Migrant legislators in Mexico's Congress: a victory for organized migrants before neoliberalism in the Trump era

• In Event: Labor and Labor Movements Section Refereed Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Roundtable 2: Migration, Dispossession, and Transnational Labor Regimes

Abstract

This study argues that the struggle by organized migrants for representation in Mexico's federal Congress can be understood as an attempt to counter the growing power of global capital, whose expansion uprooted invididuals from the hometown in the first place and, once they were absorbed as undocumented workers in the United States, exploited them with few restrictions. Unable to fully assimilate into the receiving country, unauthorized migrants' best hope for political recognition rested in Mexico's political system. This study also contends that this struggle was waged in response to the contraction of social services provided to migrants by the Mexican state during the neoliberal era. This was particularly evident under President López Obrador, a leftist politician in some respects and a staunch neoliberal in others, who imposed severe austerity measures during his tenure. López Obrador's first budget, in 2019, included cuts of more than 32% to protection and consular assistance programs.
The victory of organized migrants for political representation in Mexico's federal Congress is a case of effective transnational politics, as the Mexican State was pressured to recognize the right of all Mexicans, regardless of where they live, to run for public office. It also shows how the Mexican State was compelled to respond to the increased criminalization of exploitable migrants enacted by the Trump administration, and continued the long history of the Mexican diaspora fighting for their political rights. The effort led to the election of 11 migrant representatives to Mexico’s Congress in 2021 and 7 representatives plus one senator in 2024. This struggle was led by Fuerza Migrante, a New Jersey-based organization founded by a Mexican philanthropist to expand the political rights of Mexican emigrants, which organized the legal challenges that forced reluctant political parties to include migrant candidates to represent the diaspora.

Author

• Maurizio Guerrero, CUNY-Graduate Center