Migrants In Transit Research Articles

Precarious Emplacement in Croatia: Conceptualising More-Than-Transient Migration on the Balkan Route

The article argues that the dynamic of migration on the Balkan route is changing into something more than transit. Croatia is presented as a case in point of a site where former migration aspirations are redefined as migrants encounter various types of bordering mechanisms that decelerate migration and begin developing relations with other residents. We argue that the dynamic of mobility and immobility and the ways it entangles localities en route are crucial for understanding the changing migration patterns in the Balkans. We overview concepts such as “stuckness”, “waiting”, “permanent temporariness”, “limbo”, and “liminality”, which describe the ways in which migrants navigate between temporary and permanent states of movement and residence. Additionally, the article develops the concept of “precari¬ous emplacement” in order to move beyond transit and to capture the ambiguities between moving and staying, temporariness and permanence, and inclusion and exclusion. The concept highlights that the practices related to settling, along with the social interactions with other residents associated with them, occur in conditions of uncertainty and social marginalisation. Precarious emplacement encompasses the ways precarity permeates migrants’ experiences and the fabric of post-war and post-socialist urban spaces and relations they move through and come to inhabit. The article concludes by arguing that, given the heterogeneity of migrants’ life trajectories, the concept of a “transit migrant” may obscure the vulnerabilities migrants experience during periods of immobility, and it advocates for a more nuanced conceptual approach.

Criminal Victimization of Central American Migrants in Transit Through Mexico

This article examines the factors associated with robbery or assault victimization for Central American migrants in transit through Mexico to the United States. A theoretical model of victimization of transit migrants is developed. Drawing on the Survey on Migration in the Southern Border of Mexico 2018 and 2019, a descriptive and logistic regression analysis is carried out to analyze how migrants’ sociodemographic characteristics and journey characteristics are associated with victimization events. The article shows that migrants who used trains and trucks and who received support from assistance networks (e.g., migrant shelters) had higher relative odds of being robbed or assaulted, whereas migrants who hired coyotes had lower relative odds of being victimized. The findings of this work highlight the usefulness of surveys conducted on migrants after deportation to analyze the victimization that international migrants suffer during their dangerous journeys across borders and territories.

Migrating through the Corridor of Death: The Making of a Complex Humanitarian Crisis

Drawing on the concept of a “complex humanitarian crisis,” this paper describes how outflows of migrants from Central America were transformed into such a crisis by intransigent immigration and border policies enacted in both Mexico and the United States. We describe the origins of the migration in U.S. Cold War interventions that created many thousands of displaced people fleeing violence and economic degradation in the region, leading to a sustained process of undocumented migration to the United States. Owing to rising levels of gang violence and weather events associated with climate change, the number of people seeking to escape threats in Central America has multiplied and unauthorized migration through Mexico toward the United States has increased. However, the securitization of migration in both Mexico and the United States has blocked these migrants from exercising their right to petition for asylum, creating a growing backlog of migrants who are subject to human rights violations and predations both by criminals and government authorities, leading migrants to label Mexican routes northward as a “corridor of death.” We draw on data from annual reports of Mexico's Red de Documentación de las Organizaciones Defensoras de Migrantes (Network for the Documentation of Migrant Defense Organizations) to construct a statistical profile of transit migrants and the threats they face as reported by humanitarian actors in Mexico. These reports allow us to better understand the practical realities of the “complex humanitarian crisis” facing undocumented migrants, both as unauthorized border crossers and as transit migrants moving between the southern frontiers of Mexico and the United States. Policy Recommendations Policy makers need to address: Governments must recognize that the humanitarian crisis facing migrants is not confined to border regions but unfolds at places of both origin and destination as well as within extended geographies of transit in-between. The current refugee protection regime and asylum system are ill-matched to the needs and vulnerabilities of today's migrants. In an era of rapid climate change, rising state failures, and escalating violence, people are not moving so much to advance economically as to escape a growing array of threats not covered by the 1951 Refugee Convention, which needs to be updated. Developed nations must honor rather than elide their obligations under international law to accept asylum applicants and fairly adjudicate their cases, Since a large fraction of the Central Americans arriving at the southern US border have relatives in the United States, creating a pathway to legal status for unauthorized US residents would relieve a lot of the pressure on the asylum system by enabling authorities to release applicants to the support and care of legally resident relatives rather than placing them in an overburdened detention system. Governments need to scale back the securitization and criminalization of migration, which have made human mobility an increasingly precarious and risk-filled activity that contributes to rather than forestalls the proliferation of crime and violence. Human rights and humanitarian agencies need to revisit their missions to derive new ways of working conjointly and in parallel with each other and with governments to better understand and meet the needs of migrants in the 21st century.

"We Speak the Same Language, but They Don't Understand Us." Use and Abuse of Culturalism in Medical Care for Central American Migrants in Transit Through Mexico.

This article deals with cultural stereotypes toward Central American migrants in the Mexican healthcare system, which lead to the naturalization of the supposed cultural characteristics of these new users. Based on 21 interviews of health and administrative staff in the state of Nuevo Leon (northeastern Mexico), it shows the first recourse to culturalist explanations to describe any phenomenon related to migrants' health. According to this perspective, the health of migrants, their relation to illness, and their patterns of seeking healthcare would be mainly determined by characteristic cultural traits, which justify their penurious attendance at health centers, and their low adherence to treatments. The culturalist explanation of migrants' health behaviors may influence the care they receive, as well as their adherence to treatment, which ultimately reinforces the health inequalities initially highlighted. This culturalist excess is partly explained by the incorrect understanding of the directives of health authorities in favor of the integration of an intercultural perspective in healthcare. Despite some ongoing training in this area, it does not seem sufficient to correct this situation effectively.

Mental Health in the Transit Context: Evidence from 10 Countries.

Most interventions for mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) have been developed in contexts and with populations that differ significantly from the realities of migration. There is an urgent need for MHPSS in transit; however, transit-specific aspects of MHPSS provision are often neglected due to the inherent challenges transit poses to traditional conceptualizations of practice. The Delphi method, which consisted of three iterative rounds of surveys, was applied with the goal of identifying challenges to and adaptations of MHPSS in the transit context. Twenty-six MHPSS providers working with refugees in 10 European transit countries participated; 69% of participants completed all three survey rounds. There was consensus that a flexible model of MHPSS, which can balance low intensity interventions and specialized care, is needed. Agreement was high for practice-related and sociopolitical factors impacting MHPSS in transit; however, the mandate of MHPSS providers working in the transit context achieved the lowest consensus and is yet to be defined. There is a need to rethink MHPSS in the refugee transit context. Providing MHPSS to refugees on the move has specificities, most of which are related to the instability and uncertainty of the context. Future directions for improving mental health protection for refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants in transit are highlighted.

Turbulent migrations in turbulent times. The case of the orbiters in Rome

AbstractSince 2015, when the so‐called migrant crisis exploded in Italy, Rome has become a transit crossroads for a huge number of people who arrived in Europe through the Mediterranean route (Lendaro et al. 2019). This phenomenon determined the development of a heterogeneous network of solidarity supporting migrants in transit (Giliberti & Potot 2021). Over the years, following the transformations of Italian and European policies for the management of migration processes, the solidarity networks have begun to meet other subjects in addition to migrants in transit: ‘orbiters’ around the city, awaiting access to international protection or recently expelled from the Italian reception system, forced to live in a state of stasis that allows them to be defined as ‘lifelong in‐betweener’ subjects and representing the concept of ‘turbulence migration’ (Papastergiadis 2000). This article focuses on the transformation of the solidarity practices and on the new mobility strategies acted by migrants, both linked with the social/juridical features of those we defined ‘orbiters’. From a methodological point of view, this paper is based on different moments of ethnographic observation in some key sites for solidarity to migrants in Rome.

Infectious disease surveillance for refugees at borders and in destination countries: a scoping review

BackgroundData on infectious disease surveillance for migrants on arrival and in destination countries are limited, despite global migration increases, and more are needed to inform national surveillance policies. Our study aimed to examine the scope of existing literature including existing infectious disease surveillance activities, surveillance methods used, surveillance policies or protocols, and potential lessons reported.MethodsUsing Arksey and O’Malley’s six-stage approach, we screened four scientific databases systematically and 11 websites, Google, and Google Scholar purposively using search terms related to ‘refugee’ and ‘infectious disease surveillance’ with no restrictions on time-period or country. Title/abstracts and full texts were screened against eligibility criteria and extracted data were synthesised thematically.ResultsWe included 20 eligible sources of 728 identified. Reporting countries were primarily European and all were published between 1999 and 2019. Surveillance methods included 9 sources on syndromic surveillance, 2 on Early Warning and Response (EWAR), 1 on cross-border surveillance, and 1 on GeoSentinel clinic surveillance. Only 7 sources mentioned existing surveillance protocols and communication with reporting sites, while policies around surveillance were almost non-existent. Eleven included achievements such as improved partner collaboration, while 6 reported the lack of systematic approaches to surveillance.ConclusionThis study identified minimal literature on infectious disease surveillance for migrants in transit and destination countries. We found significant gaps geographically and on surveillance policies and protocols. Countries receiving refugees could document and share disease surveillance methods and findings to fill these gaps and support other countries in improving disease surveillance.

Food insecurity and coping strategies in international migrants in transit through Mexico

BackgroundAlthough migrants in transit through Mexico have been known to consume insufficient food, data measuring food insecurity (FI) in this vulnerable population is scarce. This study assesses FI in migrants transiting Mexico by examining economic, physical and social food access. MethodsUsing a mixed-methods design and a convenience sample of migrants residing in a temporary shelter in Saltillo, Coahuila in northern Mexico, we applied 1) the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (adapted), and 2) a semi-structured interview exploring FI coping strategies. ResultsOf the 54 participants, 74.1% reported moderate or severe FI and 24.1% reported severe FI, especially reduced food quantity. Interviewees reported poverty, cargo train travel, and crime as FI contributing factors. All interviewees used FI coping strategies, principally altering food intake and using social resources. Many strategies reported implied negative consequences for both nutrition and general health. ConclusionsThis study provides a comprehensive assessment of FI in a mobile population using a standard international measure. Results confirm widespread and severe FI, highlighting a potential humanitarian crisis requiring both national and international attention. Further research is critical to inform strategies for guaranteeing the right to food access for migrants in transit through third (non-destination) countries.

New Migration’s Gordian Knot: Mexico and the Caravans of the Northern Triangle of Central America

Migration processes in Mexico are varied and complex; the country sends migrants abroad and receives returnees in addition to migrants in transit and others wishing to settle there. In this sense, Mexico may be considered a global migration hub (a country of origin, reception, transit and destination). This chapter focuses on transit migration and the reception of migrants seeking asylum, with a particular focus on migrant caravans from the Northern Triangle of Central America (Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador) between 2018 and 2020. These caravans, characterised by thousands of people (Kahn, 2018) fleeing their countries of origin due to situations of violence and threats to their personal security—in addition to economic factors—have posed challenges for Mexico’s domestic and foreign policies, especially in terms of its relations with the United States. In this context, we explore the actions and policies introduced to deal with migrants and refugees transiting Mexico, and the impact these have had. Taking mid-2018—the end of Enrique Peña’s presidential term—as the point of departure for our analysis, we examine Mexico’s migration policies more generally, together with the response of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s administration to Donald Trump’s immigration policies and the pressure the Trump administration exerted on Mexico to contain the flow of irregular migrants.

Models, protocols, and pathways, towards a social perspective in the mental health care of migrants in transit through Mexico.

To guarantee the right to mental health for migrants, we analyze the network of services, models, and protocols of attention produced to address the particular needs of this population. Through interviews with governmental and civil society healthcare personnel, part of the network of services and resources available for mental health, we conclude that psychologists operating in civil society organizations and shelters have innovative paths to provide appropriate care adjusted to the context lived by migrants during transit. Unlike the psychiatric dominant model, the psychosocial model of civil organizations provides a social perspective adequate to include in the protocols of the medical official institutions responsible for mental health care in Mexico.

‘Metema became my Istanbul’ The Complex Transit Trajectories of Ethiopian Female Migrants

Discussions on transit migration have for long focused on presenting the experiences of migrants transiting through a given place at a specific time in a linear manner. Accordingly, most prior researches adopt a snapshot approach to examine the lived experience of transit migrants. This paper argues that such an approach fails to aptly capture the gist of the complex nature of transiting and the dynamics of change in the migration trajectories. It emphasizes the need to have a diachronic approach in examining transit migration trajectory of migrants considering the fact that transit experience is not often bound to a given place and space as it can be inferred from the case of Ethiopian female migrants presented in this paper. Furthermore, the discourse on transit migration often portrays transit migrants as individuals stranded in a place against their will and lacking the agency to decide about their prospects of mobility/immobility. By drawing on an extended ethnographic study conducted over the course of five years (2017-2021) in Djibouti and in Ethiopia, this paper explores the intricate transit experiences of Ethiopian female migrants in two different transit places and their agency in deciding about their mobility/immobility, redefining their destinations and transit pathways, and settlement, a theme that escaped attention in prior works on female migration from Ethiopia.

The First Stop of Transit Migrant Students on the Road to Europe and America: The Turkish Education System

The First Stop of Transit Migrant Students on the Road to Europe and America: The Turkish Education System

Emergency, Solidarity and Responsibility: The Ethics of Face-to-Face (Border) Encounters

ABSTRACT Since the so-called 2015 Migration Crisis, great attention has been devoted to borders, activism and solidarity. While a part of the literature focuses on the political and/or humanitarian aspects of solidarity, this article suggests reading acts of solidarity through ethics. Looking at the Roya Valley, at the Italo–French border, I suggest that many local initiatives to assist and help migrants in transit were driven mostly by a sense of duty, rather than charity or political motives. The emergence of three specific circumstances – face-to-face encounters, conditions of emergency and a sense of duty – made locals offer solidarity because of a sense of responsibility. Faced with a choice between protecting themselves from legal charges or protecting human lives – those of migrants crossing along their route – or protecting themselves from legal charges, many border-people chose the first option. I, therefore, suggest that solidarity should be read through the prism of ethics. Building upon Levinas’ and Derrida’s ethics, I illustrate why face-to-face encounters make a difference and why response-ability requires impossible decisions.

From Lampedusa to the Susa Valley: solidarity networks in two border battlegrounds

ABSTRACT Since the beginning of the ‘reception crisis’ in 2015, the term ‘solidarity’ has been widely employed in Europe by networks supporting migrants in transit. These networks – while increasingly important and prominent in contemporary Europe − are still understudied and have only recently been addressed in migration studies. The research takes place in two crucial border zones: on the one hand, the island of Lampedusa, which is a sea point of entry into Europe through Italy; on the other, the Susa Valley, an alpine point of exit from Italy that allows the passage to France. How are the solidarity networks put together? How do they interact with the mobility practices of migrants in transit? How do the practices of solidarity fit in with the ways authorities act at the border? The ethnographic fieldwork was developed in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic and aims to answer these interconnected research questions.

International Migration in the Central and North American Regions in the COVID-19 Pandemic Context

ABSTRACT This article analyzes the impact on the flow and migratory policies derived from the COVID-19 pandemic in the Central–North American region. Three populations of people are focused on in the forced mobility and immobility paradox: migrants in transit, those stranded at the border waiting for asylum or international protection and those deported from the United States and Mexico. This analysis is based on the perspective of exiled migrants and their high vulnerability, and analyzes official and journalistic sources from the United States, Mexico, and Central America.

Bordering Through Exemption: Extracontinental Migration Flows in Mexico

This paper examines Mexico’s governmentality of extracontinental migration in transit to the United States. It argues that, in the context of transit control regimes, exemption is instrumentalised as a bordering mechanism and practice in which transit states assume, react and utilise their role as a ‘transit’ country. By drawing on statistical information about migrant populations from Asia and Africa intercepted by Mexican authorities from 2010 to 2019, four arrangements are identified: (1) sporadic expulsion, (2) regularisation façade, (3) guardianship and (4) self-deportation. The analysis sheds light on the transformative and adaptive dimension of the Mexican Transit Control Regime and how this is geared towards maintaining its focus on intercepting and deterring Central American migrants in transit to the United States.

Border town authorities and the multilevel politics of the ‘transit migrant’ emergency

ABSTRACT The article takes the approach of multilevel politics to analyse the way the presence of illegalized ‘transit migrants’ is dealt with within the urban space of Ventimiglia – a medium-sized city located south of the French–Italian border – by the town government and its mayor after heightened French border controls. It focuses on the period between 2015 and 2019. Within the unneutral and criminalizing framing of ‘transit migration’, border towns have narrow room for political manoeuvre, and yet they can be seen as the contentious scene of migration policies and politics. Presented and justified as a pragmatic compromise between the migrants’ humanitarian needs and the inhabitants’ claims for security and decorum, Ventimiglia’s municipal policy of encampment was built on cooperation, conflict and contestation with both higher tier authorities and grassroots civil society, thus showing an intricate system of multilevel politics. Followed by widespread discontent which partially translated into electoral disavowal, the town government’s actions eventually reinforced the framing of ‘transit migration’ policies as emergency measures and strengthened the migrants’ invisibility and precariousness in the urban space. This ethnography-based case study thus provides greater understanding of the particularities of local and multilevel migration politics in border towns and how these contribute to shape and enhance the exclusionary border regime.

Carrefours: Migrants’ Support Volunteer Tourism in Lesvos

Lesvos (Greece) has become over the last few years the emblem of human migration to Europe. As a consequence of the so-called “migration crisis” in 2015, people from all over the world who, first in a self-organized way and then structuring themselves into associations and organizations, wanted to bring support to migrants in transit or blocked on the island arrived developing what I define migrants’ support volunteer tourism. After defining the historical and contemporary context, I define the tourist framework and in particular this (relatively) new form of volunteer tourism. Keeping in mind that tourism – often described as a panacea for the Mediterranean islands – does not necessarily mean encounter with the other, I try to analyse voluntary tourism from the point of view of the possible relationships that are created thanks to the intersection of two forms of contemporary mobility: tourism and migration.

Sub-Saharan migrants ‘in transit’: intersections between mobility and immobility and the production of (in)securities

ABSTRACT This article argues that addressing the security threats -and protection needs- of the so-called ‘transit migrants’ requires an understanding of (im)mobility as a politically constitutive force. In doing so, it points to the analytical advantages of expanding critical security studies in International Relations to include the politics of mobility, as opposed to a sedentary focus on the security-migration nexus. Building on the contributions of anthropologists and geographers of migration yet with a specific focus on understanding how (im)mobility and (in)security are mutually constitutive political practices that produce migrants’ travel experiences, the article problematizes the category of transit. By way of empirical illustration, the journey experiences of thirty-one sub-Saharan migrants as they traveled in Spain are reconstructed using a multi-sited ethnography, with the goal of analyzing the specific locations where mobility and immobility intersect, the co-production between (im)mobility and (in)security, and how migrants’ agency is transformed at these intersection nodes.

The everyday erosion of refugee claims: Representations of the Rohingya in Thailand

ABSTRACT Scholars have described the increasing fragmentation of categories like ‘refugee’ as part of efforts to reduce refugees’ access to protection. The proliferation of categories such as economic migrants, humanitarian migrants, and transit migrants generally emerge from top-down, policy-driven migration management paradigms, efforts by traditional resettlement countries to restrict opportunities for forced migrants to seek asylum. Here, I argue for a cultural geographic approach to understanding the everyday work of representations as contributing to the erosion of categories like ‘refugee’ from the bottom-up as well. Despite widespread international agreement about the unfolding crisis in Myanmar and the exodus of Rohingya refugees, interlocutors in Thailand consistently doubted the legitimacy of Rohingya refugees’ claims. Through three vignettes that take place in Thailand, I explore how Rohingya refugees become characterized as ‘different’ from other regional refugee groups. Rohingya refugees are represented through three overarching narratives that question the legitimacy of their refugee claims: through the wrong imaginaries, in the wrong places, and using the wrong strategies. By demanding comparisons with fictional, ideal refugees; cementing ties between refugee status, race and religion; and strategically positioning refugee status as a legal tactic, I argue that these representations further the everyday erosion of the meaning and usefulness of the category of refugee.