Thousands of migrants began walking from Central America, through Mexico, in the so called “migrant caravan”, in a quest to gain safety and security in the US. Their journey soon became a flashpoint. They were welcomed and accommodated in tiny pueblos (towns) like Santiago Niltepec in Oaxaca state and in the megalopolis of Mexico City, and verbally abused and tear-gassed in Tijuana. Their story, exploited by Donald Trump before the November mid-terms powerfully demonstrates the tensions, failures, and potential of current global migration policy.
Day and night
After the caravan’s arrival to Mexico City, I spoke with some of the men, women and children who were being accommodated in the sports stadium to the west of the city centre. One man, 38-year-old Henry Vargas Portillo, from Guatemala, told me that he planned to stay in Mexico City instead of heading for the US border. “Here in Mexico the people have behaved so well towards us. They’ve given us something to eat and a place to sleep, and many people have donated money.”
The city government provided advice, medicines, clothing, food and (very basic) accommodation, while throughout the city there were solicitations for donations of things the migrants need for their journey. The traditional Day of the Dead ofrenda (decorated altar) in the central square was dedicated to migrants, and, as the caravan made its way out of the city, the governor of Queretaro, the state they were bound for, told media that they were ready to receive the migrants, and urged his constituents to “walk together” with the travellers and respect their rights.
Mexico’s long history of out-migration was frequently referenced by politicians and community groups alike. “Somos todos migrantes”, read one poster; “help our migrant brothers and sisters” read another. The message was strong: migration is a human right, it is our obligation to show solidarity and respect to the migrants coming through our town, and we must ask others to do the same.
What was also remarkable is that this support and assistance was offered by many people who have very little. The indigenous pueblo of Juchitán, where locals set up a solar-powered cinema in the town square and showed kids films on a massive, inflatable screen, is still rebuilding from the devastation of last year’s earthquake. In the week the migrants arrived, Mexico City was in the middle of an acute water shortage. Before their arrival the city governor, José Ramón Amieva, announced that the migrants would not be disadvantaged by the water shortage. “We will provide the supplies, food and water necessary to help them,” he said.
While there are many in Tijuana who share this philosophy and have been acting accordingly, the arrival of the caravan to the border city continues, by contrast, to be marked by instances of verbal abuse and harassment on the beach, anti-migrant rallies, and a heavy local police presence. Tijuana mayor Juan Manuel Gastélum has called on authorities to “arrest the caravan organisers”, adding that he is “not spending a penny more to shelter migrants”. At the end of November, from the other side of the border, US border protection police launched tear gas canisters at migrants. Neither adults nor small children were spared the effects.
Why the difference?
There are confirmed reports that pro-Nazi organisers helped to agitate for the protests against the migrants in Tijuana, primarily via a Facebook group called “Primero Mexico/Mexico First”. Others defended their actions as protecting their country and had their message subsequently amplified in media like Fox News and Russia Today.
In 2018, the city has also been facing record levels of violence and is neither safe from police and government corruption. Many Central Americans such as those in the caravan have long faced racism from some Mexicans and these tropes were again rehearsed in the protests in Tijuana. And of course there is pressure on Mexico from the USA — which is just steps away from Tijuana — to keep the numbers that cross over to a minimum, or, better yet, to ensure that all migrants from the caravan are turned away.
Such differences between the reception of migrants (e.g. those between Mexico City and Tijuana) reflect the current international crisis of border control and migrants in need.
Migrants’ rights
The international right to protection that was enshrined after World War II has been slowly eroded since the 1980s; making asylum a scarce good that rich countries like the US, Australia, and those of the EU have been empowered to dole out according to political expedience. Increasingly, migrants are asked to prove their worth and innocence.
What I saw in Mexico City was different. Whether or not anybody deserved to be welcomed and cared for was a moot point. The unconditional response of a large part of the city, led by the city government, showed me that, when migration is treated as a human right without qualification, there is little need for national worry. Instead, food, shelter and other forms of basic care are organised, donations are corralled from the public, and migrants are wished the best for their journey, no matter what their reasons are for it. Many are invited to stay more permanently and they take up the offer.
What if this response was to be a global standard, a re-building of the right to protection and the fact of migration? Would the international order implode, or could national life simply go on? The pragmatically kind reception of the migrants in many parts of Mexico strongly suggests the latter is possible. And as the crisis of border control only deepens across the planet, causing extraordinary suffering to so many who migrate, it may just be worth a try.
Mexico city has been both reported as drug cartel run shambles where people might be kiddnapped and sold into slavery, ransomed or killed … this from a Mexican social worker interviewed on TV recently.
But according to the above its an open sharing society based on aluturism …. ?
Look a little deeper. Mexico City is like many other cities in the developing and 3rd world – people flock to those cities because traditional farming communities have been destroyed by BigAg, American BigAg, who use trade agreements like NAFTA (and it’s Trump ‘update’) to destroy smaller rural communities, and replace them with industrial agriculture.
There’s a 2nd strand to this plan – to increase the supply of cheap labour in the manufacturing centres surrounding larger cities, which are similarly, in Mexico anyway, owned by American capital.
And, many hope that AMLO, the new Mexican president, who was inaugurated last Saturday, might herald some welcome change, given he’s, again hopefully, not in the mould of those who have gone before him in recent decades i.e. a “client” of the USofA.
“Mexico City was in… an acute water shortage”
There too, huh? Potable water shortages are avoidable everywhere there is power. One thing any steam power station can do with its condenser heat is desalinate. It is then a power and water infrastructure.
One has to wonder what ‘message’ Australia ‘gave’ to a world struggling to accommodate those in flight from oppression, hunger or a simple hope to find a better life?
Australian Government(s) modelled an Oz response. If ‘they’ come, they must be repelled, contained. Hopes denied and their dreams made nightmares. Encased in a glove and waved whenever opportunistic or requiring reinforcement; repression, oppression . . . without end, or resolution.
There can be no doubt. Those who sought. For whatever belief or reason; embraced as legitimate, persecution. And as Trump conclusively deploys. Military, tear gas and big, beautiful walls. Women and children all.
While the author has rightly focused on what might be done now, and into the future, to alleviate the desperation of those in the “caravan”, it’s disappointing not to read reflections on the cause(s).
Yesterday was declared a national holiday in the US, so they may pay tribute to the life of ‘Poppy’ Bush.
If one is interested in the cause(s) of Latin American desperation, there is no place better to start than the life of ‘Poppy’ Bush.
The late (as of earlier this year), great investigative journalist, Robert Parry had spent much of his earlier working life investigating various of America’s ‘initiatives’ in Central and South America, initiatives supposedly designed to bring “freedom and democracy” to the region.
And, it was very rare to find ‘Poppy’ had not had a significant hand in most of them. From Allende’s overthrow in Chile, to Iran-Contra, there was Poppy (he was the head of the CIA, for Pete’s sake, and Raygun’s 2IC after that). And, military and right-wing death squads were ever-present, and regarded as a most vauable tool – so much so, that in 2005 Poppy’s son ‘chaired’ discussions on going with the ‘Salvador Option’ in Iraq.
And, just to show the thoroughly bi-partisan nature of US foreign policy, Obama brought us ‘moderate rebels’ in Syria in around 2011. And, weren’t they a hoot?
Consortium News, the site Parry founded in the 1990’s, has been kept alive by his son, and some of those who have long admired Parry. And, this last few days Parry has ‘risen from the grave’, to retell a number of his ‘Tales of the Life and Times of Poppy Bush’.
The US ‘machine’ is not much chop at making things of value (unless you value ‘financial engineering’). But. one thing they do better than all is produce myths.
Hopefully the moderators won’t stomp on some of the best journalism you will read on ‘Poppy’s’ legacy.
All from the late, great Robert Parry;
https://consortiumnews.com/2018/12/01/george-h-w-bush-the-cia-and-a-case-of-state-sponsored-terrorism/
https://consortiumnews.com/2018/12/01/taking-a-bush-secret-to-the-grave-2/
https://consortiumnews.com/2018/12/03/bush-41s-october-surprise-denials-2/
https://consortiumnews.com/2018/12/05/the-bushes-death-squads/
Operation Condor, of fearsome memory and not to forget the School of the Americas in Fort Benning GA where the up & coming junta wannabes were given such excellent training in death squads, torture, massacre and bending the knee to Uncle Sam.
Why The Difference?
This article does not identify the local issues in different Mexican cities which I think contribute much to the reasons for different treatment of the caravan.
In Mexico City, the caravan was in transit. The citizens could readily wish them well and “God speed”.
In Tijuana, there is the threat that the caravan may be stalled indefinitely. And there is the huge trauma caused by the Nov 20 closure of the border, puting many Tijuana residents out of their work in USA and causing some of them to blame the caravan, while others blame the USA border closure.
In San Diego, much or the workforce in nursing and in trades from plumbing, to construction to cleaning and sanitation are people who live in the sprawling wild west environment of Tijuana and commute daily into the USA. Their work and income are disrupted and their careers and livelihood are threatened.
I traveled up through Baja, through Tijuana and crossed the border to ‘El Norte’ in Tecate, two days before the people of the caravan were gassed in Tijuana and the border subsequently closed. Days later, in a major nursing home in San Diego, management were struggling to fill their staffing roster because many staff could not get to work. Garbage disposal staff were working overtime to cover unfilled shifts because workmates could not get to work. I did not hear support for the closure on either side of the border.
I agree with and am aware of most of these points, Administrator. With my editor, I did my best to gesture to the fact that Tijuana faces greater pressure than Mexico City in terms of responding to the arrival of the caravan. If you can come up with a way of adding more detail while boiling it all down to 1-2 sentences please pass it on!
Just how would it be fair, Ann, that I am limited to two sentences? Instead, let’s team up.
Two big factors change once the caravan reaches a border town, whether it is TJ or Mexicali or elsewhere. (Those issues are not any difference in minority Mexicans’ racism against central Americans and they are not some nutter pro-Nazi organizers.)
The first is that the refugee caravan is halted, possibly indefinitely, by Trump administration anti-refugee tactics, from deferring processing to tear gas attacks to border closure to “go home” tweets.
The second is the accumulation of pressures on the residents of the border town accommodating the caravan. Some pressures are old, some are recent and some are new. Méxicans are taught they were robbed by the US of their lands and their water. Americans are taught the words of John Quincy Adams “The whole continent of North America appears to be destined by Divine Providence to be peopled by one nation” which shaped US territorial aggressive expansion “from sea to shining sea”. Méxicans know they are Native Americans colonised for several centuries by Spain before fighting for independence. Americans are taught Méxicans are “Latinos” or “Hispanics”. Americans still travel freely into México without even showing ID while Mexicans travelling into US are subjected to increasing Homeland Security, Border Control, drug and gun checks and queues made deliberately long by US under-resourcing.
The Méxican border cities such as TJ and Mexicali are ethnically indistinguishable from their USA counterparts. But the Mexican cities already house untold numbers of prospective immigrants who failed to cross or were deported south and who mostly end up staying there. These swollen cities do not want to deal with more population and housing pressure on their meagre infastructure.
So, in understanding why Méxican attitudes to the caravan refugees changes at a border town, we can’t “Forget the US”. All the pressures on the Méxican border cities are US initiatives.
The Méxican border cities already house untold numbers of prospective immigrants who failed to cross or were deported south and who mostly end up staying there, broke, swelling population and housing pressure on the meagre infastructure.
So, in understanding why Méxican attitudes to the caravan refugees changes at a border town, we can’t “Forget the US” because all the pressures on the Méxican border cities are US initiatives.