Bordering Through Exemption: Extracontinental Migration Flows in Mexico

Abstract

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.