Reception and Accommodation of Unaccompanied Adolescents in Mexico: Pedagogies of Care in Transition

• In Event: Migrants and Migrations Across the Americas: An Educational Perspective Against Borders

Proposal

The global population of unaccompanied migrant children is increasing. Between 2015 and 2016, more than 300 000 unaccompanied minors migrated worldwide. The migration of unaccompanied minors is not new. Minors migrate alone, for a myriad of reasons, including family reunification, economic opportunity, and to escape severe violence (Donato & Sisk 2018; UNHCR 2014). Along their trajectory, minors encounter multiple deportation regimes, with the punitive objective of preventing their arrival to the United States. Given the border externalization of immigration enforcement between the United States and Mexico (Andersson, 2014; Collyer & de Haas, 2012 ; Hess, 2012; Mezzadra & Neilsen, 2013), migrant shelters have become alternatives to detention for unaccompanied minors (Doering-White, 2018). Thus, changes in migration patterns and shifts in immigration policies place much of the responsibility for migrant well-being on non-governmental shelters and organizations, which count on limited resources and often cannot offer prolonged care. The increasing demand on state agencies and non-governmental organizations has led to the establishment of the “ruta de protección” or “protection route” in Mexico, a framework based on national and international standards of safety and security for minors meant to “guarantee the rights of children and adolescents in migration situations, identifying [institutions] areas of responsibility and agreeing on how they should coordinate to achieve these goals.” The protection route concludes with Stage 4: “preparation and transition to independent adult life”. I argue, that in preparation for this stage of “independence” shelters are confronted with notions of “migrant dependency” that propel unaccompanined minors to seek an expedited transition to “vida independiente”.

This presentation focuses on unaccompanied minors who, for the moment, have chosen to stay in Mexico. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork within non-governmental migrant shelters across Central Mexico, including in-depth interviews with unaccompanied migrants and social service providers, this paper extends the theorization of care during migration (Heidbrink, 2020). I explore how and what unaccompanied minors learn about care which is often managed, modeled and informed by the structures and systems of institutions. In doing so, I demonstrate how the notions of “independence” that humanitarian systems-state actors foster and uphold come at the expense of collective care and social/kin networks for unaccompanied minors (Kaba, 2021). Given the limited local support-networks, the pedagogies of care unaccompanied migrants learn during their times in shelters are instrumental in their ongoing trajectories. Further, this study contributes to the debates on “asistencialismo” for refugees and migrant in Latin American, and the roles of NGO actors in response to state in/action.

Author

• Claudia Triana Ipinza, University of Wisconsin-Madison