Anti-immigrant sentiment is running high in the US, where congress stands poised to pass a piece of draconian legislation targeting immigrants and Homeland Security raids have resumed in California’s Central Valley. But what about in Mexico, where President Claudia Sheinbaum must navigate increasingly aggressive calls for tighter enforcement from the incoming Trump administration and where migration has long been championed as a natural, human right? Ariel Soto with the non-partisan Migration Policy Institute says as migrants—including large numbers of minors—continue to traverse the country, Mexico is confronting a “crisis of identity” as it seeks a path forward. (This interview has been edited for length and clarity.)
El País reports growing numbers of child migrants being detained in Mexico. Have you seen that as well, and if so, what does it say about current migrant flows?
What I have seen in the data is that the number of children traveling alone has actually decreased since 2021 when Central American migration, primarily from Guatemala and Honduras, began to decrease relative to other countries, Venezuela, Colombia and Haiti among them, from where migrants tend to travel largely as single adults. That could mean more minors are traveling with families or in larger groups of children. Still, the number of minors remains relatively high, which presents significant challenges for US-Mexico negotiations.
What are those challenges, as you see them?
In Mexico, there’s a law that was passed in 2020 and was implemented in 2021 that prohibits the detention of any child traveling alone or with somebody else through Mexico. Moreover, any person traveling with a minor cannot be separated from that child as it’s considered a harm to the child’s best interests. There is a world of difference between that law and what is in place in the United States, where we continue to detain children, even if it is for a shorter period.
Why this discrepancy between the two countries?
Mexico’s Congress has generally taken a very pro-humanitarian approach to child migrants. It doesn’t mean that just because there are laws that protect children, that these laws are followed or implemented evenly across Mexico. Clearly, that’s not the case. But at least on paper, Mexican policies are more favorable to children. In the United States, we haven’t seen immigration reforms of any kind for a very long time. And so, whether it’s Biden or Trump or Obama or anybody else, there hasn’t really been that ability to make meaningful change regardless of who is president.
Still, child migrants passing through Mexico face significant risks, isn’t that correct?
You’ve likely heard reports of how migrants think that Mexico—not the Darien Gap—is the hardest place to cross. It is in Mexico where a lot of migrants, including children, are exposed to sexual or physical harassment, corruption, and not just among the bad actors, the coyotes or smugglers, but also politicians, police, the National Guard and, particularly, the National Institute of Migration (which supervises migration in the country). There have been reports of very bad treatment of migrants by INM officials through Mexico for years. The trajectory from southern Mexico to northern Mexico is long, and the different routes that people take are very dangerous in some cases. Children, especially younger children, are likely to be the most vulnerable.
Anti-immigrant sentiment is running high in the US. What about in Mexico? As more migrants opt to remain, could there be a backlash?
Migration through and from Mexico goes back to the late 90s and early 80s. Even before that, in southern Mexico there’s long been travel to and from Central America. What’s changed is the number and the type of migrant, and that has led to a more polarizing image among the Mexican public towards migrants. I should say, however, it is nowhere what exists in the US. In Mexico, migration is maybe in the top 10, maybe the top 15 among priority issues, but it is nowhere near the top. The reason, generally, is that the Mexican public has been content with the idea that migrants are just moving through, even as Mexican migrants themselves have gone to the United States. There’s sort of an understanding publicly that migration happens, and that it happens through Mexico.
That started to change when we began to see the caravans in 2017 and 2018, primarily of Honduran migrants looking for protection in numbers. These caravans attracted not just international media, but also local media in Mexico. And that began to affect public attitudes, especially in places not directly located along the transit routes, with more people beginning to see migrants as a threat, especially as more Haitian and Cuban migrants began to pass through the country. It is not uncommon now to hear people complain about migrants competing for local resources that should be going to Mexican citizens, or that they are a threat to security.
Given these shifting dynamics, what are you seeing from the Sheinbaum administration in terms of an emerging strategy?
For years, decades, migration has been seen in Mexico as a humanitarian right. That sort of top-down rhetoric is now complicating efforts by the Mexican government to crack down on migrant flows, including what we see at the southern border with Guatemala, now the largest area of enforcement in the country. Even former President Andrés Manuel López Orbador tried to say that migration was a net benefit for people, despite enforcement under his administration surpassing levels seen even with the most conservative of Mexican administrations. That Mexico’s most liberal, or leftist government maintained the harshest policies toward immigration is a conundrum that speaks to the crisis of Mexican identity over the last few years.
Can you say more about that notion of Mexico experiencing an identity crisis. How does migration play into that?
You can’t say that immigration is bad when Mexicans are leaving in large numbers and have been leaving in large numbers for a long time. The problem is that the official rhetoric doesn’t align with the practices now in place. There’s a gap between what the administration says versus what it does.
And what is the administration doing or proposing to do?
On the one hand, Sheinbaum is pressured to continue the policies of her predecessor, López Obrador, which means tighter enforcement along the southern border. At the same time, she is trying to press López Obrador’s argument that tackling migration means getting to its root causes in the source countries. They’re trying to piece these two policy strategies together, and it hasn’t really worked. Mexico, today, is apprehending more migrants each month than the United States. That is a fact. Mexico is trying to do more with less money than its US counterparts. The question is, how sustainable is that?
Trump of course is making numerous threats, putting increased pressure on Sheinbaum. What should we be looking for as this dynamic plays out?
I think there are two key pieces to focus on. One is, how will Sheinbaum respond if there are massive deportations of Mexicans from the US to Mexico. Will she collaborate, looking to fend off Trump’s economic threats? Or will she stand her ground, bowing to public reaction in Mexico in the face of mass deportations? It is a tough line to walk. The other piece is that Mexico is going to need additional assistance if it continues with its enforcement policies. Sheinbaum has said that both INM and COMAR (in charge of refugee resettlement) will see cuts to their budgets this year. How will Mexico continue its enforcement policies with less money? Will the United States help? It is a difficult question, but one likely to come up in negotiations.
One final question. With countries tightening their borders, where does that leave migrants fleeing increasingly intolerable conditions at home?
If we go back to the first Trump administration, when migration levels were beginning to rise, people were not just moving to the United States. In fact, most Venezuelans were moving to Colombia and to Ecuador and Peru. I think they will continue to go to Colombia, Ecuador, Costa Rica and Mexico. These countries are relatively stable politically. They have relatively good economic systems, and they need migrants to provide work and to promote growth. If there were smart politicians in these countries that are looking ahead to the future of their economies, this would be the time to try to get a handle on migration as a benefit to those societies.
