For many people in the U.S., their relationship and understanding of Mexico begins and ends at the U.S.-Mexico border. This is understandable, as much of the political and media rhetoric concerning Mexico is centered around immigration, and immigration occurs primarily at the border.
And U.S. immigration dynamics are changing, because on May 11, 2023 at 11:59 P.M. EDT, the Title 42 restrictions in the United States ended.
What is Title 42?
Title 42 refers to Title 42 of the United States Code. It was enacted in 1944 as part of the Public Health Services Law. It was created to help protect public health and social welfare by allowing the government to curb or stop otherwise legal migration at such times that allowing such migration might affect the health and welfare of United States citizens. In other words, Title 42 was designed for circumstances such as global health crises.
However, Title 42 restrictions have rarely been enacted; it's most broad and controversial use began when Donald Trump put it into effect in March 2020 in response to the Covid pandemic. During the roughly 3 years these restrictions were in effect, the U.S. turned away approximately 3 million migrants seeking asylum (under Title 42, families traveling together and children traveling alone are exempt from the restrictions).
With the end of the Covid-19 emergency in the U.S., the Biden administration ended the Title 42 restrictions. This means that migrants can once again seek asylum in the U.S. But their path to legally obtaining that asylum won't be as easy or straightforward as it was pre-pandemic. The U.S. has introduced new rules for asylum seekers requiring that they first seek protection in any countries that they've traveled through to get to the U.S. For the vast majority of seekers, this means that they must have applied for protection in Mexico, and of course the countries that they traveled through in order to get to Mexico. Alternatively, asylum seekers must have applied online. With these new rules in place, many migrants are continuing to choose illegal crossing as their best option for getting past the U.S. border. But the political climate in the U.S. today is decidedly anti-immigration, and the U.S. is pressuring Mexico and other Latin American countries to curtail immigration - to keep potential immigrants from ever making that border crossing.
What does this mean for Mexico?
Mexico is the last country that most migrants travel through in order to reach the United States. There are right now as many as 30,000 migrants waiting in Mexican border cities to get into the U.S., and Mexico - responding to U.S. calls for help in curtailing border crossings - has deployed migration agents and the National Guard to help keep migrants from making illegal crossings. As the funnel of migrants is stopped up at Mexico's border, more migrants will continue to flow through Mexico and end up at this traffic jam. Mexico is ill equipped to deal with a large migrant population with no where to go; feeding, housing, providing health care - this all will (and does) put a strain on the resources and capacities that Mexico has at its disposal. Mexico can be facing a real humanitarian crisis in its border cities before too long.
I don't consider border policy and migration an area in which I have any kind of expertise. Fortunately, if you are interested in border and migration policy, there is an excellent newsletter on Substack written by two professional journalists - Melissa del Bosque and Todd Miller - who are on the ground in U.S. and Mexican border cities, and they offer comprehensive analysis and reportage on all aspects of U.S. and Mexican border policy and how it impacts the lives of the human beings affected by it. The Substack is called "The Border Chronicle", and you can find it here. The work they do is largely funded by paid subscribers to their newsletter. Please consider subscribing, and upgrading to paid if you have the means. They are good people, doing good work. And they offer a refreshing alternative to the emotion-driven politics that are now defining policy at the border.
Good to know we can get some information from trusted sources who have boots on the ground. The issue is complex and human migration is likely to increase dramatically with climate change making more areas less livable and able to sustain populations. It’s a global issue really but this particular border is an interesting study of a problem we need to solve in the coming years and decades.