Waiting in Captivity: Slow Borders, Predatory Bureaucracies, and the Necrotemporality of Asylum Deterrence

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.25071/1920-7336.41069

Keywords:

asylum, bureaucracies, waiting, temporality, necropolitics, Mexico

Abstract

In recent years, the US government has implemented several bureaucratic changes aimed at stalling the influx of asylum seekers. From the “metering” system initiated under the Obama administration to the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) implemented by the Trump administration, these measures have erected a bureaucratic wall against asylum seekers that has kept them captive in Mexican border cities. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Tijuana, Mexico, I examine how these policies have produced deadly conditions for asylum seekers by calibrating time and space in such a way that increases their exposure and vulnerability to highly precarious environments and predatory bureaucracies.

Metrics

Metrics Loading ...

Author Biography

Carlos Martinez, Department of Latin American & Latino Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA

Carlos Martinez is an Assistant Professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He can be reached at carlosmartinez@ucsc.edu.

References

Abdelhady, D., Gren, N., & Joormann, M. (2020). Refugees and the violence of welfare bureaucracies in Northern Europe. Manchester University Press. https://doi.org/10.7765/9781526146847

Al Otro Lado, Inc. v. Mayorkas. No. 3:17-cv-02366-BAS-KSC (US District Court, Southern District of California 2021). https://casetext.com/case/al-otro-lado-inc-v-mayorkas-6

Amnesty International. (2018, October 11). USA: “You don’t have any rights here”: Illegal pushbacks, arbitrary detention & ill-treatment of asylum-seekers in the United States. https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/amr51/9101/2018/en/

Andersson, R. (2014). Time and the migrant other: European border controls and the temporal economics of illegality. American Anthropologist, 116(4), 795–809. https://doi.org/10.1111/aman.12148

Arendt, H. (1976). The origins of totalitarianism. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Armus, T. (2018, October 12). U.S. officials have been keeping migrants from crossing bridges. Now, Mexico is doing the same. The Texas Tribune. https://www.texastribune.org/2018/10/12/mexico-asylum-seekers-bridges-immigration/

Auyero, J. (2012). Patients of the state: The politics of waiting in Argentina. Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822395287

Berlant, L. (2007). Slow death (sovereignty, obesity, lateral agency). Critical Inquiry, 33(4), 754–780. https://doi.org/10.1086/521568

Butler, J. (2004). Precarious life: The powers of mourning and violence. Verso.

Cabot, H. (2012). The governance of things: Documenting limbo in the Greek asylum procedure. PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review, 35(1), 11–29. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1555-2934.2012.01177.x

Carruth, L., Martinez, C., Smith, L., Donato, K., Piñones-Rivera, C., & Quesada, J. (2021). Structural vulnerability: Migration and health in social context. BMJ Global Health, 6(Suppl 1), Article e005109. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2021-005109

Ceceña, V. (2020). Dismantling asylum: A year into the migrant protection protocols. American Friends Service Committee. https://afsc.org/sites/default/files/documents/MPP_Final_Jan2020-300hi.pdf

Cohn, B. S., & Dirks, N. B. (1988). Beyond the fringe: The nation state, colonialism, and the technologies of power. Journal of Historical Sociology, 1(2), 224–229. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6443.1988.tb00011.x

Crapanzano, V. (1985). Waiting: The whites of South Africa. Random House.

De León, J. (2015). The land of open graves: Living and dying on the migrant trail. University of California Press. https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520958685

Drangsland, K. A. (2020). Bordering through recalibration: Exploring the temporality of the German “Ausbildungsduldung.” Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, 38(6), 1128–1145. https://doi.org/10.1177/2399654420915611

Eldridge, E. R., & Reinke, A. J. (2018). Introduction: Ethnographic engagement with bureaucratic violence. Conflict and Society, 4(1), 94–98. https://doi.org/10.3167/arcs.2018.040108

Estévez, A. (2018). The necropolitical dispositif of production and administration of forced migration at the United States–Mexico Border. Estudios Fronterizos, 19, Article e010. https://doi.org/10.21670/ref.1810010

Falcón, S. (2001). Rape as a weapon of war: Advancing human rights for women at the U.S.–Mexico border. Social Justice, 28(2 [84]), 31–50. https://www.jstor.org/stable/29768074

Flores, A. (2019, February 13). Mexican authorities are stopping unaccompanied kids from seeking asylum in the U.S. at every turn. Buzzfeed News. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/adolfoflores/children-unaccompanied-asylum-immigration-mexico-border

Gabbard, H. K. (2020). Immigration metering: Barriers to asylum along the southern border. Journal of Global Rights and Organizations, 11, 104–121.

Gambino, L., & Lartey, J. (2018, June 19). Trump says U.S. will not be a “migrant camp.” The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jun/18/donald-trump-us-migrant-camp-border-separation

Graeber, D. (2015). The utopia of rules: On technology, stupidity, and the secret joys of bureaucracy. Melville House.

Green, E. (2019, March 13). Mexican officials are extorting thousands of dollars from migrants applying for asylum. Vice. https://www.vice.com/en/article/kzdy4e/exclusive-mexican-officials-are-extorting-thousands-of-dollars-from-migrants-to-apply-for-asylum

Griffiths, M. B. E. (2014). Out of time: The temporal uncertainties of refused asylum seekers and immigration detainees. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 40(12), 1991–2009. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2014.907737

Gu, F., Chu, E., Milewski, A., Taleghani, S., Maju, M., Kuhn, R., Richards, A., & Emery, E. (2021). Challenges in founding and developing medical school student-run asylum clinics. Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health, 23(1), 179–183. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10903-020-01106-2

Gupta, A. (2012). Red tape: Bureaucracy, structural violence and poverty in India. Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822394709

Harris, L. M. (2021). Asylum under attack: Restoring asylum protection in the United States. Loyola Law Review, 67, 1–69. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3719417

Heckert, C. (2020). The bureaucratic violence of the health care system for pregnant immigrants on the United States–Mexico border. Human Organization, 79(1), 33–42. https://doi.org/10.17730/0018-7259.79.1.33

Heyman, J. McC. (1995). Putting power in the anthropology of bureaucracy: The Immigration and Naturalization Service at the Mexico–United States border. Current Anthropology, 36(2), 261–287. https://doi.org/10.1086/204354

Hoag, C. (2014). Dereliction at the South African Department of Home Affairs: Time for the anthropology of bureaucracy. Critique of Anthropology, 34(4), 410–428. https://doi.org/10.1177/0308275X14543395

Hull, M. (2012). Government of paper: The materiality of bureaucracy in urban Pakistan. University of California Press. https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520951884

Human Rights First. (2021). Delivered to danger: Illegal remain in Mexico policy imperils asylum seekers’ lives and denies due process. https://humanrightsfirst.org/library/delivered-to-danger-illegal-remain-in-mexico-policy-imperils-asylum-seekers-lives-and-denies-due-process/

Iliadou, E. (2021). Violence continuum: Border crossings, deaths and time in the island of Lesvos. In M. Bhatia & V. Canning (Eds.), Stealing time: Migration, temporalities and state violence (pp. 197–221). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-69897-3

Jefferson, A., Turner, S., & Jensen, S. (2019). Introduction: On stuckness and sites of confinement. Ethnos, 84(1), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1080/00141844.2018.1544917

Jusionyte, I. (2018). Threshold: Emergency responders on the US–Mexico border. University of California Press. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctv5cgb69

Kanno-Youngs, Z., & Shear, M. D. (2021). Trump loyalists across homeland security could vex Biden’s immigration policies. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/03/us/politics/biden-trump-immigration.html

Kiras, J. (2012). Special operations and strategies of attrition. Infinity Journal, 2(4), 18–21. https://www.militarystrategymagazine.com/article/special-operations-and-strategies-of-attrition/

Kocher, A. (2021). Migrant protection protocols and the death of asylum. Journal of Latin American Geography, 20(1), 249–258. https://doi.org/10.1353/lag.2021.0010

Kohli, R. K. S., & Kaukko, M. (2018). The management of time and waiting by unaccompanied asylum-seeking girls in Finland. Journal of Refugee Studies, 31(4), 488–506. https://doi.org/10.1093/jrs/fex040

Leutert, S. (2019, July 17). What “metering” really looks like in South Texas. Lawfare. https://www.lawfareblog.com/what-metering-really-looks-south-texas

Leutert, S., Ezzell, E., Arvey, S., Sanchez, G., Yates, C., & Kuhne, P. (2018, December). Asylum processing and waitlists at the U.S.–Mexico border. Robert Strauss Center for International Security and Law. https://www.immigrationresearch.org/system/files/AsylumReport_MSI.pdf

Lind, D. (2018, November 21). Kids are stranded in Mexico because officials won’t let them seek asylum in the US. Vox. https://www.vox.com/2018/11/20/18104676/asylum-border-trump-children

Martínez, D. E., Heyman, J., & Slack J. (2020, August 24). Border enforcement developments since 1993 and how to change CBP. Center for Migration Studies. https://cmsny.org/publications/border-enforcement-developments-since-1993-and-how-to-change-cbp/

Mbembe, A. (2003). Necropolitics. Public Culture, 15(1), 11–40. https://doi.org/10.1215/08992363-15-1-11

Médecins Sans Frontières. (2020, January 29). The devastating toll of “Remain in Mexico” asylum policy one year later. https://www.msf.org/one-year-inhumane-remain-mexico-asylum-seeker-policy

Menjívar, C., & Abrego, L. J. (2012). Legal violence: Immigration law and the lives of Central American immigrants. American Journal of Sociology, 117(5), 1380–1421. https://doi.org/10.1086/663575"https://doi.org/10.1086/663575

Mezzadra, S., & Neilson, B. (2013) Border as method, or, the multiplication of labor. Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822377542

Mittelstadt, M., Speaker, B., Meissner, D., & Chishti, M. (2011, August). Through the prism of national security: Major immigration policy and program changes in the decade since 9/11. Migration Policy Institute. https://www.migrationpolicy.org/pubs/FS23_Post-9-11policy.pdf

Mountz, A. (2011). Where asylum-seekers wait: Feminist counter-topographies of sites between states. Gender, Place & Culture, 18(3), 381–399. https://doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2011.566370

Moynihan, D., Gerzina, J., & Herd, P. (2022). Kafka’s bureaucracy: Immigration administrative burdens in the Trump era. Perspectives on Public Management and Governance, 5(1), 22–35. https://doi.org/10.1093/ppmgov/gvab025

Nathan, D. (2019, January 25). Migrants say they pay for inclusion on “la lista” to make border crossing. The Appeal. https://theappeal.org/migrants-say-they-pay-for-inclusion-on-la-lista-to-make-border-crossing/

National Immigration Forum. (2021, August 25). Explainer: The migrant protection protocols. https://immigrationforum.org/article/explainer-the-migrant-protection-protocols/

Nixon, R. (2013). Slow violence and the environmentalism of the poor. Harvard University Press. https://doi.org/10.4159/harvard.9780674061194

Office of Inspector General (OIG). (2018, September 27). Special review—Initial observations regarding family separation issues under the zero tolerance policy. https://www.oig.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/assets/2018-10/OIG-18-84-Sep18.pdf

Office of Inspector General (OIG). (2020, October 27). CBP has taken steps to limit processing of undocumented aliens at ports of entry. https://www.oig.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/assets/2020-10/OIG-21-02-Oct20.pdf

Reinke, A. J., and Eldridge, E. R. (2020). Navigating the “bureaucratic beast” in North Carolina hurricane recovery. Human Organization, 79(2), 107–116. https://doi.org/10.17730/1938-3525.79.2.107

Riva, S. (2017). Across the border and into the cold: Hieleras and the punishment of asylum-seeking Central American women in the United States. Citizenship Studies, 21(3), 309–326. https://doi.org/10.1080/13621025.2016.1277981

Rivlin-Nadler, M. (2019, July 9). Migrants from Cameroon protest immigration process in Tijuana. KPBS. https://www.kpbs.org/news/midday-edition/2019/07/09/migrants-cameroon-protest-immigration-process-tiju

Rivlin-Nadler, M. (2020, September 18). Whistleblowers say CBP knowingly broke the law as it turned back asylum-seekers. KPBS. https://www.kpbs.org/news/evening-edition/2020/09/18/whistleblowers-cbp-knew-it-was-breaking-law

Rotter, R. (2016). Waiting in the asylum determination process: Just an empty interlude? Time & Society, 25(1), 80–101. https://doi.org/10.1177/0961463X15613654

Saldaña-Portillo, M. J. (2019). The violence of citizenship in the making of refugees: The United States and Central America. Social Text, 37(4 [141]), 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1215/01642472-7794343

Slack, J. (2015). Captive bodies: Migrant kidnapping and deportation in Mexico. Area, 48(3), 271–277. https://doi.org/10.1111/area.12151

Slack, J., Martínez, D. E., Lee, A. E., & Whiteford, S. (2016). The geography of border militarization: Violence, death and health in Mexico and the United States. Journal of Latin American Geography, 15(1), 7–32. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43964648

Spagat, E. (2019, August 9). In Mexico, thousands more names added to border wait lists. AP News. https://apnews.com/article/caribbean-az-state-wire-tx-state-wire-united-states-central-america-3370c011e7304496a788bb4085bfffaf

Speed, S. (2006). At the crossroads of human rights and anthropology: Toward a critically engaged activist research. American Anthropologist, 108(1), 66–76. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3804732

Tazzioli, M. (2018). The temporal borders of asylum: Temporality of control in the EU border regime. Political Geography, 64, 13–22. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2018.02.002

Ticktin, M. (2006). Where ethics and politics meet. American Ethnologist, 33(1), 33–49. https://doi.org/10.1525/ae.2006.33.1.33

Tuckett, A. (2015). Strategies of navigation: Migrants’ everyday encounters with Italian immigration bureaucracy. The Cambridge Journal of Anthropology, 33(1), 113–128. https://doi.org/10.3167/ca.2015.330109

Vogt, W. A. (2018). Lives in transit: Violence and intimacy on the migrant journey. University of California Press. https://doi.org/10.1525/california/9780520298545.001.0001

Zilberg, E. (2011). Space of detention: The making of a transnational gang crisis between Los Angeles and San Salvador. Duke University Press https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822392804

Published

2023-12-11

How to Cite

Martinez, C. (2023). Waiting in Captivity: Slow Borders, Predatory Bureaucracies, and the Necrotemporality of Asylum Deterrence. Refuge: Canada’s Journal on Refugees, 39(2), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.25071/1920-7336.41069