The Dark Side of Globalized Migration: The Rise and Peak of Criminal Networks—The Case of Central Americans in Mexico
2011; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 8; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/14747731.2011.576846
ISSN1474-774X
Autores Tópico(s)Crime, Illicit Activities, and Governance
ResumoAbstract This study explores what happens to migrants from Central America to the US during their journey through Mexico. It traces the ways in which the negative interaction of undocumented immigrants with restrictive North American policies for international immigration and their dealings with international companies providing remittances, along with the evolution of criminal networks on a national scale, increase the vulnerability of these immigrants. The resulting scenario is one marked by systemic risks, a slow process of development that has now reached worrisome levels, and gaps in national governability of the immigration processes under study that exist from the outset and have been filled by a variety of social agents. Este estudio explora lo que le pasa a los migrantes de Centroamérica a los E.E.U.U. durante su travesía a través de México. El estudio rastrea las formas en las que la interacción negativa de los inmigrantes indocumentados con las políticas norteamericanas restringidas para la inmigración internacional, y sus tratos con las compañías internacionales que proveen las remesas de dinero, junto con la evolución de las redes delictivas a escala nacional, aumentan la vulnerabilidad de estos inmigrantes. El escenario resultante está marcado por riesgos sistemáticos, un proceso lento de desarrollo que ahora ha alcanzado niveles preocupantes, y carencias en gobernabilidad nacional de los procesos de inmigración, bajo el estudio que existe desde el comienzo y que se han llenado por una variedad de agentes sociales. 本文研究了中美洲人在经由墨西哥移民美国过程中发生的事情。本文追溯了无证移民与北美对国际移民的限制性政策之间消极互动的方式,以及他们与提供汇款的国际公司打交道的方式,还记录了全国规模犯罪网络的演化过程,这些犯罪网络使移民愈加处于不安全的境地。最终的结果就是一种系统性风险,它经过缓慢的发展已达到令人不安的程度,而自始即存在的政府对移民过程的治理漏洞被各种社会力量所填补。 Keywords: international migrationhuman rightsimmigration policycriminal networkscorruptionsociety Notes For example, during the 1990s, the United States instituted the following measures for contention of undocumented immigration: 1991 and 1993—the Wall in California; 1993—Operation Blockade, Hold the Line; 1994—Operation Gatekeeper; 1995—Operation Safeguard; 1997—Operation Rio Grande. For other social dimensions of traffickers of immigrants (coyotes or polleros), see Spencer (2008 Spencer, David (2008) El apartheid global, el coyotaje y el discurso de la migración clandestina: distinciones entre violencia personal, estructural y cultural, in Migración y desarrollo, México, Revista semestral de la Red Internacional de Migración y Desarrollo, 10 (first semester), pp. 127–156. [Google Scholar]). Rapes tend to occur en masse and repeatedly during the process of transmigration; in humanitarian refuge centers there are records of people who have been raped as many as 10, 20, or 30 times as they passed through Mexico. See, for example, the annual reports from the Casa del Migrante (Immigrant House) in the city of Saltillo providing detailed information collected throughout the year prior to their publication. These reports present statistical and qualitative data about undocumented immigrants' experiences as they cross Mexico, as well as a classification of the kinds of crimes to which they are subject. There exist a number of loose agreements for the collection of remittances among kitchen appliance companies. One example of such a company is Elektra, which provides a variety of services—financial, banking, and credit—that facilitate the withdrawal of funds from outside the country. The above-named company, for example, has one agreement with the transnational financial group Western Union and other specific agreements with smaller local businesses to carry out operations to collect remittances in its stores. Thus, by October 2006, Elektra had 1,569 collection sites in Mexico, 74 in Guatemala, 70, in Honduras, 30 in Panama, and 81 in Peru, not to mention the sites provided by this transnational company in the US to send money—all pointing to the linking of social nuclei in the places of origin, passage, and destination of the transmigrants (thus facilitating transnational extortion, as a logical consequence). Registro Nacional de Agresiones a los Migrantes (National Register of Acts of Aggression Against Immigrants), an unpublished report corresponding to the first semester of 2009. This was a collaborative project between immigrant refuges and safe houses, CNDH, Mexico, 2009. A few weeks after releasing the aforementioned report, the CNDH published a small book containing 25 eyewitness reports of kidnapped immigrants full of details regarding criminal personalities, the corporations involved in the crimes, their modus operandi, and descriptions of the kidnapping sites, their imprisonment of victims, and ways in which ransom was collected. See CNDH (2009b). Violent actions committed for the pleasure they engage could also be considered. There are, for example, those who consider that chasing an immigrant is like going hunting. Wolfgang Sofsky (2006 Sofsky, Wolfgang (2006) Tratado sobre la violencia [Treatise on violence]. [Google Scholar]) talks of various violent situations in which pleasure is a key element. It is pertinent to remember how the Program for National Security 2009–2012, defines as National Security, threat, risk, interior danger and social fabric, to precise that migratory fluxes, specifically those of illegal ones, cannot be considered as causes of the problems associated with such definitions, but instead, are part of the social fabric that should be protected.
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