The U.S. and Mexico’s Federal Strategic Plans against Migration and their Relation to Invisible Deaths

by Sofia Guerra*

March 8, 2024

The U.S. and Mexico have strategies to control migration that dehumanize migrants and sometimes lead to their deaths becoming invisible. The U.S. border infrastructure forces migrants to be exposed to extreme natural environments causing deaths while crossing. Some paths to the U.S. are controlled by criminal organizations making them experience violence. The lack of transparency, visibility, and care create invisible deaths.

The U.S./Mexico border has become a dangerous path for immigrants when crossing, creating thousands of deaths. An invisible death is when people die while migrating, later to be found without any form of identification and no information about who the person is and why they passed away.  Jason De Leon conducted a deep dive into invisible deaths within the U.S./Mexico border. He argues that the existing border infrastructure is the result of a federal strategic plan to deter migration that facilitates death but hides its strategy by redirecting blame to migrants.

The U.S. federal strategy pushes migrants into physically demanding natural environments like deserts, rivers, and extreme temperatures. This endangers the migrant’s lives and risks the possibility of death while crossing. USA’s federal strategy also involves developing infrastructure such as walls, militarization, ground sensors, checkpoints, and other measures to impede migrants’ passing.  These strategies cause migrants to face isolation and physiological strain,  making the migration process more challenging and leading to higher mortality rates.

Like the U.S., Mexico has an infrastructure of checkpoints and militarized immigration stations, but with increased anti-immigrant policies criminal organizations further interfere in the movement of people across “their” territories. Corruption has allowed the growth of criminal activities, affecting the safety of migrants passing through. Thus, Mexico has also developed a quiet strategic federal plan against migrants that consists of extreme violence. Mexican trials to get to the US have become a site of intense violence, exploitation, and profit-making among gang members. They encounter abuse, rape, kidnapping, dismemberment, and death. Their migrant journey is used to make a profit and form part of the strategic corruption in the criminal world. This makes the Mexican drug war members control some of the routes that immigrants take within Mexico, making migrant smuggling blend into criminal activity. Migrants’ lives are at risk when encountering the criminal world while crossing; those who die due to criminal activities are likely to have an invisible death. This is due to the lack of transparency that organized crime has with its victims. 

Although the USA and Mexico have different federal strategic plans to dissuade land migration, it becomes evident that their strategies do not favor life but instead create a systematic weapon against migrants. In the USA, migration is seen as a dangerous crisis, while in Mexico, migration is seen as an opportunity for profit. Migrants are dehumanized, and therefore, their lives are not protected, increasing the invisibility of their death.

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* Sofia Guerra is a sociology graduate student at American University. She is a research assistant at the Immigration Lab and Center of Latin American Studies at AU. She has conducted research on migration, gender studies, and the bilateral relationship between Mexico and the United States. She also has an interest in policy-making and expanding her research expertise.