Punitive Deportations, Bracero Deaths and Migration Control in Mexico

• In Event: Contesting Transnational Migrant Mobilities: Resettling Deportees, Building Roads, and Constructing Race in Mexico

Abstract

In August of 1956, a mutiny occurred on an overcrowded boat used to transport deported workers from the U.S. to Mexico. Three dozen men jumped off at the sight of land and five drowned. The mutiny aboard the S.S. Mercurio and the deaths that followed sparked international outrage. Migrants suffered for days as they were sent to Veracruz (far from home for many) from Texas, on a commercial boat that had never been intended to transport people. As newspapers published pictures of the dead migrants floating in the Gulf and described the boat as a “slave ship,” the Mexican government struggled to defend itself against allegations that these methods of returning migrants were punitive strategies meant to discipline those who had traveled north without papers.
In fact, Mexico often attempted to resettle deportees far from the border to prevent re-crossings, thereby leading to chaos and suffering as large groups of deportees would arrive in certain transportation hubs. Kelly Lytle-Hernández argues that these methods of repatriation to the interior “map the violence of border control far south of the U.S.-Mexico border,” yet little work has focused on the experiences of deportees beyond the borderlands. In this paper, I examine the tragedy of the Mercurio and argue that this case serves as one example of how we need to historicize not only deportation to Mexico, but also the government’s punitive actions and the emergence of the current strategy of “prevention through deterrence” that often ended in tragedy for migrants.

Author

• Laura D Gutierrez, University of California/San Diego