Who is Left to Fight for Us? Migration, Militarization, and Violence Against Defenders

• In Event: Issues in International and Comparative Politics

Abstract

How does violence against judicial officials and human rights defenders impact migration and, in turn, militarization? This chapter explores and theorizes the intersections of violence against judicial officials and human rights defenders (HRDs) on migration and the incurring cycles of violence in efforts to stop large-scale migration. Drawing on the cases of Honduras and Mexico, this paper explores how judicial officials and HRDs are essential defenders of vulnerable people and communities. The killings of judicial officials and HRDs perpetuate violence and impunity (Blume et al., 2024; Krain et al., 2024). When defenders are frequently killed, as they are in Honduras and Mexico, the institutions that are supposed to protect people and deliver justice are undermined by both targeted and systemic forms of violence, which motivates people to migrate in hopes of institutional and legal protection elsewhere. The US has responded to large scale migration from Honduras and Mexico with increasing militarization and criminalization of migrants (De León, 2015; Menjívar, et al. 2018; Slack et al., 2016; Slack, 2019). US-funded militarization in both Honduras and Mexico arms violent state actors and, in turn, exacerbates these forms of violence and entrenching this cycle of violence.

Authors

• Virginia Weitzel, University of Nevada Reno

• Daniel Guerrero Napoles, University of Nevada Reno

• Millie Sanchez Torres, University of Nevada Reno

• Julia Johnson, University of Nevada Reno

• Laura Blume, University of Nevada, Reno