They were armed with machetes and pistols. They threatened us and made us get off the train and get on a white fruit truck with wooden slats. When the truck started moving, they told us that we were going to work on a ranch. We travelled for two and a half days to Tamaulipas. We saw how the police and immigration officials stopped us on the way, and that the kidnappers gave them money. They took us to a yellow house. It had a wall around it and a white gate. The neighbourhood was called Limón or Limones. The house has three rooms and a kitchen. When we got there, they separated us. In one room they put the people who were going to pay them $3,000 to get them across to the United States. In the other room, they put those of us they considered balines—the worthless ones. Then another group arrived with nine men and two women. They separated the men from the women. The men they kept naked and tied up, and they always beat them with boards.They have two boards, one larger than the other. They called the bigger one

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Decolonizing migration: Understanding the securitization of migration through the testimonies of Central Americans in transit across Mexico “Chavela” and the smaller one “Chavelita.” They threatened us all the time with their weapons and their machetes. They didn’t give us anything to eat. They made us women clean house the whole time. We also cooked and washed their clothes. We made better food for those who had “confirmed.” Those who hadn’t confirmed only received food once a day, if at all—just rice, eggs, or beans. They touched us and abused us sexually whenever they felt like it. They also threatened us by passing the machete by our breasts, saying they were going to cut off our breasts if we didn’t obey them. We were held prisoner for a month and a half, until one day, they told us that they were going to send us to San Luis Potosí so that we could go back. They said they didn’t want to see us near the river. They warned us that the river was theirs, and that we would have to pay them a fee if we wanted to cross it. When we were headed to the bus station, we heard that they had been warned by radio that five truckloads of Army men were coming from Victoria, so they took us back to the house, got out their suitcases, and left. They left us alone and we escaped. María Hernández, Guatemalan, age 23, single, no children Arturo Flores, Honduran, age 22, partnered, one child Walter Torres, Honduran, age 34, married, three children [LAWG, 2013: 23] ◊ They took us to a large farmhouse where they have women who work fixing food and cleaning. In Tamaulipas . . . the boss called me in. He took me for a ride in his truck and tried to convince me to work with him. He offered me money in dollars. He offered me cars, drugs, and women, but I didn’t accept. From what they were saying, I understood that in Nuevo León, they also beat the men with boards and sell off the women as prostitutes. Every woman costs 5,000 dollars or so depending on whether she is pretty or just so-so. Álvaro Méndez, age 34, Salvadoran, married, three children [LAWG, 2013: 17]

Shared experiences/common memory ◊

When I got off the bus at the terminal in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, a young Honduran man who was tattooed with the letters of the Mara Salvatrucha gang approached me. He told me that I had been reported and that I had to go with him. I suspected that something bad was happening so I tried to resist going with him. But he told me he was a member of the Zetas and that I shouldn´t try to escape. He said the people at the terminal knew exactly what was happening, but since they were all being watched, they would do absolutely nothing [to help me]. Then he turned me over to four policemen, who were dressed in blue and carried small pistols. The policemen put me in a blue and white SUV-style patrol car. They took me across the street from the bus terminal to a park with a lake. They started to look through my things, searching for telephone numbers. As they did it, they apologized, saying that they were 61

Decolonizing migration: Understanding the securitization of migration through the testimonies of Central Americans in transit across Mexico very sorry but that they were under orders from the Zetas. I asked them to let me go, but they said that they couldn’t and that only God could help me now. They found the phone number for my brother in Miami and my mother in Honduras. They called my brother and told him that I had been kidnapped and that he had to deposit $3,000 ransom into a bank account. Then they put me in a kind-of-new, little red car. It took about an hour to get to the house where they held me. I had a pistol pointed at me the whole time. They also hit me with a board on my back and made me chew a box of electric gum. All of this was to try to force my family to give them the money, even though I had already told them that they were going to pay. We got to a warehouse that was pretty big. It was white and had a black gate. Inside, there were dogs and chickens. There were a few mattresses, just enough for five of us to lie down on each one, because there were another 40 people kidnapped besides me, and there were five more kidnappers too. There were three women, a 15-year-old boy, another 13-year-old boy, and many others. There, they put me to work, cleaning chickens and cooking. Once they took me to work on a ranch. There were about eight people total guarding us. One of them was a Honduran who had a scar near his eye. Another one seemed like he was blind in one eye. There was a young guy with a parrot tattooed on his arm, and another who had the name Kevin tattooed on his fingers. There was also an old Salvadoran man with a braid. Sometimes, the men would hit us and at the same time they would apologize, saying that they didn’t want to do this but that the Zetas were forcing them to. One even prayed with us because he is a Christian. In the morning they gave us coffee and bread. Then, at about 1:00pm they served us a few tortillas with some beans, and at dinner the same thing. They hit us so that we would talk. They cut the little finger off of one boy so that he would give his phone number. They did really bad things to us; I don’t really want to say what, right now. I can only say that I helped them by heating the tortillas and by cooking so that they wouldn’t mistreat me anymore. Talking with the others there, I found out that there are also people watching the bus stations in Monterrey and Reynosa. They fool some of the people by saying they are guides and that they will help get them over to the other side, but others, like me, they just take by force. I was held prisoner for 15 days as we waited for my mother and my brother to get together the money to free me. My mother had to sell the business that I had in Honduras. They were only able to scrape together $2,700. But the kidnappers decided to accept it, so one Wednesday afternoon, they took me to the park near the bus station and they let me go. I had to beg for money at the bus station to get enough money for the bus. Now I don’t ever want to go north again. Mauricio García, age 27, Honduran, single, no children [LAWG, 2013: 14-15] ◊ I was crossing through Guatemala with a young guy who made friends with me. We were travelling together. When we got to Tenosique we ran into a group of seven other guys and we decided to join up with them. I told them that all of us should travel together and organize to defend ourselves and so I sent some out for water and others for food. At that time a guy they called Henry came up to me and asked me if I was the guide for the group. 62

Decolonizing migration: Understanding the securitization of migration through the testimonies of Central Americans in transit across Mexico I said that I wasn’t, that maybe I was a little bit of a leader, but that I wasn’t charging them or anything like that. A bald guy also came up to me and he had a cell phone. The two of them tried to make me say that I was a guide. I told them I wasn’t, that I knew the way— which actually wasn’t true—but that I wasn’t a guide or anything. When my friends got back, they told us we should get into their train car so we could travel together. We followed them and then the bald guy made a call on his cell phone. He told us that his boss had told him that there were immigration agents on the road ahead and so we should write our names down in a little booklet so that when we went through the checkpoint, they wouldn’t do anything to us. He told us that he was a guide and that he was going to take us to Coatza, but that if we didn’t have money to go beyond that, not to worry, that he would let us go and that would be it. The train started to move and about a kilometer before the bridge, which is right before you get to Coatzacoalcos, near a dirt road, other people down below made the train stop. The machinist gave machetes to the guides. At the same time a white Ford 450 truck with a green bed cap, a black Chevrolet truck, a white Ford truck, and a green Dodge—all fairly new models—came driving up to where we were. The people began to shout and cry as they were pulled away. They grabbed me and made me get into the biggest vehicle. They threatened all of us with their AK-47s and rifles. When we were in that Ford 450 truck, we were all very sad and anxious. They drove on rough terrain to get around the first National Migration Institute checkpoint. Then we went on a highway and went past another Migration checkpoint. We were stopped, but the migration agent talked to the drivers and then let us go. Further ahead there was a checkpoint with two patrol cars, two motorcycle patrollers, and an SUV all belonging to the Federal Police. The guides opened the back doors of the truck where we all were and the federal policeman saw us there, all piled up and crying, and said. “OK, that’s fine.” He talked with the guides and then let the truck continue on. On the way, the kidnappers hit some of the victims with the butts of their pistols and they threatened all of us and abused us verbally. There were about nine kidnappers travelling with us. They all seemed like Mexicans. One of them, who had pictures of women tattooed on his back, was fondling the women who were with us and telling the others to set these women aside for him. Another important thing is that when we were riding in that car, we heard them talking on their cell phones and heard that the Army had attacked some of their buddies in Tenosique and that they had gotten someone they called “negro.” After about an hour on the road, we got to a residential house that had some condominiums in front and coconut trees on the sides. The railings of the house were white and the house was painted entirely a salmon color. Inside the house there were ceramic floors and big closets. It was a three-story house and had a terrace. There were about 20 kidnappers there. Most of them were Mexican, but there were also several Hondurans and a Salvadoran. They put all of us into a room and began to go through our things and try to make us give them the phone numbers that we had. One guy said, “Bring me the chino.” They were talking about me because I have Asian-looking eyes. The tattooed Mexican guy came out and they put me in a room that was about four square meters. They asked me if I wanted to work with them. I told them no, that I didn’t work with anyone, and that I was just passing through. They hit me and I fell to the ground. They kicked me until I fainted but they didn’t hit me in the face. One of them, who was high on cocaine, grabbed my testicles and squeezed them hard and asked me who I was working for. I was crying in pain but I told them I didn’t work for anyone. Then the one who was beating me told someone to go get 63

Decolonizing migration: Understanding the securitization of migration through the testimonies of Central Americans in transit across Mexico the board, and then he said no, bring the bag instead. They took a plastic bag and tied it over my head. When I breathed the bag got closer and closer to my face until I couldn’t breathe anymore and I started to asphyxiate. They asked me again who I worked for, but I told them I didn’t work with anybody. I couldn’t even lie and tell them that I worked for someone else, because I didn’t even know the names of their adversaries. They brought a board and told me that they were going to hit me with it four times and that if I was still alive, they were going to throw me into the river because the alligators were hungry. Finally, one guy told them to stop and to send me to wash up. At that point, they put another man into the room who they also mistook for a guide, but you could tell he was a poor man (I had talked with him and he told me it was the first time he was travelling). I think they killed the man, because while I was washing I heard him crying out because they were beating him, but then I didn’t hear anything, and when I went by there, I saw blood and a machete. I went out into the room where the others were and when they saw me, everyone started to cry. One by one, they all had to go into the room. There were 119 of us and they raped all of the women. The kidnappers had friends who came by and fondled the women and used them. No one could say anything to them. Two days later, they said they had 20 balines, which meant 20 people who were useless to them, and that we should all be thrown out on the train tracks. The same big vehicle that they brought us in took us back to a place near the station in Coatzacoalcos, about 20 minutes away maximum by car, but before that, we had to wait in hiding for about ten minutes because the Army was coming. The kidnappers called them perros (dogs) and wanted to make sure they didn’t see us. I couldn’t walk because of all of the blows to my knees and ankles and because the Mexican stood on my ribs and on my stomach with his big boots. Around five in the afternoon, they let us go. I was very afraid and I wanted to get out of there. They had also threatened me and said that if I talked, things were going to go very badly for me. He said I shouldn’t trust anyone, because I might run into to someone up ahead and have it turn out that they also work with them. At eight o’clock that night, I took the train to Tierra Blanca. There in the Migrants Shelter, a young man from the Human Rights Commission interviewed me. He said that they had recorded a lot of cases similar to mine but that the police didn’t do anything about it. Daniel González, age 35, Salvadoran, married, two children and one on the way [LAWG, 2013: 18-19]

 Full testimonies from WOLA and Prodh, 2010: Meyer, M., and Brewe, S., 2010. A Dangerous Journey through Mexico: Human Rights Violations against Migrants in Transit. Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) and Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez Human Rights Center (Center Prodh) Shared experiences/common memory & Healing and Resistance ◊ They kidnapped me in January 2008. I was in the Migrants’ Shelter in Reynosa, state of Tamaulipas and after I left, I went to the Rio Grande to try to cross. There, two Mexican men told me that they would take me across for 100 dollars. I told them no, because I didn’t 64

Decolonizing migration: Understanding the securitization of migration through the testimonies of Central Americans in transit across Mexico have any money, so they grabbed me, beat me and threw me in a truck that took me to someone’s house. There, they spent all their time abusing women, that is, raping them, and beating all of us, men and women, with a really thick wooden board. There were people there from everywhere: from Brazil, Peru, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Guatemala. There was one guy that seemed to be the boss, but he was ordered around by four other guys that came in big trucks, with nice phones, guns, and bodyguards. Whenever they showed up, they beat us just to beat us. They used a really wide wooden board that had the Mexican flag painted on it that said “Remember me” so that we wouldn’t forget what we went through there. Of course we will never forget, because we saw things that we never expected to see, like when one guy tried to escape, and they caught him and put him in a barrel for a week and then they threw him out, barrel and all, to who knows where. No one saw him again. I was in that house for four months, watching lots of people pass through, with an average of around 100 people at any given time. Those who paid were allowed to watch TV and eat twice a day. The rest of us who didn’t have money only ate once a day, and not even every day, just when the kidnappers felt like it. One day, they suddenly let me go; just telling me to go away, they took me to the Rio Grande. I am willing to tell the authorities where the house is, because I remember it well, and because I have sisters and it’s not right to do what they did to women in that place. Cristian García, 20 years old, Salvadoran [WOLA and Center Prodh, 2010: 8] ◊ On July 12, 2009, I was traveling on the train from Orizaba, Veracruz, with sixteen other Central American companions when we were all kidnapped. Eight men arrived at the train, took us off and beat us; my head and my chest were hit with a gun. There were six Federal Police agents in their patrol cars close by and they didn’t do anything; actually the kidnappers told us to observe how the police “were their cats,” we yelled to the police and asked them to help us but they didn’t do anything. Afterward we were put in a small white truck and we drove for about 40 minutes until we arrived at a house in an unpopulated area. All the way there we were beaten, yelled at, and insulted. The house we were taken to was very isolated, it was made out of wood, there were no bathrooms, it had a well. From the time we arrived there was a bad odor that smelled like dead animals. There was blood all over the house and a lot of flies; there were about 30 of us who had been kidnapped, six were women and they suffered a lot because after our arrival the kidnappers would rape them whenever they wanted, always in front of all of us. There were migrants who had been inside the house for days or weeks. Some didn’t have fingers or toes and some of them didn’t have hands or arms. The kidnappers had cut them off because their families didn’t respond to the requests for money or they couldn’t pay. I can say that the kidnappers had no respect for age because there were about five kids who were 15 years old and they had had their fingers cut off. The poor guys suffered all of the time and at night they cried a lot because they had a fever and they were slowly bleeding to death. Although we couldn’t get close to them because the kidnappers would beat us, I helped one of the kids, his name is Eduardo and he is Honduran. I think he is dead now because he had been kidnapped for about 15 days and he was really skinny; they had cut three of his fingers off, two from the right hand and one from the left. I gave him my bread when the kidnappers weren’t looking… 65

Decolonizing migration: Understanding the securitization of migration through the testimonies of Central Americans in transit across Mexico During the day the kidnappers would bother us asking for telephone numbers and they beat us just for the pleasure of it. I didn’t give them any phone numbers of my family because they don’t have any money and I don’t know anyone in the United States who could have helped me. On the night of the third day we heard when the two guys who watched over us left and I said to the others that we should escape. They didn’t want to at first but then they saw me take the lock off the door and we went out running. There were only five of us, others who wanted to escape lacked the strength to do so and others who had lost fingers or toes also couldn’t escape. Jesus Guevara, 29 years old, Salvadoran [WOLA and Center Prodh, 2010: 6]  Full testimonies from Frank-Vitale, 2011: Frank-Vitale, A., 2011. Guerreros del Camino: Central American Migration Through Mexico and Undocumented Migration as Civil Disobedience. Washington, D.C.: American University. Healing and Resistance ◊ Interview with Omar, Honduras Omar’s wife told him to get out. He had had an affair, was utterly repentant, but she could not forgive him. He used to have a job far away from home, and it had given him the opportunity to be unfaithful. He left the job to be able to be close to her, but try as he might, she could not accept him back. Without a job and without his wife, he was left with little choice but to try his luck with going north. Omar is a man with a quiet strength. He is deeply devout, says little, but when he does speak, there is an earnest quality that makes people pay attention. More than anything, he wants to give his children the opportunity to go to school. He hopes to be able to put his whole family back together, but recognizes that it was his failing that broke them up in the first place and that reconciliation might never happen. So he is determined to give his children everything he can, though it pains him to be so far away from them. He gets choked up talking about them and says, “People say that men don’t cry, but I’ll tell you one thing, sometimes even we need to cry.” Omar was particularly affected by the march. He says, “I had never gone out in something like that, but honestly, it motivated me substantially. So much. Because they will become aware of the truth, not just here in Mexico, but this will get out to levels all over the world. They will see the march that migrants did and know the truth that they are violating our rights.” [Interview with Omar, Frank-Vitale, 2011: 100-101]

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Decolonizing migration: Understanding the securitization of migration through the testimonies of Central Americans in transit across Mexico * Spanish sources:  Spanish fragment and translation from Becerra-Acosta, 2014: Consequences on migrants’ lives English translation: I don’t agree [with the new migration measures taken by the Mexican government], because there will be more thieves, kidnappers and deaths. But migrants won’t stop their journey. We will always find other ways [Honduran migrant at migrant shelter in Arriaga, Chiapas. Becerra-Acosta, 2014*]. Extract’s original version: “No estoy de acuerdo (con las nuevas medidas migratorias mexicanas), porque va a haber más ladrones, secuestradores y muertos, pero a las personas no las van a detener. Siempre van a buscar otros caminos”. To access full text please refer to: Becerra-Acosta, J. P., 2014. “Con Bestia o Sin Bestia Vamos a Seguir Migrando” Somos Migrantes. El Periódico Global de los Migrantes, 23 August 2014 [online] Available at: http://www.somosmigrantes.com/2014/08/23/con-bestia-o-sin-bestiavamos-a-seguir-migrando/

 Spanish fragment and translation from VII Report Migrant Shelter Saltillo, 2011: Healing and Resistance English translation: I arrived to Mexico on 5 January 2010, through the border of Tapachula, Chiapaas. In Chahuites, my companions and I met with a catch of federal police, who fired us and released some dogs. We ran out until we got to a place they call Corazones, there we were mugged, three of the girls were sexually abused and they took away three other. We continued our way and arrived to Ixtepec, Oaxaca where we complained to Father Alejandro Solalinde about what had happened to us. Then the Father made the denuncia, investigations were made and it was found that the commander of the federal police was the one who planned everything: first they chased us as part of a trap to keep us on the train tracks in order to assault us later. In fact, one of the assailants was the commander, who by then was dressed as civilian [Salvadoran migrant. VII Report of Migrant Shelter Saltillo, 2011: 15*] Extract’s original version: Entré a México el cinco de enero del año 2010, por la frontera de Tapachula Chiapas. En Chahuites, mis compañeros y yo nos encontramos con un retén de policías federales, que nos dispararon y nos echaron a unos perros. Nosotros salimos corriendo hasta que llegamos a un lugar que le llaman Corazones, ahí nos asaltaron, abusaron sexualmente de tres muchachas con las que veníamos y se llevaron a otras tres personas. Continuamos y llegamos a Ixtepec, Oaxaca donde los muchachos se quejaron con el Padre Alejandro Solalinde de lo que nos había pasado. 67

Decolonizing migration: Understanding the securitization of migration through the testimonies of Central Americans in transit across Mexico Entonces, el Padre puso la denuncia, se hicieron las investigaciones y se encontró que el comandante de los policías federales fue el que planeó todo: primero nos corretearon como una trampa, para que siguiéramos por la vía del tren y después poder asaltarnos. De hecho, uno de los asaltantes fue el comandante, que para entonces estaba vestido de civil (p. 15). To access full testimony please refer to: Casa del Migrante Saltillo. Marzo 2011. VII Informe sobre la Situación de los Derechos Humanos de los Migrantes en Tránsito por México. Frontera con Justicia, A.C. Saltillo, Coahuila, 15-16.

 Spanish fragments and translations from Report on Migrant Kidnappings, 2011: Consequences on migrants’ lives English translation: We spend the whole month of December kidnnaped, until January 8 that they released us. During all that time they have already tortured us and abused us so much; when they released us we were all weak. The girl who came with me was not allowed to leave; we were given the option that only one of us could leave. She told me that she was staying; she said that as a woman, who had already been abused, could be released later, but that I would get killed for sure. It really hurt me to leave her there, but I knew that what she said was true. [Honduran migrant, age 32. Report on Migrants Kidnappings, 2011: 54*]

Extract’s original version: Pasamos todo el mes de diciembre secuestrados, hasta el 8 de enero que nos soltaron. En todo ese tiempo ya nos habían torturado y maltratado mucho; cuando nos sacaron estábamos todos débiles y sin fuerza. A la muchacha que andaba conmigo no la dejaron salir, nos dieron la opción que sólo uno de los dos podría salir. Ella me dijo que ella se quedaba, dijo que ella mujer, que ya habían abusado de ella y que tal vez la podían soltar, pero a mi seguro que me mataban. A mí me dolió mucho dejarla, pero sabía que lo que decía era cierto. (p.54) ◊ Shared experiences/common memory English translation: I felt very sorry for them [women] because they really mistreated them and abused them all. I became friends with a very nice Honduran girl, she was sixteen years old. They (kidnappers) used her every day. Once all the kidnappers raped her, they were about fourteen men. As one ended [raping her], they sent her to take a shower and then it was the turn of the next one [kidnapper]. The girl spoke very little and I felt so angry about what they were doing to her, not even an animal deserves tremendous abuse (...) I had returned from the United States and I brought a chain and a 68

Decolonizing migration: Understanding the securitization of migration through the testimonies of Central Americans in transit across Mexico golden watch, which the boss liked. He told me that he could let me go if I gave them to him. I told him that I would also leave with the Honduran girl, because she did not have any help [someone to pay for her release], and he agreed. The other captors did not like that idea, so before letting me out they hit me a lot, I got fourteen shoals. They also bit the girl and they told us that we deserved that for not paying. After everything that I saw there, I thought that they were going to kill me, so I only prayed to God. [Honduran migrant, age 22. Report on Migrants Kidnappings, 2011: 29*]

Extract’s original version: Yo sentí mucha lástima por ellas, porque realmente las trataron mal y a todas las abusaron. Yo me hice amigo de una muchacha hondureña, muy bonita, como de dieciséis años. A ella la usaban todos los días; una vez le pasaron todos los secuestradores, eran unos catorce hombres, terminaba uno y la mandaba que se bañara y seguía el otro. La muchacha hablaba poco y a mí me daba coraje lo que le hacían, ni un animal se merece tremendo abuso. (…) Yo había regresado de Estados Unidos, traía una cadena y un reloj de oro, que le gustaron al jefe. Él me dijo que se los diera y con eso ya podría salir. Yo le dije que también me llevaría a la muchacha hondureña conmigo, porque ella no tenía ayuda, y él aceptó. A los otros secuestradores no les gustó esa idea, así que antes de dejarme salir me golpearon mucho, me dieron cada uno un tablazo, en total catorce tablazos. También a la muchacha la golpearon y nos dijeron que nos lo merecíamos por no pagar. Después de todo lo que había visto, yo pensé que me iban a matar, así que solamente me encomendé a Dios. Marcos López, hondureño, 22 años, casado, 1 hijo (p. 29) To access full testimonies please refer to: Centro de Derechos Humanos Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez, A.C. and Casa del Migrante de Saltillo, 2011. Cuaderno sobre secuestro de migrantes. Dimensión, contexto y testimonios de la experiencia de la migración en tránsito por México. Mexico, D.F.: Fondo Canada.

 Spanish fragments and translations from CNDH, 2011: Consequences on migrants’ lives English translation: I am Honduran, without papers, I am twenty-one years old. I tried to cross to the United States. Without papers. [Migrant testifying. CNDH, 2011: 96*] Extract’s original version: Soy hondureño, sin papeles, y tengo veintiún años. Intenté cruzar hacia Estados Unidos. Sin papeles. (p. 96)

English translation: He said [police man] they handcuffed us because there were those who, when they were told they would be deported, they ran. But we told them that it was ourselves who asked the police for help, we would not run, that they could remove the 69

Decolonizing migration: Understanding the securitization of migration through the testimonies of Central Americans in transit across Mexico handcuffs. The Mexican [migrant] wasn’t handcuffed, we were, because we are illegal migrants, they said. [Honduran migrant who escaped with other Central Americans and one Mexican migrant from their kidnappers. They sought help from the police and instead they were handcuffed. CNDH, 2011: 98*]

Extract’s original version: Dijo que nos esposaban porque había los que, cuando les decían que serían deportados, salían corriendo. Pero nosotros le dijimos que nosotros mismos pedimos ayuda a la policía, que no íbamos a correr, que nos podían quitar las esposas. Al mexicano no lo esposaron, a nosotros sí, por ser ilegales, dijeron. Dijeron que nos esposaron por ser ilegales. (p.98) ◊ Shared experiences/common memory English translation: I'll never forget. No matter what they did to me. But what they did to all those women, that is what hurts me the most. They were seventeen. Seventeen women returning sadder each night, more wounded, beaten. I will not forget what I saw. [Testimony of migrant who was kept captive. CNDH, 2011: 3*]

Extract’s original version:“Nunca lo voy a olvidar. No importa lo que me hicieron. Pero lo que le hicieron a todas esas mujeres, eso duele más. Eran diecisiete. Diecisiete mujeres que regresaban cada noche más tristes, más heridas, golpeadas. Yo no voy a olvidar lo que vi. Tengo miedo de que ahora que vienen los de migración por mí, me vean los otros policías. Los policías municipales estaban del lado de los delincuentes” Testimonio de un migrante secuestrado (p.3)

English translation: They beat me with pure fists and kicks, I only had internal injuries that from time to time affect me because it hurts me, but I have not done any medical checkup, so I don’t know if I have something else. Here I go with the wounds, the ones that are inside, the ones that hurt forever.[Migrant testifying. CNDH, 2011: 83*] Extract’s original version: Había como diez personas secuestradas cuando yo estaba ahí. Me golpeaban a puros puños y patadas, solo tuve golpes internos que si me afectan porque luego me duele, pero no me han hecho ningún chequeo, así que no sé si tengo algo más. Allá voy con las heridas, las de adentro, las que duelen para siempre ¿O no? (p.83)

English translation: Now, it was my turn. I played dead. I heard more shots. Moans. Then I heard the trucks going away. Silence. I opened my eyes and I could see someone hiding in the bushes. We looked at each other. We went out walking together down the road ... Some people from

70

Decolonizing migration: Understanding the securitization of migration through the testimonies of Central Americans in transit across Mexico the navy helped me and took me to the doctor. I survived. [Migrant who survived gun shots. CNDH, 2011: 102-103*]

Extract’s original version: Nos dijeron que nos acostáramos, boca abajo. Que nos calláramos, que no gritáramos porque nos iban a matar. Entonces comenzaron a disparar. Alguien gritó que no les temía, entonces se escuchó que lo azotaban contra la pared. Le dispararon. Uno y otro disparo. Hasta que me tocó. Me hice el muerto. Escuché más disparos. Quejidos. Luego oí que las trocas se alejaban. Silencio. Abrí los ojos y alcancé a ver a alguien escondido entre los matorrales. Nos miramos. Salimos caminando juntos, hacia la carretera. Cuando notamos que cuatro vehículos nos seguían, nos separamos. A mí me ayudaron unos de la marina que me llevaron al médico. Y sobreviví. (pp.102-103) ◊ Healing and Resistance English translation: Everyday I dream that they kill me, that their wooden boards break my heart… Here, everyone at some point breaks apart. [Migrant testifying. CNDH, 2011: 76*]

Extract’s original version: Todos los días sueño que me matan, así, que sus tablas me rompen el corazón. Es que nos paraban frente a la pared, con las palmas recargadas y las piernas bien abiertas y entonces, con una tabla gorda, se ponían a pegarnos hasta que caíamos de rodillas, llorando. Aquí todos, en algún momento, nos quebramos. Ya ni nos daba pena llorar, éramos como perros aullando, como animales, pues. To access full testimonies please refer to: Comisión Nacional de los Derechos Humanos (CNDH), 2011. Informe Especial sobre Secuestro de Migrantes en México. Mexico City: CNDH.

 Spanish fragment and translation from Martínez, 2012: Healing and Resistance English translation: “Sorry, hope you do not take this as an offense, but there is something we do not understand. Why are you helping us? Why do you 71

Decolonizing migration: Understanding the securitization of migration through the testimonies of Central Americans in transit across Mexico care?”[Salvadoran migrant when offered help. Age 20, travelling with his other two siblings. Their mother was shot death by gangs in El Salvador. Martínez, 2012: 34*]

Extract’s original version: - Disculpá, espero que no te ofenda, pero hay algo que no entendemos. ¿Por qué nos ayudás? ¿Por qué te importa? (p. 34) To access full text please refer to: Martínez, O., 2012. Los Migrantes que No Importan. Oaxaca: El Faro, Sur+ Ediciones.

 Spanish fragment and translation from REDODEM, 2013: Consequences on migrants’ lives English translation: I was kidnapped on December 20th in Coatzacoalcos, from the 20th to the 26th; they said they belong to “The Bird” and his hawks. They also had two more girls, a Honduran and a Salvadoran, they beat us and were mistreated, and there was another man named Eloy who was also part of the gangs and he was disabled. Eloy used the women that are kidnapped; he rapes them, beats them and makes cruel things to them. While beating me and telling me that they would kill me, they forced me to give them my sister’s phone number, who lives in the United States. They called her and told her to send them 500 dollars, and my sister sent them the money but they didn’t set me free. They took me to the bridge where they abducted me and they called my sister again and demanded her to send 200 dollars so they could let me go. There, they offered me to Puma, to Lord Trei and the Nigger (who are complicit in the same gang), and they told me if I wanted to go with them to Chontalpa to bring more people. I accepted because I was scare. On our way to Chontalpa we were on the train and I got to see how they [the robbers] stole from a boy and threw him off the train, he completely got smashed into pieces. I also saw a girl that was going back to her country and they demanded her for money. Since she opposed …, they pushed her off the train and the train also busted her. [Honduran migrant. REDODEM, 2013:86*]

Extract’s original version: El 20 de diciembre me secuestraron en Coatzacoalcos, desde el 20 hasta el 26, decían que era la gente de “El pájaro” y sus halcones. También tenían a dos muchachas más, una hondureña y otra salvadoreña, nos golpeaban y nos trataban mal y ahí tenían a un señor que se llama Eloy que también era de la banda y es inválido. Eloy usaba a las mujeres que secuestran, las viola, las golpea y les hace cosas crueles. A golpes y diciéndome que me iban a matar me obligaron a dar el teléfono de mi hermana que vive en Estados Unidos. Le llamaron y le dijeron que les mandara 500 dólares y mi hermana les mandó, pero no me dejaron en libertad. De ahí me llevaron al puente donde me habían “levantado” y de ahí le llamaron a mi hermana otra vez y le dijeron que mandara 200 dólares para que me dejaran ir. Ahí me entregaron al Puma, al Señor Trei y al Negro (que son cómplices de la misma banda) me dijeron que si quería ir con ellos a Chontalpa a traer a una gente y yo 72

Decolonizing migration: Understanding the securitization of migration through the testimonies of Central Americans in transit across Mexico acepte porque tenía mucho miedo. En el camino a Chontalpa íbamos en el tren y me tocó ver que robaran a un muchacho y lo tiraron del tren, quedó deshecho, también vi a una muchacha que iba de regreso y le pidieron dinero, como se opuso a dárselo la tiraron también del tren y el tren la destrozó también. (p. 86) To access full testimony please refer to: Red de Documentación de las Organizaciones Defensoras de Migrantes (REDODEM), 2013. “Informe sobre las Violaciones a Derechos Humanos y Delitos Cometidos a Transmigrantes Centroamericanos”. Narrativas de la Transmigración Centroamericana en su Paso por México. Servicio Jesuita a Migrantes México.

 Spanish fragment and translation from The Associated Press, 2014: Consequences on migrants’ lives English translation: “Before we could stay in the village, but now we are exposed to everything, to the mountain, animals, cops, thieves, drug traffickers”, said Guillermo Sismit to The Associated Press, a Guatemalan migrant of 38 years old, who was deported from Miami and is looking for going back to the United States with his two sons. [Guatemalan migrant, age 38. The Associated Press, 2014*] Extract’s original version: “Antes podíamos estar en el pueblo, pero ahora estamos expuestos a todo, al monte, los animales, los policías, los ladrones, el narcho”, dijo a The Associated Press Guillermo Sismit, un migrante guatemalteco de 38 años, que fue deportado de Miami y busca regresar con sus dos hijos a Estados Unidos. To access full text please refer to: The Associated Press, 2014. “Migrantes ya Buscan Nuevos Lugares para Subir a la Bestia”. Animal Político, 26 August 2014 [online] Available at: http://www.animalpolitico.com/2014/08/migrantes-ya-buscan-nuevos-lugares-parasubir-la-bestia/

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