Luisa Gabriela Morales-Vega joined the Research Cluster for Forced Migration at ABI from 30 April to 6 May. She presented her book project and her research on migration policies and migrant deportation between the USA and Mexico.
Luisa Gabriela Morales-Vega is a legal scholar at the Autonomous University of Mexico State. At ABI, she presented her book project titled “The reinforcement of exclusion in the United States – Mexico corridor”. In it, she traces the construction and intensification of the U.S. deportation regime, as well as its replication in Mexico. To this end, she examines policies, discourses, and governance structures within and across both countries.
In her talk at ABI, Morales-Vega illustrated how an extraordinary level of migration control is enforced by the U.S., including many executive orders under Donald Trump, racist discourses and the unrestrained use of force by ICE. In addition to this growing internalization of borders within the country itself, the U.S. externalizes the containment of migrants to other countries and replicates its oppressive system there. For example, through threats of tariffs and restrictions on remittances, the U.S. forces other countries to accept deportees and detain migrants. Morales-Vega aptly described this as using “migrants as a currency of exchange“. One of the primary recipients of U.S. deportees is Mexico, where similar repressive dynamics are reproduced, such as the highly militarized migration control by the National Guard.
Morales-Vega vividly and disturbingly showcased how, along the entire U.S.-Mexico Corridor, a system has been created that subjects migrants to institutional violence and further exacerbates their vulnerability: migrants are being immobilized, detained under dire conditions, deported, and families are being torn apart. While migrants have, for the moment, largely been pushed away from the U.S.-Mexico border and rendered invisible, Morales-Vega reminds us that “they are somewhere” - and should not be forgotten.
Prior to this visit, Morales-Vega had been part of a research project on COVID-19 and Migrant Communities in the Global South in 2021/22 in collaboration with Franzisca Zanker at ABI. Together with colleagues from Qatar, Nepal and Zimbabwe, Morales-Vega published a number of reports and videos on their research.