Punitive Subjectivities and Emotions in Immigration Detention in Mexico

• In Event: The Moral Worlds of Immigration Bureaucrats I

Abstract

Little is known about the operation of immigration detention centres in Mexico, including how punishment is used in daily practice, such as denying information, forbidding a phone call, or denying access to medicine, a clean toilet, a glass of water, or a sanitary towel. Even less is known about the people who work there, especially the rationale and emotions behind their daily decisions and the different ways in which they collaborate with a system that promotes punishment as a central element of immigration detention. In this paper, I reflect on how fear and disgust are emotions embedded in institutional practices that reinforce punishment in immigration detention, while empathy can challenge it.

With data from an institutional ethnography I conducted in 2017 and 2019 in Estación Migratoria Siglo XXI in Tapachula, Chiapas, plus participant observations carried out between 2021 and 2023, I analyse working conditions and daily interactions in detention centres, immigration control facilities and their surroundings. I argue that immigration agents can develop punitive subjectivities to channel emotions derived from anxieties and frustrations of daily work, as well as to embrace a sense of institutional belonging and the illusion of order and control. However, INM agents also show empathy towards migrants to cope with emotional distress and humanise their daily work. I intend to answer the questions in this paper: What do emotions reveal about the functioning of punishment in immigration detention centres? How do emotions expressed by INM agents (such as fear, disgust and empathy) enhance or challenge punitive subjectivities?

Author

• Alethia Fernández de la Reguera, Institute of Legal Research of the National Autonomous University of Mexico