Forced Displacement of Central American Communities: Human Rights Violations in Their Transit through Mexico

Abstract

Abstract The aim of this article is to explore the relationships between forced migration of Central American communities and the global and national exclusion of migrants in their transit through Mexico on their way to the US. It is divided into the following sections: a) description of the main causes of Central America migration; b) responses of the Mexican government from the 1980s to 2018; c) the role of organized crime and the official “war on drugs” (2007-2018) in human rights violations to Central American migrant; and lastly, d) some changes in the Mexican State regarding the management of Central American migration. Although the act of migration is intrinsically human, it has been hard to conceive migration as human rights in the current conversations. “The refugee and migration crisis,” have received unprecedented political and media attention around the world. Transnational migration is one of the core elements of late modernity given the historical acceleration of global processes. There are currently about 244 million people who have migrated from their country of origin, (which is three percent of the world’s population). One third of global migration happens in a south-north direction, while the rest happens in a south-south direction. The focus of this article is to describe and analyze aspects of Central American migration to/through Mexico, human rights violations experienced in transit, and different responses of the Mexican State to the “crisis of migration.”