A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words: Irregular Transmigrants’ Journeys and Mental Mapping Methodology
| Date | 01 December 2017 |
| Published date | 01 December 2017 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/imig.12369 |
A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words:
Irregular Transmigrants’Journeys and
Mental Mapping Methodology
Amalia Campos-Delgado*
ABSTRACT
The development of border clusters and transit control regimes aiming to detain irregular
migrants before they reach their destination countries is constructed upon a multidimensional
geopolitical narrative driven by border security agreements. The Mexican Transit Control
Regime illustrates that 16 years of trying to control migration in transit to the United States
has not reduced it but has only succeeded in pushing migrants into dangerous routes and risky
practices. Using mental maps as a technique to approach transmigrants’voices, this article
aims to contribute to the understanding of the ways irregular migrants in transit live and repre-
sent their journey.
INTRODUCTION
Borders are far more than just physical demarcations, more than lines represented on the maps.
Bordering processes encompass all the strategies deployed by nation-states aiming to protect and
secure their territory from so-called security threats. New analytical challenges about mobility and
the use of technology have arisen with twenty-first century bordering processes. Countries have
become enclosed through borders, borders that now are more than concrete walls or metal fences;
the technical sophistication of the so-called “smart borders”seeks to pre-detect and prevent the
entrance of undesirable flows. Thus, in the global migration regime, some mobilities are celebrated
and encouraged, while others are constructed and targeted as a national security matter (Shamir,
2005; Khosravi, 2010).
Aiming to remotely control the flow of people, states are externalizing their border controls
(Popescu, 2012). The Transit Control Regimes are one facet of such externalization. Backing by
co-bordering and security agreements, the transit state’s territory becomes a border-zone for irregu-
lar migrants en route to destination states. Border and migration controls are being outsourced and
border clusters are being created. Thus, the Transit Control Regimes create new puzzles for the
analysis of the securitization of migration management, the spatiality of border controls, and the
asymmetry of power within nations (D€
uvell, 2012;
_
Icßduygu and Y€
ukseker, 2012; Menj
ıvar, 2014).
And, while it is important to carefully analyse its political, ethical, and procedural characteristics,
we have to be careful not to forget the human dimension of in the process.
With these elements in mind, this article aims to contribute to the understanding of the ways in
which irregular migrants in transit experience and represent their journey. Therefore, it joins the
approaches that seek to highlight the importance of “hearing”the voices of the migrants, frequently
* Queen’s University, Belfast
doi: 10.1111/imig.12369
©2017 The Author
International Migration ©2017 IOM
International Migration Vol. 55 (6) 2017
ISS N 00 20- 7985 Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
invisible in the analysis exclusively centred on migration policies (Abrego, 2014; Johnson, 2012;
Sladkova, 2013). This article will focus on the case of the Mexican Transit Control Regime that aims
to detain the irregular population making its way to the United States. In the first section of this arti-
cle, the general outline of this regime is presented. In the second section, a description of mental map-
ping methodology and its utility to understand participants’experiences is developed. In the final
section, through the analysis of the technical, physical, and connotative categories in transmigrants’
mental maps, an approach to the understanding of transmigration experience is examined.
THE MEXICAN TRANSIT CONTROL REGIME
A Transit Control Regime is based on border agreements between two or more states in which one,
the transit state, has the task of detaining, containing, and expelling third country nationals traveling
irregularly. In order to do so, it deploys normative and procedural elements to control transit migra-
tion, operating as a “border-country”(Sandoval Palacios, 2005; Yrizar Barbosa, 2011). Therefore, it is
preemptive measure are prompted by destination countries to stop irregular arrivals into its borders.
The enforcement of the Mexican Transit Control Regime has been highly criticized in a political
and humanitarian, but also in an ethical way (Kovic, 2008; Rojas, 2001; Ogren, 2007; Olayo-
M
endez, 2017). Mexico has 11 million nationals living in the United States, 6 million of them
residing irregularly (Warren, 2016), and in 2015 the remittances –$25 billion USD –they sent
back home exceeded oil revenues. The Mexican government has openly criticized the human rights
abuse to irregular Mexican migrants by US law enforcers. Nevertheless, apart from the ethical and
political implications, pragmatically, what the Mexican case illustrates is that 16 years of repressive
border control techniques, aiming to detain the migration in transit, have not reduced or discour-
aged this mobility but have only accomplished pushing it into clandestine and dangerous practices,
increasing the vulnerability of this population.
Since 2000 Mexico’s government has openly changed its border control discourse, pointing out
the porosity of the southern border as a security issue. Migration policies of the new century
framed the interest of what used to be considered a “long forgotten border”(Guill
en, 2003). Never-
theless, the porosity of the Mexican southern border is not rhetorical; through the 1,149 kilometres
only eleven borders-crossings are regulated while approximately 370 points operate without any
official control.
The Mexican government’s interest in the southern border region needs to be framed in the
broader migration and political context of the time:
(a) The increasing numbers, since the late 1990s, of Central American migrants using Mexico as
a transit country to reach the US, escaping from the widespread poverty, natural disasters’devasta-
tion, and everyday violence in their countries.
(b) The presidential election of the Mexican right-wing party candidate, Vicente Fox (the first
transfer of power after 70 years of centre-right ruling), whose foreign policy was to strengthen
cooperation with the US, which started with the signing in June 2001 of the Plan of Action for
Cooperation on Border Safety.
In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, border security and risk assessment have been endorsed as a
priority for the US government. Therefore, since 2002 the Mexican and the US governments have
signed border control agreements aiming “to build a smart border for the twenty-first century”
(Ben
ıtez, 2008). As Louise Amoore (2006) has pointed out, the connotation of “smart border”is
the implementation of techniques of profiling the “legitimate”and “illegitimate”mobilities through
networks that spread beyond the physical demarcation of the nation-state. Hence, one of the main
areas of interest of these binational agreements has been to “secure the flow of people”, with a
A picture is worth a thousand words 185
©2017 The Author. International Migration ©2017 IOM
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