Waiting in Motion. Migrants’ Involvement in Civil Society Organizations While Pursuing a Migration Project

Abstract

This article discusses how strandedness is produced for asylum seekers and migrants in northern Mexico. We argue that it is fundamental to place these populations’ subjective experiences at the core of the analysis to understand their active stance in making meaning of their circumstances. We suggest a typology for approaching the migration projects that emerge while stranded and discuss migrants and asylum seekers’ active involvement in Civil Society Organizations. We conclude that there is an urgency to recognize that strandedness is a condition requiring that States, CSOs, and scholars reassess how societies could create a space for and with migrants.

Keywords:

• Asylum seekers
• stranded migrants
• U.S.-Mexico border
• migration
• waiting
• Civil Society Organizations

Acknowledgments

We are thankful to all the interlocutors who shared their life experiences and the shelters and community center coordinators for bridging us with these communities.

Notes

1 Even though the MPP program ended at the beginning of Biden’s administration, it was reimplemented at the end of 2021. Since then, the case has been going back and forth in federal courts and the Supreme Court. As of this writing, the latter concluded that President Biden had the legal power to end MPP, but the program is still active pending further legislation.

2 A fourth type would be the case of deportees, whom we identify as migrants with truncated projects since they had already gotten to their destination in the US but were removed by force. We are not developing this case since it corresponds to a population different from the one analyzed in this paper.

3 To our knowledge, there is no data that measures the length of time migrants wait in strandedness at the U.S./Mexico border. From our fieldwork, we identified that this can vary from a couple of months—for the few who have the resources and the decision to cross using a smuggler—to more than two years, for those who have decided to follow the legal process even during the Covid-19 pandemic.

4 Unlike what might happen in other cases (Cf. Angulo-Pasel, 2022), we did not find abusive or exploitative relationships in the shelters and community centers observed. On the contrary, the cases analyzed allow us to identify these spaces as relatively safe places that enabled agency development, particularly when they transformed into permanent spaces.

5 All names are pseudonyms, except Douglas Oviedo. He published his story and wished it to be known, using his real name.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by The Health Initiative of the Americas under the PIMSA grant.