This piece appeared in the Spring 2026 issue of NACLA’s quarterly print magazine, the NACLA Report. Subscribe in print today!
Lea este artículo en español.
For more than two decades, the southern Mexican city of Tapachula has served as a quiet hinge in the architecture of hemispheric migration control. Located just north of the Guatemala-Mexico border connecting North and Central America, Tapachula has long been a site of transit, refuge, and labor for Central American migrants. Since the mid-2000s, however, and with increasing intensity over the past decade, it has also become something else: a space of containment, immobilization, and attrition.
The construction in 2006 of the Siglo XXI Migration Station, one of the largest immigration detention centers in Latin America, marked an early consolidation of this role. Since then, successive policy shifts—including Mexico’s Plan Frontera Sur in 2014, the growing militarization of the southern corridor, and the externalization of U.S. border enforcement—have progressively transformed Tapachula into what many migrants and residents now describe as a ciudad cárcel: a city where people are held in prolonged legal limbo, unable to move forward or safely return. Detention, delay, and uncertainty have become ordinary features of daily life.
This transformation has only accelerated in recent years. Following the arrival of the first large migrant caravan in October 2018, Tapachula became a focal point for newly visible mass displacement across the hemisphere. As U.S. asylum pathways narrowed and regional cooperation around migration enforcement intensified, the city absorbed the fallout. Tens of thousands of people from Haiti, Venezuela, Cuba, Central America, Africa, and beyond have been stranded there, waiting months or years for asylum appointments, humanitarian visas, identity documents, or deportation.
Raised in Chiapas, in a region historically marked both by out-migration and by the arrival of refugees fleeing Guatemala’s armed conflict, Cruz grew up immersed in the realities of displacement and refuge.
At the center of this reality is the work of organizations that accompany migrants through detention, legal uncertainty, and everyday survival. One of the most prominent is the Center of Human Rights Fray Matías de Córdova, a civil society organization that has worked in Tapachula for nearly three decades. Founded in the 1990s, the Center has long combined legal advocacy with on-the-ground accompaniment: intervening inside the Siglo XXI detention center, documenting conditions of confinement, and providing legal support for asylum claims, regularization processes, and access to basic rights such as health care, education, and work.
Yet Fray Matías’s work extends beyond legal defense. One of its central strategic axes is what the organization calls “hacer comunidad.” Through facilitated gatherings, community-based activities, and a local community center, the organization creates spaces where people in mobility can speak openly about the barriers they face, share life experiences, rebuild trust, and generate networks of solidarity. These efforts also seek to foster dialogue between migrants and the local population, countering the fragmentation produced by border enforcement regimes.
Mavi Cruz, the Center’s current director, has been part of this work for the past 12 years, though migration has shaped her life for far longer. Raised in Chiapas, in a region historically marked both by out-migration and by the arrival of refugees fleeing Guatemala’s armed conflict, Cruz grew up immersed in the realities of displacement and refuge. Migration, she explains, has been present in her life for as long as she can remember, eventually guiding her toward spaces where she could contribute directly to the accompaniment of people on the move.
In this conversation, Cruz reflects on Tapachula’s transformation into a site of enforced immobility, the regionalization of punitive migration governance, and the everyday forms of violence—administrative, psychological, and physical—that migrants endure. At the same time, she insists on another story: one centered on collective care, community-building, and political imagination. In the face of policies designed to exhaust, isolate, and fragment, Cruz describes practices aimed at helping migrants recognize their suffering not as individual failure, but as the outcome of systematic forms of control. From women’s collectives to informal networks of mutual aid, these efforts gesture toward other forms of belonging and mobility that persist, even under conditions of extreme constraint.
What follows is an edited and condensed version of our conversation, conducted virtually in November 2025 and translated from Spanish.
P.S.D. and Julianne Chandler: In recent months we have seen how U.S. migration policy under Donald Trump’s second administration has consolidated a hemispheric regime of control that combines multiple governance technologies such as deportation, security cooperation, and the externalization of borders. From Tapachula, how do you perceive this regional articulation of migration control? What continuities and ruptures do you observe in the forms of control, containment, and surveillance compared to previous decades?
Mavi Cruz: The Siglo XXI Migration Station, built during the Vicente Fox administration, was already the result of cooperation agreements with the United States aimed at controlling migration flows. Since then, it has functioned as a centralized hub for detention and deportation, holding people apprehended at the border or transferred from different parts of Mexico.
In 2014, with the increase in the number of unaccompanied migrant children and adolescents, the issue gained widespread media attention due to multiple human rights violations against families and minors. This marked a new turning point in Mexico–U.S. collaboration through the Southern Border Plan, which consolidated the southern border as a strategic zone of migration control. That process was further reinforced by regional cooperation packages promoted following the [terrorist] attacks of September 11, 2001, and, beginning in 2017, by the arrival of people from Africa, Haiti, Cuba, and, in 2018, by the first caravans, primarily from Honduras.
In this context, three major belts of control were established: the border itself, the exit from Chiapas, and the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Since 2014, the presence of security forces dedicated to migration control has increased—first involving the Gendarmerie and later, beginning in 2019, the National Guard, which is now attached to the Ministry of National Defense (SEDENA). In southern Mexico, provisional holding facilities also proliferated, functioning as pre-detention points before transfer to Tapachula—a practice that was partially modified after the March 2023 fire in Ciudad Juárez, after which access to these spaces was restricted.
Along the southern border, migration checkpoints multiplied, as did operations in cities, on highways, and in public spaces to identify people with irregular immigration status—even by agencies without migration authority, which ultimately hand them over to the National Migration Institute. Alongside physical control, practices of institutional punishment have been deployed, such as unofficial holding points where people remain for weeks in precarious conditions, with no real possibility of advancing their procedures.
The inability to access public transportation has forced many people to walk long distances and has led to the emergence of semi-permanent camps at the border and in other states, made up of people who were seeking transfer in order to access a CBP One appointment [now CBP Home]. Migration regularization and asylum procedures have become indefinitely delayed, generating economic, physical, and emotional exhaustion that leads many people to give up or turn to increasingly dangerous routes, in a context in which irregular migration generates significant economic spillovers that are controlled by multiple actors.
In recent years, Tapachula has become a “prison city”: immigration processes do not move forward, and leaving often means paying some kind of criminal network. These practices of punishment are rapidly spreading to other countries in the region, such as Guatemala, Costa Rica, and Panama, without any kind of regional responsibility grounded in a human rights approach toward people seeking protection.
PSD and JC: What changes have you observed under the new Mexican administration of Claudia Sheinbaum?
MC: Unlike the previous administration, the issue is no longer addressed as openly, but the budget tells a clear story. The Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance (COMAR), which is responsible for processing asylum claims, has far fewer resources, directly affecting its capacity to receive and process applications. While there is a generalized discourse about a decline in arrivals, those who have been stranded are rendered invisible within that narrative. The flow continues, but it is now layered onto a population trapped at various points across Mexican territory, especially along the southern border.
While there is a generalized discourse about a decline in arrivals, those who have been stranded are rendered invisible within that narrative.
The lack of funding has concrete effects: to obtain a first appointment and initiate the asylum process, people may have to wait between six and nine months. During that time, they have no documents proving that their process is underway or protecting them from deportation. At the same time, the National Migration Institute has modified and nearly doubled the costs of regularization procedures, which were already difficult to afford and now offer even fewer viable pathways.
These conditions leave many people without access to protection or legal status that would allow them to exercise their rights. As a result, they are pushed into clandestinity, at the mercy of trafficking, smuggling, recruitment, and corruption networks, permanently exposed due to the lack of legal pathways for regularization or freedom of movement.
PSD and JC: As a civil society organization, how have these policies affected your relationship with the Mexican state?
MC: Under the previous administration, there was no space for dialogue at all. Now some spaces have opened up, although without formal agreements, which at least allow us to introduce ourselves, explain our work, and keep some channels of communication open at the federal level. This has not changed how civil society organizations respond to or treat the people we accompany, but the ecosystem of institutions providing support has been deeply weakened: teams have been reduced and some organizations have closed. It has been a very difficult year.
We still cannot fully grasp all the impacts of these policies—neither on the people we serve nor on the organizations. Although fewer people were arriving for a time, in the last month we have seen a significant increase. And even when people are returned to their countries of origin and governments claim they will receive them, the structural conditions that force people to flee in the first place have not changed; on the contrary, they continue to worsen and will keep expelling people.
PSD and JC: Have you observed new forms of institutional or administrative violence that did not exist before?
MC: Primarily, we have seen a steady weakening of institutions that has maximized the institutional violence. While the practice of delaying procedures already existed, it has intensified under the premise that the financial conditions do not exist to strengthen institutional management. For people who do not speak Spanish, for example, accessing procedures is much more difficult due to the lack of translators. Overall, the conditions of institutional punishment have worsened.
PSD and JC: How do these structural processes manifest in your day-to-day work with people in transit, asylum seekers, and detained individuals?
MC: In terms of control and surveillance mechanisms, these have become common practice across different parts of the territory for years. In border cities, there are security forces that do not operate in other cities in Mexico, not even elsewhere in Chiapas, and in all operations—traffic, anti-gang, or municipal police—there is a constant logic of identifying people with irregular status, even when officers lack migration authority. Tapachula is thus designed primarily as a space of concentration and deportation.
Regarding access to rights, people remain for increasingly long periods of time in semi-permanent conditions, especially families with school-aged children. Since last year, many have sought access to schooling but face major barriers: they are required to complete an administrative procedure that cannot be done in Tapachula, only in the state capital of Tuxtla Gutiérrez. Without a document proving legal status or a humanitarian visitor card, they cannot travel to Tuxtla Gutiérrez due to multiple migration checkpoints and high transportation costs. Although we have raised the need to open an office in Tapachula to carry out this procedure with various authorities, there has been no response.
In terms of healthcare, national changes impacting access to public services disproportionately affect people on the move, who often do not know how to navigate the system. There are also medication shortages, a lack of medical testing, and difficulties accessing specialized care [outside Tapachula] without migration documentation.
In employment, the situation is equally precarious. Chiapas is the poorest state in the country, and Tapachula depends heavily on informal labor. In agricultural fields and in the city, some people have been detained simply while traveling to work. Low employability among the local population fuels narratives of social conflict, although labor precarity affects both locals and migrants. People with irregular status are at a greater disadvantage: they accept longer workdays, lower wages, and more dangerous jobs, while street vending is persecuted under discourses of “cleaning up” public space.
Restricted mobility cuts across all these areas and even obstructs basic tasks and procedures needed to rebuild life projects. This corridor is one of the largest in the world. It is deeply securitized and shaped by a web of policies aimed at controlling migration flows that is replicated throughout southern Mexico and affects not only migrants but the general population as well.
PSD and JC: Have you observed return migration of people heading back south from the north?
MC: Since February of 2025, deportation flights of Mexican nationals to Tapachula have begun. Historically, these individuals were received in northern Mexico, but part of the current policy seeks to leave them at the farthest border; for Mexico, that border is Tapachula. More than 8,000 Mexican nationals have been deported to this city so far in 2025, not only originally from Chiapas but from various states across the country.
Even when people are returned to their countries of origin and governments claim they will receive them, the structural conditions that force people to flee in the first place have not changed.
The organizations working in the area have been accompanying people from Central America or those transiting this corridor, not Mexican nationals with specific documentation or relocation needs. Many have lived in the United States for years and no longer have support networks in Mexico, introducing new dynamics that we are now confronting.
We have also observed arrivals by bus from northern Mexico heading directly to the reception center in Guatemala, with no clear information about the conditions of transfer. In some cases, people spend six or seven days on buses without ever stopping at migration offices. Some deportations are expedited while others are not, depending on the dynamics of each country of origin.
In Tapachula, many people, especially Venezuelans, seek access to humanitarian flights to return to their countries, but the lack of migration or identity documents—whether lost, stolen, or expired—prevents them from being considered for these flights. They also cannot travel to Mexico City to complete consular procedures. Even if they want to return, they lack the conditions to do so safely.
As a result, many people make the difficult and dangerous decision to return on their own, retracing the routes they initially traversed. More than a return migration, this is migration in reverse.
PSD and JC: A recent U.S. policy formally denying asylum to applicants based on race and nationality—except for white South Africans—marks an explicit rupture with international law and the very idea of refuge. How do you interpret this racial turn in hemispheric migration policy, and how is it reflected in Tapachula?
MC: From this border, we do not see a substantial difference: in practice, transit through Mexico is extremely difficult for all nationalities. Here, the experience is virtually the same for everyone.
In recent months, nationalities that were previously less visible have become more so. They were already transiting this corridor, but now, as they become stranded, they come into contact with organizations they previously did not engage with. There has also been an increase in people from countries in crisis, such as Ecuador, with flows growing sharply last year and remaining constant due to the political situation there.
Among those seeking to settle in Tapachula and initiate administrative processes, even belatedly, Haitians, Cubans, and Venezuelans predominate, largely due to interest in schooling for their children. However, the barriers they face lead many families to give up and decide to return.
At the same time, other routes—such as maritime ones—are gaining prominence, while traditional land routes have become significantly more expensive.
PSD and JC: Do people arrive with the expectation of applying for asylum or refuge, either in Mexico or the United States?
MC: Generally, people who come through our service pathway already have some information about the asylum process or are seeking some form of migration regularization. They do see it as an option at that moment, but later give up after experiencing in their own bodies the impact of migration policies—not only at this border but throughout their migratory journey.
PSD and JC: What psychosocial effects do you observe among people trapped in these legal limbos, in what you describe as a prison city without institutional pathways out?
MC: There are impacts stemming from the violence people experienced in their countries of origin, during migration, and through constant attempts to access protection, as well as from the repeated rupture of life projects. All of this has very strong effects on emotional and mental health and requires intensive accompaniment. In Tapachula, there are increasing numbers of people who are no longer able to recover their mental health, who are unhoused and living on the streets, where adequate follow-up care does not exist.
Many people have repeatedly suffered serious human rights violations. Some were already deported from the United States, passed through detention in multiple countries, and are returning from places like Panama or Costa Rica. These violations have been systematic and their impacts are highly complex, requiring specialized tools. Added to this are chronic health conditions whose treatments are postponed, so that when care is finally resumed, the damage is often already severe.
PSD and JC: What forms of organization and collective resistance have you seen in response—efforts to build other forms of mobility, belonging, or citizenship in the region?
It may seem basic, but for people whose support networks have been completely broken, rebuilding them is fundamental to being able to reconstruct life projects and horizons.
MC: From a psychosocial perspective, it is essential for us to strengthen not only individuals and their families but also the community. As part of our accompaniment, we facilitate spaces for people to meet, especially to discuss the barriers they face and collectively reflect on forms of violence that are not personal but structural. We aim to help them recognize these barriers as systematic practices of exhaustion and punishment, and to depersonalize pain through the creation of networks of solidarity.
Within the women’s collective, for example, violence is often experienced from a place of guilt or individual punishment. Through collective dialogue, that narrative can be dismantled and it becomes clear that, beyond country of origin, gender-based violence affects us all, with more severe expressions for those with precarious immigration status. From there, collective care networks are strengthened, allowing women to sustain and care for one another.
We also believe it is crucial that these spaces include both people on the move and local residents, because narratives cannot be transformed without creating close and direct channels of dialogue. These community-based interventions aim to create safe spaces in order to recognize what people are facing, build collective responses, and strengthen leadership within communities, which later manifests in both community actions and mobilizations around specific demands.
PSD and JC: Have you had any degree of success in organizing migrants collectively at the local level?
MC: Success—how do we define it? For us, it appears in the process. When we open a collective space, people come because they trust us, even if at first they don’t know exactly how it will work. Seeing the difference between the first and last session, observing how bonds form, how the space becomes their own, and how they accompany one another even when someone moves on—this is a clear indicator of success.
Many remain in contact and share information about where they are and what they need to do. It may seem basic, but for people whose support networks have been completely broken, rebuilding them is fundamental to being able to reconstruct life projects and horizons.
From the beginning, our strategies have been collective, and we continue to invest in these processes in the face of discourses of criminalization, discrimination, and xenophobia. Opening spaces for encounter allows us to recognize one another as people, beyond migration status. While this does not immediately repair the social fabric, it does create important foundations for reintegration and re-rooting that are essential for inhabiting a city or locality.
PSD and JC: Could you share an example or anecdote that illustrates these dynamics?
MC: There is one person we have accompanied since 2017, who arrived in Tapachula and went through a long personal and migratory process. Over time, as they dismantled the barriers they faced, they decided to write their story and just published a book of poetry narrating their experience. Today, they are organizing with people from different nationalities to create a small association that seeks to accompany others in similar situations.Within such a harsh context, we also know that many people, sometimes without having passed through our spaces, offer accompaniment and solidarity based on their own lived experience. That is deeply important to us, because it is the tenderness of los pueblos that sustains us and allows us to weave networks of care.
Translated from Spanish by NACLA.
P.S.D. is a scholar studying transnational Black and Indigenous migration across the Americas.
Julianne Chandler is a feminist writer, educator, and journalist based between Boulder, Colorado and Cochabamba, Bolivia. She is an editor at NACLA.