On March 23, 2023, Dra. Alethia Fernández de la Reguera Ahedo of UNAM’s Institute of Legal Research presented her research on the experiences of migrant women at Mexico’s southern border at the College of Law with the support of Bacon Immigration Law and Policy Program. Professor Lynn Marcus, Director of the Community Immigration Law Placement Clinic, moderated the talk, which was a Mexican Public Law Diplomado Program event.
With so much of the discussion about immigration centering on the U.S.-Mexico border, Dra. Fernández’s work is a vital reminder of the adversity migrant women face for hundreds of miles before reaching their ultimate destination. These challenges include the stigma surrounding pregnancy, menstruation, and breastfeeding, as well as the high risk of sexual violence. As a result of this adversity, Dra. Fernández noted that women have developed unique migration strategies. Women tend to leave their countries accompanied, rather than alone. To mitigate the risks of the journey, they utilize traffickers’ services, avoid trains, and choose hotels over shelters.
However, migrating through Mexico is still incredibly dangerous, in part due to what Dra. Fernández calls the securitization and militarization of the border. The Mexican National Guard’s control over immigration processes and the public discourse of migrants as national security threats has resulted in human rights violations, particularly against migrants who are women, indigenous, and/or Afro Latinos (see Bajo la bota for more information). The criminalization of migrants has even put indigenous citizens of Mexico at risk of detention, torture, and deportation, as they are sometimes profiled as migrants for not speaking Spanish. Dra. Fernández’s research illustrates that arbitrary detentions of migrants have only increased in recent years.
In the face of this crisis, Dra. Fernández highlighted the abdication of responsibility by the Mexican government, particularly in its rejection of the 2018 recommendations by the Committee on Elimination of Discrimination against Women. NGOs, religious organizations, and shelters are tasked with filling the gaps of providing resources to migrants, including informing them of their right to seek asylum in Mexico if they are victims of a crime in Mexico.
The event ended with a Q&A session, during which Dra. Fernández emphasized that borders can be spaces of care, not just securitization and militarization. She described her admiration for the response to Ukrainian refugees in Kraków. In particular, she appreciated the simple presence of bathrooms and benches as a symbol of what it means to be a country that receives and treats refugees with dignity. The lack of dignified government shelters in southern states in Mexico leads migrants to live on the streets instead. Dra. Fernández suggested better training for those interviewing migrants about their cases, improved shelter conditions, and support from the Mexican federal government for the southern states receiving 70% of migrants would mitigate the ongoing dehumanization of migrants, particularly migrant women.
Interested in learning more about these topics? Join the Diplomado with Marcelo Rodríguez and Teresa Miguel-Stearns! Fall 2023’s course offering is Mexican Constitutionalism (LAW 683B): Constitutional history, Mexican federalism, state constitutional law. The Diplomado is issued by the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). This specialized credential is available only at the University of Arizona! If you have questions or would like to receive more information, please email law-mexlaw@arizona.edu.
More resources from Dra Alethia: Vivas Transitamos, Immigration Detention, the Patriarchal State and Politics of Disgust (2022), Towards a typology of social protection for migrants and refugees in Latin America during the COVID-19 pandemic, Acoso. ¿Denuncia legítima o victimización? (2018), Detención migratoria, prácticas de humillación, asco y desprecio (2020), and Caravanas (2019). She is also a researcher with Comparative Analysis on International Migration and Displacement in the Americas (CAMINAR).
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