Most of the seizures were made on vessels intercepted at sea or in ports. (@SEMAR_mx/X)
2023 was a year of record drug seizures for the Mexican Navy, with historic amounts of several different types of illegal drugs reported seized.
The Navy seized 48.1 metric tonnes of cocaine during the year, compared to 56.4 tonnes during the entire previous four years of President López Obrador’s administration, and 40 tonnes seized during the administration of former President Enrique Peña Nieto.
Meth seizures shot up tenfold in 2023, as the drug is increasingly produced in Mexico. (@SEMAR_mx/X)
In astatement, the Naval Ministry (Semar) said that most of these seizures were made on 155 small vesselsintercepted at sea, while another 251 kilograms were seized by naval personnel working in ports, and 8 kilograms in airports.
The drug vessels encountered included three sophisticated semi-submersibles. In June, a 26-meter narco-submarine was intercepted off the coast of Baja California carrying3.5 tonnes of cocaine — the largest such vessel detected in the last five years.
Meanwhile, Navy personnel seized 367,239 tonnes of methamphetamine on land — 9.6 times the total amount seized in the previous four years — and 604,183 tonnes of chemical precursors, 16.2 times more than the previous four years’ seizures. Most of this came from 189 clandestine drug laboratories dismantled in Durango and Sinaloa, with smaller amounts seized in ports and airports.
In addition, the Semar seized 101.8 tonnes of cargo containing cocaine and 55 tonnes of cargo containing methamphetamine, in various ports around the country. Notable cases included the interception of 11,250 bottles of liquid meth disguised as tequila in the port of Manzanillo in April.
The huge increase in meth seizures during 2023 reflects the fact that Mexico has become one of the largest producers of the drug in the world, according to theUnited Nations World Drug Report. Most is manufactured in clandestine laboratories in states such as Sinaloa and Jalisco.
Marijuana seizures in 2023 were 1.4 times higher than the total of the previous four years, with 55,915 tonnes seized. Navy personnel also destroyed 159 marijuana plantations containing more than ten million plants. Marijuana’s legal status in Mexico is ambiguous: The Supreme Court (SCJN) ruled in 2019 that its prohibition was unconstitutional and has ordered Congress to pass legislation legalizing the drug, which the legislature has failed to do.
Finally, the Navy also seized 335,241 liters of suspected stolen fuel and arrested 2,375 people for drug crimes.
2023 was thesecond year in a row that has seen a sharp increase in drug seizures by the Navy. Besides booming drug flows through Mexico, this is likely also due to the force taking on expanded security roles since 2021 and heightened pressure from the United States to crack down on the illegal drug trade.
Mérida's long-awaited new baseball stadium is now one step closer to reality with the announcement of the Defense Ministry's takeover of the project. (Baseball Mexico)
After eight years of talk but no action, the 51-year-old baseball stadium in Mérida, Yucatán will finally be renovated in a project now being spearheaded by the Mexican army.
The plan was announced Wednesday during President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s daily press conference. Gen. Luis Cresencio Sandoval, head of the Defense Ministry (Sedena), put the price tag at almost 630 million pesos (US $37 million).
The Kukulcán Alamo Park stadium, home of the Yucatán Lions. (Andy Altman-Ohr)
The project will include new bathrooms, a commercial promenade, a restaurant and bar, luxury boxes, and renovated locker rooms with adjoining workout areas. More wheelchair-accessible spaces and ramps will be built, along with a new roof.
The Kukulcán Alamo Park stadium is the home of the Yucatán Lions, who play in the 18-team Mexican League, the country’s top professional summertime baseball circuit. Inaugurated in 1982, the ballpark seats 16,537 people.
Since 2016 there has been a plan to remodel it, but plans have never come to fruition — even with the Lions making it to the Serie del Rey championship series in four of the past six seasons, winning the crown in 2018 and 2022.
The plan now, Cresencio said, is for the Mexican Army Corps of Engineers to review the project and its budget.
The Defense Ministry has assumed control of much of Mexico’s major infrastructure construction and operation in recent years. (Gob MX)
Yucatán Governor Mauricio Vila Dosal said the project will begin in the coming days, although no timeline has been presented (the 2024 season will begin April 12). Coordination between the army and local, state and federal officials has already begun, he stated.
The project is another in which the military will be in control of construction and/or operations. Others include the Maya Train, three airports – including the new one in Tulum – the revived Mexicana airline, and the Isthmus of Tehuantepec trade corridor, which includes a modernized train line between port cities in Oaxaca and Veracruz.
In Mérida, Sedena also participated in the construction of the newly opened, 50-acre Grand Park La Plancha and construction of the new Agustin O’Horán Hospital.
The president is a big baseball fan who lobbied for the remodeling of another ballpark during his presidency — Kurada Park in Guasave, Sinaloa – formerly the Francisco Carranza Limón Stadium.
Its renovation allowed the Guasave Algodoneros (Cotton Growers) to rejoin the Mexican Pacific League, the country’s top professional winter league, for the 2019-2020 season — and López Obrador was in attendance at their first home game to throw out the ceremonial first pitch.
Authorities from Cofepris and the Mexican Navy shut down pharmacies and chemical vendors found to be selling counterfeit or untraceable products. (Semar)
Fourteen businesses in Culiacán, Sinaloa, have been shut down by Mexico’s federal health agency (Cofepris) for selling unlicensed chemicals that pose a high health risk to the public.
The fourteen establishments included six pharmacies, seven chemical and agrochemical substance marketers, and one warehouse, according to ajoint statement by Cofepris and the Mexican Navy (Semar). The closures followed 31 simultaneous visits to 16 chemical marketers by Cofepris and Semar personnel, as part of the health regulator’s operation Albatros III. The agencies seized 26.85 tonnes of chemicals and 38,863 boxes of medicines that did not comply with current licenses and health standards.
Pharmaceutical ingredients were also seized at agrochemical factories. (Semar)
According to the statement, irregularities included failure to prove legal possession of the substances, unlicensed formulations of plant nutrients, inadequate worker safety protocols and untraceable batches of controlled medications.
Albatros III is the third of a series of raids launched in response toa warning from the U.S. State Department in March that some Mexican pharmacies were selling counterfeit medications, including some laced with fentanyl and methamphetamine.
In August, the firstOperation Albatross shut down 23 pharmacies in the state of Quintana Roo, and in December, thesecond operation shut down 31 pharmacies in Ensenada, Baja California. All faced similar accusations of selling medications without the necessary certifications.
Although official statements said that the seized drugs would be tested for fentanyl, the results of these tests have not been announced. The latest statement issued about Albatros III does not directly mention fentanyl.
Health regulars in Mexico have also swept Ensenada, Baja California and Quintana Roo for counterfit medication. (Juan Pablo Guerra)
However, aninvestigation by the Los Angeles Times last year reported on medication adulterated with illegal drugs purchased from several pharmacies in tourist destinations in Mexico, warning thatcertain medications, including Adderall, Oxycodone and Hydrocodone, posed a particularly high risk..
AU.S. travel advisory remains active, warning American citizens to exercise caution when buying medication in Mexico.
“Counterfeit medication is common and may prove to be ineffective, the wrong strength, or contain dangerous ingredients,” it says. “Medication should be purchased in consultation with a medical professional and from reputable establishments.”
Banxico Governor Victoria Rodríguez Ceja has been named as the America's Central Banker of the Year thanks to her successful stewardship of Banxico in 2023. (Senado de la Republica/Cuartoscuro)
British publication The Banker has named Bank of Mexico (Banxico) Governor Victoria Rodríguez Ceja as its “central banker of the year” in the Americas.
The London-based magazine announced the designation on Tuesday, highlighting the “proactive” monetary policy adopted by Rodríguez and her colleagues on the Banxico governing board.
The Banker nominated Rodríguez for “[helping] the market to understand Banxico’s intentions for future monetary policy actions.”(Galo Cañas/Cuartoscuro)“While many countries in Latin America are cutting interest rates, others in the region might feel pressure to ease monetary policy. Instead, Banco de México (Banxico) resisted and maintained a proactive policy stance by shrewdly setting a reference rate that has been consistent with bringing headline inflation down to the 3% target,” said The Banker, an almost 100-year-old publication owned by the Financial Times.
Banxico raised its benchmark interest rate to a record high of 11.25% in March 2023 when the annual headline inflation rate was close to 7%. The central bank has left its key rate unchanged since then, even as inflation steadily declined. An initial cut to the record high rate is considered likely in the first half of 2024.
Banxico, which lifted rates by 725 basis points in a tightening cycle that began in June 2021, “made important efforts to communicate why a restrictive monetary stance was required,” The Banker said.
“From its May 2022 meeting, the governing board — led by governor Victoria Rodríguez Ceja — started to include in its monetary policy statements a roadmap for the reference rate. This helped the market to understand Banxico’s intentions for future monetary policy actions,” the publication said.
Banxico’s restrained fiscal policy led to a momentous 2023 for the Mexican Peso, which reached below 17 aginst the dollar on several occasions. (Shutterstock)
It also said that “authorities remained committed to relying on exchange rate flexibility to facilitate adjustment for external and domestic shocks.”
“Banxico adopted a more cautious approach to maintaining reserve levels and opted for a derivatives hedging program to complement the policy toolkit for foreign exchange interventions,” The Banker said.
The magazine said that the central bank under Rodríguez’s leadership “has been quick to respond to other challenges,” including Hurricane Otis, which devastated Acapulco and other parts of Guerrero on Oct. 25.
In the wake of the Category 5 storm, the strongest to have ever made landfall on the Mexican Pacific coast, Banxico, with other Mexican authorities, “activated an emergency plan to provide cash and allowed banks to offer relief programs to their clients,” The Banker said before concluding its summary of the central bank’s recent performance with a quote from Rodríguez:
“Actions like the ones adopted to relieve the damage caused by Otis refer us to our final objective: improving the well-being of the Mexican population. These actions bring Banxico closer to the people, and create a trust relationship central for the functioning and transmission of monetary policy.”
Rodríguez – the first woman to run Banxico – assumed the governorship of the central bank on Jan. 1, 2022, just over a month after she was nominated by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. She previously served as a deputy finance minister in the federal government.
López Obrador “unnerved financial markets on … [Nov. 24, 2021] by nominating an obscure public sector economist to head the country’s central bank, causing the peso to slide to its lowest level since March,” the Financial Times reported at the time.
The peso, however, has appreciated significantly against the US dollar during Rodríguez’s tenure, partly due to the central bank’s high reference rate and its position well above the U.S. Federal Reserve’s federal funds rate.
The Banker also named a “central banker of the year” for other regions of the world. Andriy Pyshnyi, chairman of the National Bank of Ukraine, was the global and Europe “banker of the year” in 2023, the publication said.
The government says the migrants were rescued in a joint law enforcement operation. (Gildo Garza/X)
Thirty-one migrants kidnapped on Saturday while traveling by bus in Tamaulipas have been rescued, federal officials said Wednesday.
Interior Minister Luisa María Alcalde and presidential spokesman Jesús Ramírez announced the rescue on the X social media platform, but they didn’t say where it took place or identify the criminal group that abducted the migrants near the border city of Reynosa.
Américo Villarreal, governor of Tamaulipas, confirmed the rescue of the kidnapped migrants on Wednesday. (Cuartoscuro)
“[Tamaulipas] Governor Américo Villareal just informed us that the 31 migrants kidnapped in Tamaulipas were rescued safe and sound,” Alcalde wrote.
“Thanks to the state authorities, the National Guard and the armed forces,” she added.
Ramírez said the rescue was possible “thanks to the coordinated effort” of the Tamaulipas government, the state Attorney General’s Office, the army, the National Guard and the federal Security Ministry.
The migrants – nationals of Venezuela, Honduras, Ecuador, Colombia and Mexico, according to Security Minister Rosa Icela Rodríguez – are “in the hands of authorities” and will undergo medical checks, he said.
Security authorities in Tamaulipas subsequently reported on Facebook that 30 – rather than 31 – migrants were rescued in the municipality of Río Bravo, located immediately east of Reynosa. They said that the state government “carried out several actions in order to be able to find [the migrants] alive.”
They included monitoring the telephones of those abducted, analyzing video footage recorded by the bus on which they were traveling and launching searches assisted by police dogs across various locations.
Tamaulipas authorities said Monday that the National Guard had found five Venezuelans including two children who were abducted while traveling on a Senda bus.
The migrants were traveling on a bus operated by the company Senda, on the highway between Reynosa and Matamoros. (Carlos Juárez/X)
However, state security spokesman Jorge Cuéllar Montoya subsequently said the five were not among the 31 kidnapped on Saturday. The abducted migrants were reportedly heading to Matamoros to attend appointments with U.S. immigration authorities.
Migrants are frequently targeted by criminal groups as they travel through Mexico toward the northern border. Many have been forcibly recruited by cartels, while others have been killed.
Migrants traveling in Tamaulipas have recently been victims of extortion. Reuters spoke with a Honduran man who said that he and other migrants were forced off a Senda bus on Dec. 24 and ordered to pay US $175 each.
“Maybe, if we hadn’t paid that money, the same thing could have happened to us,” Carlos Ponce said, referring to the abduction last Saturday.
The Christmas migrant caravan - the largest of 2023 - has now partly disbanded, with some surrendering to immigration authorities in Mexico. (Damián Sánchez/Cuartoscuro)
A migrant caravan of thousands that started its journey north on Dec. 24 has been dissolved after surrendering to agents of Mexico’s National Migration Institute (INM) in Chiapas.
Some members of the caravan have elected to continue the journey on their own. (Damián Sánchez/Cuartoscuro)
Although many asylum-seekers had dropped out in recent days — to continue toward the U.S.-Mexico border at their own pace, to take a different route, or to simply call it quits — the group had advanced approximately 105 kilometers before the decision to disband.
After nine days on the road, the group began boarding INM buses in Mapastepec, Chiapas on Tuesday. The buses were bound for an immigration office some 50 kilometers away in Huixtla, Chiapas, to begin official “Refuge in Mexico” paperwork legalizing their transit.
Composed mostly of Central Americans, Venezuelans and Cubans, the caravan had already been through Huixtla on day two, which was Christmas Day.
Many of them slept in tents or on the ground at a sports field after walking some 30 kilometers under the hot sun — a Christmas “like we have never spent,” Honduran Karla Ramírez remarked at the time.
On Tuesday, immigration agents gave bus-boarding priority to children, mothers, women and vulnerable people. “We extend the invitation, and on a voluntary basis, to those who want to board the buses,” an INM spokesperson said.
Some migrants initially refused, wanting to continue onward toward Pijijiapan, Chiapas rather than backtrack to Huixtla.
Luis García Villagrán, a Mexico-based activist who was leading the group, told the migrants they would start an official immigration process with the Mexican government and then be taken to Mexico City.
“In the caravan, there are many sick children, pregnant women, disabled people,” Villagrán said, noting that 4,800 migrants remained in the group. He warned them that the next point, Pijijiapan, was 43 kilometers away and “there is no place to rest, and it would be about 18 hours walking. It is your decision.”
An estimated 6,000 migrants departed Tapachula on Christmas Eve, the largest to form last year. (Damián Sánchez/Cuartoscuro)
One migrant, Honduran Wilnber Abisai, said he wants his wife, two children and himself to be in Mexico legally.
“Yes, we are going to do the process,” he said. “We have already walked a lot, we have suffered, our feet hurt, walking 48 kilometers is not easy. We accept the INM’s proposal to do the process, and it’s the best option for continuing our path.”
As of Tuesday night, more than 600 migrants had boarded a dozen buses.
“No one is giving themselves up,” stressed Honduran William Adalí Romeo Pérez, traveling with his wife and three children. “We trust in immigration, but more so in God. The children are already tired and we can’t continue walking.”
The caravan included travelers from Honduras, Cuba, Haiti, Guatemala, Venezuela, El Salvador, Dominican Republic, Peru, Brazil, Congo, Mali, Guinea-Bissau and others.
Morita II, located in the northern state of Nuevo León, appears to have been a burial ground, and contains the remains of several people, including infants. (INAH)
The bones were laid alongside fragments of basketry, textiles and fibers, which may have been part of a bundle in which the bones were wrapped.They were found 1.65 meters deep in the south chamber of the cave, known as La Morita II.
One of the bone fragments recovered by archaeologists. (INAH)
So far, specialists have identified hand bones, foot bones, ulna, ribs, and teeth of a baby and two adolescents. The dig forms part of the INAH “Prehistory and Historical Archaeology of Northeastern Mexico” project.
INAH reported that the archaeologists also found 1,500 artifacts, including utensils and tools for domestic ritual use such as awls, spearheads, polished edges, basketry fragments, and cordage. These artifacts were between 2,500 and 4,500 years old.
Head archaeologist Moisés Valadez Moreno, supervising the excavation, suggested that the remains found inside the cave may have been dismembered and placed there as a part of a funerary ritual.
Ancient Indigenous societies of northeastern Mexico sacrificed infants and children with specific malformations or genetic defects, according to INAH. Valadez noted that one of the practices was to sacrifice newborns when their mothers died in childbirth, to bury them next to them.
Archaeological work at the cave has been ongoing for 2 decades, unearthing a trove of early Mexican relics. (INAH)
These bones aren’t the only ones to be found in La Morita II. In 2023, INAH reported discovering human bone remains, mainly those of children, dating back 3,000 years.
Archaeologists have discovered artifacts such as spears and projectile points, dried feces, and seeds, indicating that the cave was used for daily activities. The remains of turtles, snakes, bears, deer, owls, and rodents were also unearthed, along with mollusk elements utilized as beads for necklaces.
The presence of these artifacts distinguishes La Morita II from other prehistoric caves, usually used solely for burial purposes.
This cave is believed to be the site of Mexico’s first cave paintings, dating back over 6,000 years. The discovery of marine mollusks suggests that the cave’s inhabitants had a connection with the Gulf of Mexico, some 300 kilometers away.
The artist and curator’s original plan in Oaxaca was to open a ceramics studio for herself. (Courtesy of Stellah de Ville)
Curator and potter Stellah de Ville fell in love with Mexico the first time she visited Mexico City in March 2020. From then on, the then-Brooklyn-based Australian artist had a life in Mexico on her mind, and when the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns began, she knew she wanted to use the time “not to bake bread but to double down on my art practice.” She quickly made an “emotional and reckless decision” to move to a new country, in her own words. And it’s paid off.
Today, de Ville owns Stellah Gallery in Oaxaca. She had heard about the dynamic art, ceramics, mezcal and textile scenes in the city before visiting, and she and her partner were instantly smitten “by the ancientness of the city, the warmth of the people, the underlying sacredness and awareness of beauty and how it’s folded into the culture so entirely.”
“It was profound for me,” de Ville says of her first trip to Oaxaca, “Time just passes differently there.”
Upon moving to Oaxaca, some of the things that most humbled de Ville were the talent of the local artists, weavers, crafters and potters, and how welcoming they all were. “I didn’t know anybody in the art scene when I got there, but people just started walking through the door and visiting. They’d bring artwork, or I’d go and visit their studios. The tradition of ‘making’ in Oaxaca is unparalleled, and that was so intriguing; people have all this ancestral knowledge about materials, local clays, everything,” she says.
The most surprising thing for her about launching a business in Mexico was getting things off the ground. “It’s an exercise in patience and listening. Things in Mexico happen on their own schedule. You have no control… and you have to be there [physically]. People value your presence, you can’t dial it in and have a proxy. People in Oaxaca listen to each other. It’s important to be in dialogue, ask questions and be prepared to hear answers. And work with local people at every stage. They are invested in the city and make fantastic partners.”
Living in Oaxaca for the past two years, de Ville learned to appreciate living lightly on the land, the worth of precious resources and the openness of the creative community to collaboration. “I wanted to be in a space like that for a long time, and I wasn’t finding it in the Bay Area or New York.”
Stellah embraces imperfection in her pottery. (Courtesy: Stellah de Ville)
The artist and curator’s original plan in Oaxaca was to open a ceramics studio for herself. However, a few weeks after she arrived, she was walking down the street when she saw a piece of paper attached to a pole advertising a space for rent in Centro, which ended up her gallery space. “I was just saying yes to things,” she said.
The dark, organic and intimate gallery de Ville has created feels almost magical. A slash cut into the ceiling lets in natural light; the front door is often propped open and it’s not uncommon to find an artist painting by candlelight inside. It feels nothing like a space you would find on either coast of the United States.
The gallery’s clay walls were cured in a traditional technique using fermented nopales. “You mix nopales, pigment and clay and make a slurry that ferments and is used to finish walls. It’s wonderful because, unlike latex paint, it breathes and absorbs moisture when it’s damp and releases it when it’s dry. And it doesn’t cost much. It’s really beautiful,” she said.
Since moving to Mexico, de Ville has started working with and incorporating local wild clays and sands into her ceramics and glazes. She’s also embraced imperfection – the extreme heat, aridness, and humidity of Oaxaca can cause clay to crack or degrade. But the biggest way her art has changed is through her evolving relationship with color. “Oaxaca is full of unexpected color combinations and I am working with color in a way I never have before,” she explained.
Oaxacan colors inspire Stellah’s work. (Courtesy: Stellah de Ville)
In the spirit of saying yes to things, the artist has also embarked on a new project in Mexico City and is now splitting her time between the two cities. “We’re renovating a 1930s house in Roma Sur that was used for film production for a decade. She’s a very beautiful, classic Roma style [house] – a beautiful ruin,” she said of the home with space for a ceramics studio, gallery space where she hopes to host guest curators, and rooms to host salons, events and more.
De Ville, who has worked as an interior design consultant, previously renovated a gorgeous house in Oaxaca, too. It’s on Airbnb, but with its chef’s kitchen and gorgeous finishings, she hopes for it to become a hub for visiting chefs who want to explore the food scene, test recipes or even host dinners. “We renovated the house thinking it was gonna be our forever home, and then life happened,” she explained.
Mexico City was also presenting other opportunities. De Ville was offered an artist-in-residency opportunity at LAGOS and is currently showing her ceramics at Chic By Accident.
The longtime lover of the Oaxacan spirit remembers discovering a tiny bottle of delightful mezcal in a cafe in Mazunte last year and reaching out to the makers in Oaxaca City. Soon, they began collaborating on bringing rare mezcals – usually no more than 100 liters – to the public in pretty glass bottles with labels printed on a 200-year-old press. “They are such a pure expression of place. Mezcal is like plant medicine. These were designed to be sipped in small quantities. It’s a way to connect people with Oaxaca,” she said of the mezcal line, appropriately named Stellah Mezcal.
“Our plan for the new house in the new year is to have these ceremonial events where we drink the mezcal out of handmade cups I’m making, like tea ceremonies but with mezcal,” she said.
De Ville followed her artistic intuition to Mexico. By saying “yes” at several pivotal moments, she is building organic, creative collaborations that blend modern sensibilities with ancestral knowledge.
Laurel is a nomadic lifestyle journalist whose favorite stories focus on weird and wonderful travel and culture. Her work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Vice, BBC Travel, Travel + Leisure, South China Morning Post, The Culture Trip and more.
Otros Dreams in Acción co-directors Esme Flores Marcial (far left) and Leni Alvarez (far right) and co-founder Maggie Loredo (center). (Instagram)
Although Americans continue to relocate to Mexico searching for a better quality of life, there are hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizen children and former U.S. residents living in the country today who didn’t choose to move here. These are primarily people of Mexican heritage who were forced out of the United States and are now living in a state of limbo between the two countries.
Organizations such as Otros Dreams en Acción are dedicated to supporting returnees, deportees and new arrivals from the U.S., providing them a place of community, belonging and assistance integrating into Mexican society. That means everything from obtaining travel visas and citizenship to helping new arrivals learn Spanish. Many of ODA’s staff are among those forcibly uprooted from the U.S., such as Madai Zamora Candia.
Zamora lived with her family for 21 years in the United States and had recently completed her university degree when she was forced to move back to Mexico — a country she hadn’t lived in since she was three years old. She struggled to get her degree recognized by the Mexican government and her identification card to begin a new life in what was essentially a foreign country for her. She now lives in San Luis Potosí and is an advocate for other displaced Mexicans and U.S.-born children of Mexican nationals as ODA’s Community Engagement and Organizing Coordinator.
“Even though the Mexican government loves to say they support returnees and that they give us an ID when people are deported, they don’t. They give us a piece of paper (known as the “constancia de recepción de Mexicanos repatriados“) that no one accepts. You can’t open a bank account with it, you can’t rent an apartment and you can’t get hired for a job,” said Zamora.
Zamora is one of the hundreds of thousands of Mexicans and U.S.-citizen children of Mexican nationals who are navigating the challenges of integrating into a society that isn’t truly prepared to welcome them back.
“The preconception is that if you return to ‘your country’ it will be easier. You are supposed to know your place. But many people have been away from Mexico for a long time. Half of the undocumented population has lived in the U.S. for more than 17 years. So Mexico is a new place, even if you have Mexican nationality or heritage,” said Dr. Claudia Masferrer, Professor and researcher of migration policy at the Center for Demographic, Urban and Environmental Studies at El Colegio de México.
Dr. Claudia Masferrer speaking at a recent demographics seminar at El Colegio de México. (Courtesy: Dr. Claudia Masferrer)
Returnees, deportees and new arrivals not only face bureaucratic hurdles but also often endure discrimination, family separation, restricted movement between the U.S. and Mexico, emotional distress and culture shock. Some don’t even speak Spanish.
“There are so many layers — from bureaucratic and emotional to territory and place complications. Some people aren’t even returned to where they are from,” said Luisa Martínez, a U.S.-born daughter of Mexican parents who was raised in Tijuana. Martínez is now the Coordinator of Florecer Aquí y Allá — an arts and narrative program supported by ODA. “There are only a few organizations like ODA that focus directly on returned and deported people.”
ODA helps fill the gaps where the government and other NGOs fall short, providing new arrivals assistance with obtaining Mexican citizenship, identification cards, education level validation, employment, housing and much more.
The organization works through a model of “acompañamiento” (accompaniment), meaning they support new arrivals through every step of their journey and continue to be a source of support long after arrival. It’s a holistic approach that recognizes the importance of meeting the varied needs of the community, including their social and emotional needs.
“There is a lot of loneliness when you come back. I never found a support group or someone I could relate to, even though I’ve been back in Mexico for 20 years. Finding ODA and other people that share this experience is important,” said Baruck Racine Arellano, who runs ODA’s Pocha House, a community gathering space in Mexico City that hosts art, writing, poetry and zine-making workshops, book readings and other events.
Community members at ODA’s Pocha House. (Courtesy: ODA)
Since 2018, ODA has provided sustained support to 386 people in Mexico City and hundreds more across the country and the U.S. The organization focuses on both adults and children, including U.S.-born children, about 500,000 of whom currently live in Mexico.
Dr. Masferrer’s research has found that U.S.-born children who have been “de facto deported” along with their Mexican parents experience even greater socioeconomic disadvantages than those who moved back for other reasons.
“U.S.-born minors should be welcomed better; they are the children of Mexican nationals,” said Dr. Masferrer. “There is a general lack of empathy for returnees and other foreigners. If Mexicans were able to welcome back their own, they would be more accepting of other foreign-born immigrants.”
ODA believes that everyone deserves a dignified return. The organization recently published the English-language report “Toward a Retorno Digno,” outlining its policy recommendations for creating the conditions for mobility with dignity in Mexico City and beyond. These include providing direct and unrestricted financial assistance to migrants, ensuring that banks and government agencies accept multiple forms of identity documents, providing shelters and temporary housing for migrants, increasing the minimum wage in Mexico City and implementing a family visitation and reunification program.
Family reunification is one of ODA’s primary areas of focus. Every year, ODA organizes a “Fight for Hugs” campaign, which raises money to help cover travel and legal expenses for people to reunite with loved ones in the U.S. and Mexico. ODA also operates the Visa Justice Program, where they accompany people through the tourist visa application process to try to obtain permission to travel to the U.S., a freedom taken for granted by other U.S. citizens who travel between the two countries with relative ease.
For people who have experienced deportation, and for almost all Mexican citizens, the freedom to travel between Mexico and the U.S. is severely restricted. People who have been deported are automatically banned from traveling to the U.S. for 10 years. Any Mexican citizen wishing to travel to the U.S. must go through an expensive and time-consuming visa application process and interview, and permission to enter the U.S. is not guaranteed.
“People coming to Mexico from the U.S. and other wealthier countries must realize the privilege they have and the difficulties for others. What you carry with you and how you contribute as a guest to this country comes with the responsibility of having that mobility,” said Luisa Martínez. “Mexico is providing people with a more manageable and cheaper life. Ask yourself: where do you put your income and how can you support a more equitable distribution of money and resources?”
People interested in supporting ODA’s work and its Visa Justice and Fight for Hugs campaign can donate directly to the organization via Paypal.
Debbie Slobe is a writer and communications strategist based in Chacala, Nayarit. She blogs at Mexpatmama.com and is a senior program director at Resource Media. Find her on Instagram and Facebook.
In Eagle Pass, Texas, vehicular processing will resume at Eagle Pass International Bridge 1 at 7 a.m. local time.
In San Diego, California, San Ysidro’s Pedestrian West operations will resume at 6 a.m. local time.
In Lukeville, Arizona, the Lukeville Port of Entry operations will resume at 6 a.m. local time.
In Nogales, Arizona, the Morely Gate border crossing operations will resume at 10 a.m. local time.
San Ysidro’s Pedestrian West crossing between Tijuana and San Diego will resume operations at 6 a.m. local time on Thursday. (Jerry Glaser/US CBP)
The CBP closed the crossings to redeploy personnel amid a surge of migrant arrivals to the United States’ southern border. However, the number of migrants entering the U.S. between ports of entry fell in the week after Christmas.
Citing an internal U.S. government report it reviewed, Reuters reported that “U.S. border authorities arrested an average of 6,400 migrants per day over the past week, … a steep decline from the levels before Christmas.”
Encounters with migrants exceeded 10,000 on several days earlier in December.
The CBP said it “will continue to prioritize our border security mission as necessary in response to this evolving situation.”
“We continue to assess security situations, adjust our operational plans, and deploy resources to maximize enforcement efforts against those noncitizens who do not use lawful pathways or processes – such as scheduling an appointment via [the mobile app] CBP One – and those without a legal basis to remain in the United States,” the agency said.
President López Obrador said that “important agreements” were reached at the Dec. 27 meeting, and subsequently noted that railway crossings and the border bridges were being reopened “to normalize the situation” on the 3,145-kilometer-long border between Mexico and the United States.
The Eagle Pass crossing in Texas, which has become the center of a political debate over immigration, will also reopen to vehicles. (Cuartoscuro)
At a briefing with reporters on Tuesday, a senior U.S. official who spoke with the press on condition of anonymity said that the Mexican government has increased enforcement against migrants in recent weeks, including by moving some to the south of the country and resuming repatriation flights to Venezuela.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE) said in a statement on Tuesday that the Mexican government “welcomes the resumption of operations” at the four border crossings set to reopen on Thursday.
The reopening “will benefit the economies of both countries, a situation that was addressed at the December 27 meeting in Mexico City between President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and a delegation of top U.S. officials led by Secretary of State Antony Blinken; Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas; and White House Homeland Security Advisor Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall,” the SRE said.
The ministry said it had been “in constant communication with CBP authorities at the federal, state and local levels in order to receive timely information and resume commercial operations at these crossings as soon as possible.”
With upcoming elections in both Mexico and the United States, migration is set to be a major issue on both sides of the border in 2024.
A group of Republican Party lawmakers including House Speaker Mike Johnson is visiting the border at Eagle Pass on Wednesday.
