Precarious childhoods and exceptionalism along the U.S./Mexico border: Repatriated mexican unaccompanied youth

• In Event: Childhood/Youth, Forced Migration, and Humanitarian Aid in the Central America-US corridor

Abstract

Through politicization of immigration and security “crises”, both the United States and Mexico have constructed a state of exceptionalism in which “petty sovereigns” or low-to-mid level officials, within a culture of impunity routinely and extra-legally suspend/violate rights and protections of unaccompanied children/youth. Mexican youth are particularly vulnerable as they are subjected to legally codified differential treatment which functionally bars them from seeking immigration relief at the U.S./Mexico border. Furthermore, both U.S. officials “screening” youth, and Mexican child welfare officials receiving repatriated minors, assume they are economic migrants and/or “criminals” rather than asylum seekers fleeing violence and persecution. Based on a mixed-methods bi-national study of repatriated Mexican youth along the Tamaulipas/Texas border we examine children/youth’s experiences with different actors (especially state) in border, carceral/detention, legal and social welfare spaces in both Mexico and the U.S. In particular, we focus on inadequate screening, barriers to due process, failure to obtain legal protections, inadequate care, complicity in subjecting minors to crime and trafficking, refoulment, and unsafe repatriation. We conclude that through a negation of childhood status predicated on constructions of crisis, a politics of exception is legitimized, permitting the violation of legal rights, care, and protections for minors prescribed under domestic and international laws, treaties, and agreements. Finally, we suggest potential areas of policy, advocacy, activism, and research to improve access to protective services (legal, child welfare, others) for unaccompanied migrant children/youth in Mexico and the U.S.

Author

• Rebecca M Torres, University of Texas at Austin