What Do We Mean When We Talk About the “Securitization” of International Migration in Mexico? A Critique

Undocumented international migration in Mexico is facing a serious human rights crisis. Each year, hundreds of thousands of migrants, above all from Central America, cross Mexico to reach the United States. Their journey risks extortion, kidnap, torture, disappearance, and death. For activists and civil society organizations, this crisis is explained by what they call the securitization of Mexico’s migration policy. By “securitization,” they mean a policy imposed on Mexico by the United States that treats migrants as a security threat. This article challenges this interpretation, arguing that the theory of securitization is insufficient to understand the many factors that make possible the systematic violence of the human rights of migrants in transit in Mexico.