Chapter 3 Organised crime groups as a threat to migrants during transit

The vulnerability of people in transit

Commentators have noted the “extreme vulnerability” (Bustamante 2011) of Central American migrants passing through Mexico, and describe the abuse enacted against them by organised crime as the “new face” of this vulnerability (Casillas 2011). The vulnerability of migrants is understood as a “heterogeneously imposed condition of powerlessness” (Bustamante 2011: 565) that increases when the migrant leaves home and becomes particularly apparent during transit, where the “spatial liminality of transit migration exacerbates processes of exclusion and violence” (Vogt 2013: 765). The vulnerability experienced during transit is multi-causal and multidimensional (Rojas Wiesner and Caballeros 2015), being linked to socio-political and geographical factors, as well as specific factors such as age and gender.

Transit migrants in Mexico experience systematic violations of their human rights enveloped by impunity, with most abuse going unpunished and being met with apathy, omission or corruption (Ángeles Cruz 2010: 472–5). This has enabled abuse of migrants to become both systematic and systemic. State and non-state actors “are able to abuse migrants’ legal invisibility, and thus benefit from any measures that drive migrants further underground” (Boswell 2008: 188), creating a cycle of invisibility and impunity. Impunity is manufactured in part through the deliberate strategies of organised criminal groups (Barnes 2017, Trejo and Ley 2020, Magaloni et al. 2020) but its manufacture and maintenance are more complex that this suggests. The cycle of impunity is fed by the corruption of state authorities through coercion or collusion and the strategic infiltration of state institutions, and by people’s reluctance to report due to fear of violent retribution, a lack of trust in the authorities or the barriers set out above. Not only does this allow the replication and perpetuation of abuse by organised crime groups, it also further weakens the integrity and authority of the transit state (see Chapter 5).

Risk applies equally to all within the mixed migration flow passing through Mexico, including those who may have some degree of potential international protection needs, even though the level of immediate risk or individual persecution they experienced in their country of origin may have alleviated. Restrictive migration controls “along with the evolution of criminal networks on a national scale, increase the vulnerability”, resulting in journeys “marked by systemic risks” (Casillas 2011: 296). Such controls compel migrants to travel on geographically remote roads and inhospitable paths, exposing them to environmental dangers and transport risks, resulting in their remoteness from law and rights and an increased vulnerability to systematic abuse by both state and criminal actors (Jácome 2008, Velasco 2009, Casillas 2011).

Organised crime groups seek monopoly control of all illicit goods and activities within their territory (Durán-Martínez 2018, Magaloni et al. 2020), and within this context, all people who migrate are viewed as merchandise and – above all – as potential victims (I(DH)EAS 2011: 97). In this sense, the rise in kidnappings and the involvement of organised crime is also inextricably linked to the development of people-smuggling and the control of movements of this ‘merchandise’ (see Chapter 4). People-smugglers will pay dues to organised crime groups for safe passage through a territory and so those migrants who travel without people-smugglers are doubly unprotected: they travel without the protection bought from organised criminal groups, and they are marginalised and invisible to authorities (Pastrana et al. 2015).

The invisibility of transit migrants has been framed as a factor that both increases their vulnerability to human rights abuses during their journey and impedes their access to justice, thus feeding a cycle of abuse and impunity (Grant 2005, Boswell 2008). This invisibility is manufactured as migrants operate under the radar, fall under it or are forced beneath it. However, their invisibility is neither complete nor wholly successful as a protection strategy – migrants remain visible and identifiable to criminal groups and other migrants alike. Migrants’ need to be invisible to state actors – so as to avoid detention and deportation – constrains their agency and forces them onto remote, marginalised routes and dangerous means of transport. This increases their risk of abuse and exploitation by both state and criminal actors, who prey on their vulnerability and operate with impunity (Boswell 2008, Jácome 2008, REDODEM 2014). Criminal groups leverage this impunity to invisibilise their own activities, with the invisibility of both victims and perpetrators enabling abuse to be enacted and replicated. Of course, there are also points where migrants are highly visible, such as at migrant shelters and migration detention centres. Just as invisibility may foster migrants’ vulnerability, so too can their visibility at these points precipitate vulnerability, with migrants being recruited by gangs or ‘marked’ for kidnapping and trafficking by criminal organisations who operate outside and inside these facilities (Talsma 2012, Swanson et al. 2015).

Transit migrants suffer specific challenges in accessing justice, creating a profound layer of legal invisibility and fuelling cycles of impunity. As well as practical and psychosocial barriers to reporting abuse, there are additional obstacles to pursuing justice: notably the desire to continue the migration journey, fear of or actual deportation, and the actions of corrupt state agents. People may not want to or be able to remain in the transit state where the abuse occurred, preferring instead to continue to their destination (or indeed to return home) as quickly as possible. The transient and marginalised nature of transit migrants further estranges them from legal recourse and institutions: “The unauthorised become, in a sense, stateless or extrastatal, lacking recourse to either their country of citizenship or presence” (Coutin 2007: 103). The pursuit of legal recourse also carries a particular paradox for migrants of irregular status, who may fear that approaching the authorities will result in their deportation. In reporting a crime, the migrant becomes visible; by coming into contact with the authorities, the migrant becomes irregular; they reveal their own ‘illegality’ by the very act of seeking recourse (Dauvergne 2008). Such reluctance to approach the authorities shows how agency is constrained by their irregular status. Ending this cycle “in which fear of detection prevents irregular migrants from reporting abuse, which in turn strengthens the hand of traffickers, smugglers and abusive employers, is at the heart of effective rights protection” (Grant 2005: 6).

Migrants may also face psychosocial barriers to accessing justice. Exposed to and commodified by some of the most violent criminal networks in the world, people may be reluctant to report crimes because of well-founded fears of reprisals against themselves or family members, both in their states of origin and destination. Certain crimes, such as sexual violence, human-trafficking, kidnapping and forced disappearance, are under-reported or difficult to investigate. Although many migrants are deterred from filing crime reports because of their irregular migratory status or fear of reprisals, even when reports are filed there is a lack of political will to investigate. Organised crime, in particular, takes advantage of migrants’ invisibility before the law and of the very real obstacles that stand between them and justice.

These factors are compounded by state indifference and a corresponding refusal to accept the responsibility to investigate and prosecute criminal actors, due to the apparent invisibility of victims. Migrants’ estrangement from state protection is caused not only by strategies to avoid state actors and by political indifference, but also by the lack of bonds with the state – namely, the state–citizen relationship. The absence of the state–citizen relationship between transit migrants and the transit state results in a lack of effective state protection and a lack of trust in state authorities. This aspect of vulnerability derives from social isolation, because “[t]ransmigration spaces do not generate bonds of identity of immigrants with the physical space through which they pass, hence in part the increased social vulnerability of illegal migrants” (Casillas 2011: 309).

Thus, vulnerability derives from numerous sources specific to the situation during transit and is critical in enabling and perpetuating insecurity during transit. Migrants’ constrained agency, liminality and estrangement from the state, and marginalisation to the most dangerous paths, together with guaranteed impunity for perpetrators make this violence simply unavoidable, regularised and even expected by victims (Belén 2008: 11). Tightening migration controls does not produce the anticipated effect of a reduction in migration, because the dynamic nature of transit migration means that it fluxes and adapts to avoid controls. Such controls do not stop migratory flows, but invariably increase migrants’ vulnerability. In this way, “the constant passage of migrants and their complete vulnerability makes them an unlimited and un-punishable source of revenue for the criminal world” (Jácome 2008: 17). As migration controls extended throughout Mexico with the externalisation of US border policy under Plan Frontera Sur (the Southern Border Plan, see Chapter 1), effectively turning the entire country into a ‘vertical border’ (Knippen et al. 2015), this increased migrants’ geographic vulnerability, as they were at now vulnerable throughout Mexico.

Violence against migrants in transit: abuse and its systematic nature

Prior to 2006, transit migration through Mexico was marked by the threat of state agents and indirect violence – that is, violence that does not have a perpetrator. Indirect violence during migratory transit derives predominantly from environmental factors, dangerous transport options and poverty. This manifests in many ways: from dehydration, hunger and illness to deaths in remote border zones; from suffocation in overcrowded or double-floored lorries used by people-smugglers; to injuries and deaths caused by falling from trains. As organised criminal gangs in Mexico became increasingly involved with the abuse of migrants in transit, the danger to migrants intensified. Transit migrants became a major source of income for state and non-state agents alike, with the biggest danger in transit being attacks by organised criminals, and reports testifying to “a ‘tsunami’ of violence affecting migrants” (Barrón et al. 2014: 22).

By 2010, the corridor between Central America and the USA had become the most violent passage for migrants anywhere in the world, with levels of violence since then so consistently high that even massacres of migrants have slipped into becoming just “anecdotes of tragedy” in Mexico (Pastrana et al. 2015). The widespread and systematic nature of violence committed by organised crime groups against transit migrants in Mexico has been documented extensively by human rights organisations and academics.² Recorded abuses of migrants include extortion, kidnapping, disappearances, murder, sexual violence, torture, forced labour, human trafficking and the massacre of dozens of people. Criminal groups developed a substantial extortion industry along the routes taken by undocumented migrants through Mexico, subjecting them to risk at every stage in their journey (Casillas 2011). Extortion of migrants happens in four main situations: as bribes demanded by state agents, as additional payments demanded by taxi and bus drivers, as dues or extortion (piso) demanded by criminal groups on the trains or in areas under their territorial control, and as ransom payments in either express or mass kidnappings. Whereas a failure to pay a state agent could result in apprehension and deportation, a failure to pay dues to a criminal group could lead to violence, kidnap or being pushed off a moving train (Pastrana et al. 2015).

Coinciding with post-2001 migration controls, reports of ‘express kidnapping’ began emerging from different parts of the country, especially the southern areas (Casillas 2011, Hiemstra 2020). These kidnappings generally involved small groups of migrants being held for ransom payments, but this phenomenon rapidly spread, becoming more complex and more violent. The shift of modus operandi by criminal groups from express kidnappings of individuals or small groups to mass kidnappings of Central Americans after 2006 signalled the establishment of a new niche in the criminal market and marked a new level of involvement of organised crime in profiting from migrants (Casillas 2015, González 2013, Basok et al. 2015, Slack and Whiteford 2013, Slack 2015, 2019). In contrast to express kidnappings, mass kidnappings typically involve higher rates of physical and verbal abuse, weapons, higher ransom demands, as well as torture, extreme brutality, executions and forced involvement in organised crime activities. If captors fail to secure a ransom payment from a relative or if migrants attempt to escape, extreme violence and even murder may result (Meyer and Brewer 2010, González 2013, Slack 2015). Kidnapping of migrants is “provoked by the shared precarity of travelling in these clandestine spaces” (Slack 2015: 4), together with access to their family members in the USA who might have the means to pay ransoms of thousands of dollars, usually through international money transfer services. This potential for profit resulted in kidnapping becoming systematic. Increasing amounts of remittance money was being spent on securing the release of migrants or on protecting against abduction by using people-smugglers. In recent years, organised groups have kidnapped – and sometimes murdered – thousands of migrants throughout Mexico, and the number of victims is understood to be far higher than that accounted for in published figures.³

Despite government knowledge of the mass kidnappings, effective state measures to prevent them were completely absent. By the 2010s, hundreds of migrants were being taken from public spaces, including the forced removal of people from long-haul buses at roadblocks set up on the main motorways in Tamaulipas by the Zetas (Pastrana et al. 2015). As a result of the inaction of the Mexican government, the perpetrators of the kidnappings and massacres remained unpunished, enabling the violence to continue on a vast scale with near-complete impunity (Pastrana et al. 2015). Between 2006 and 2013, over 70,000 Central American migrants were reported missing in Mexico, but experts believe that the actual figure for that seven-year period is nearer 120,000 (Sanchez Soler 2016a, 2016b). These disappearances are due to a number of factors: voluntary or involuntary loss of contact with one’s family, imprisonment, enslavement, death by natural causes, and murder. Death during migration used to be primarily due to accidents involving the train or dehydration, exhaustion and heat stroke caused by the remote and arduous nature of the journey. After 2006, however, intentional homicide by organised crime groups became a significant cause of migrant deaths.

Intentional homicide of migrants happens both on an individual basis – often in the context of another criminal attack – and as mass murder during kidnappings or the ‘confiscation’ of the human cargo of people-smugglers who fail to pay the correct dues that permit passage through controlled territory (see Chapter 4). Bodies were buried in mass graves in areas that were inaccessible to authorities because of their remoteness or as a result of territorial control by organised crime. Survivors of kidnappings who witnessed murders reported methods by which the groups removed all trace of their victims, such as cutting their bodies into pieces and burning them or dissolving them in chemicals to produce fertiliser that is then spread on fields (Zamora 2011, EstrellaTV 2015). It is impossible to know exactly how many migrants have been murdered or disappeared by organised crime gangs in Mexico, due to the difficulties in confirming their deaths through the discovery and identification of their bodies. Other than the impossibility of doing so if bodies have been physically disposed of, investigations into these murders and mass executions were, and continue to be, prevented by a lack of political will and capacity on the part of the Mexican government and by the authorities’ inability to access areas under the control of organised crime.

Other disappearances in the region were linked to human trafficking, including forced involvement in criminal groups, slavery, sexual exploitation and – according to anecdotal reports – organ harvesting. Because people tend to be held captive and isolated during trafficking, it is only at their release or escape that stories come to light, meaning they may be classed as missing or disappeared until this point. Survivors of forced labour have recounted being held captive and enslaved in labour camps, forced into prostitution or forced into organised crime activities, such as producing drugs and kidnapping other migrants. Female migrants remain particularly vulnerable to sex trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation, particularly in the southern border region of Mexico, where both Mexican and Central American criminal groups are involved in forced prostitution.

Just as women, girls and Central Americans from the LGBT+ community are adversely affected by gender-based and sexual violence related to organised crime in their countries of origin, so too are they vulnerable to this during the transit stage of migration (Kuhner 2011, 2012, Winton 2016).⁴ This manifests in a number of ways during the migration trajectory, with women and girls particularly vulnerable to sexual assault and rape, to being compelled to use sex as a form of economic exchange, and to sexual exploitation and trafficking.⁵ Accurate statistics on sex crimes are impossible to obtain because they are widely under-reported due to social stigma as well as the fear of deportation and the desire to continue the migration journey. Such abuse is considered to be so widespread that the majority of female and transgender migrants reportedly experience rape or sexual assault during transit. Many Central American women are reported to take long-term contraception before travelling through Mexico, to protect themselves against pregnancy should they be raped. Women and girls are also forced to use their bodies to make payments for protection, transport and bribes during transit. State agents, members of criminal gangs, drivers, people-smugglers and fellow migrants demand these ‘payments’, which are directly linked to women’s vulnerability and precarity during transit and their lack of access to regular transport options and financial resources (Amnesty International 2010, I(DH)EAS 2011, Dimmitt Gnam 2013, Dudley 2012, IACHR 2013, 2015, McIntyre 2014, UNHCR 2015). The primary perpetrators of all types of sexual abuse appeared to be organised criminal groups, supported by endemic impunity for their actions by ineffective, indifferent or corrupt authorities.⁶

Within the context of migration through Mexico, violence became not only a means to an end, but a message sent to rivals and to those who may not cooperate with a group’s demands. This type of violence employed for “contingent reasons” (Gambetta 1996) is a feature of organised crime, and one of the defining elements in the modus operandi of Mexican organised crime groups. In parts of northeast Mexico, violent beatings and kidnappings are reportedly used to warn and deter migrants from passing through organised crime groups’ established drug-smuggling routes, rather than as a means of financial gain. Commentators have drawn attention to the fact that there was only one survivor of the massacre of seventy-two migrants in Tamaulipas in 2010 (las 72), noting that this survivor was able to alert authorities to what had happened, leading to the discovery of the massacre. One theory holds that the survivor was deliberately allowed to escape so that the message would reach the people-smugglers who would then understand what would happen if they failed to comply with the demands of organised crime or pay the correct dues (Casillas 2010).⁷ The bodies of about 1500 migrants were discovered in mass graves in the surrounding area the following year, indicating not only that mass murders are often committed but that extreme violence may have been used to send a message of control in the case of las 72 (Casillas 2010).

The situation in southern Mexico after Plan Frontera Sur

Following the implementation of Plan Frontera Sur in August 2014, there were significant changes in southern Mexico, where violence against migrants had risen to endemic levels. Because of the controls and restrictions that were put in place, migrants began using more remote and dangerous routes as they were forced to travel through zones controlled by criminal groups. Reports from organisations and the media indicate a marked increase in assaults, robbery and sexual assaults committed against migrants after the implementation of this legislation and, from 2015, an increased number of mass kidnappings. Reported assaults in Chiapas, for instance, increased by 264% within a year of Plan Frontera Sur being implemented (Isacson et al. 2015), with some organisations reporting that nine out of ten migrants passing through Mexico suffered some form of abuse (Natera 2015, 2016, Nazario 2015a).

The new criminal activity in southern Mexico has a systematic nature and tends to follow a particular modus operandi. According to reports, armed assailants lie in wait for migrants on marginalised routes before emerging to rob people. During robberies, assailants may strip people naked in order to find hidden money; at this point, many women are sexually assaulted. Witnesses have also spoken of areas beside the train tracks between Arriaga and Chahuites in southern Mexico where old mattresses are laid out for assailants to collect a ‘rape tax’ from female migrants.

Perpetrators, operational models and territorial control

Large Mexican criminal groups have been systematically involved with migration – both in the abuse and exploitation of migrants during transit and in people-smuggling – since 2006, when they hardened territorial control and diversified their criminal portfolios. In the north of Mexico and the Gulf Coast, the (now fragmented) Zetas and the Gulf Cartel had been directly involved in mass kidnappings of migrants for several years, and this activity spread through Tabasco to the southern border with Guatemala. In southern Mexico, the direct involvement of organised crime groups was less clear in 2015, but many of the routes that migrants take are the same as those used by cartels for transporting drugs, although control of these routes changes and evolves. The Zetas were active in this area for some time and the presence of other groups, such as Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación, had been detected by 2015. The involvement of various groups in different regions of the country has constantly evolved since this time, with numerous large organised groups battling each other for control of migrant routes near Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala or exerting their dominance at the US–Mexico border. (For analysis of some of the different criminal groups and their involvement, see Dudley et al. 2023.) Their involvement also changed significantly after subsequent policy shocks, first in 2017 and then at the start of 2025 (which are discussed in the Conclusions and Reflections chapter).

The operational involvement of organised crime groups in the violence perpetrated against migrants in Mexico differs across regions but is inextricably linked to the model of territorial control. This means that migrants must pay to pass – either voluntarily through a people-smuggler or enforced through mass kidnappings and extortion – through particular areas controlled by criminal organisations. Some of these organisations are more business-like and interested in transactions while others are more predatory in nature. While some organised crime groups, such as the Zetas, were directly involved in conducting kidnappings, there were other criminal groups who paid a fee or cuota to conduct criminal activity in their territory. As well as having distinct criminal activities that they pursue in their own territory (including extortion, drug dealing and prostitution), organised crime groups can permit other groups to work there. As one interviewee explained: “You have to pay to be authorised to operate. You pay, you get protection. That’s the cartel presence there.”⁸ They described business agreements, similar to franchises, concessions and sub-contracts to operate (see Introduction), that enable other criminal groups to conduct illicit activities targeted at migrants in areas under organised crime control. No matter who is physically perpetrating crimes in an area, large organised crime groups benefit financially from such activity, and their involvement must be seen from a perspective of territoriality.

Central American maras became involved in the abuse of migrants in southern Mexico in the decade to 2016, where both B-18 and MS-13 established cells. Ixtepec – where the Albergue is located – is a nucleus for MS-13. Experts I interviewed described complex relationships between the Mexican organised crime groups who control drug-smuggling routes in southern Mexico and other groups, such as Central American maras or local criminal gangs, as well as strategic alliances between the Zetas and the maras. Prior to Plan Frontera Sur, Central American maras were active in the area collecting the piso on the trains and providing enforcement, by kidnapping and extorting migrants travelling independently of people-smugglers. This activity was either controlled or authorised by Mexican organised crime groups. By the start of 2010, the presence of maras in Mexico was no longer limited to the opportunistic abuse of migrants or to the expansion of their activities or territorial reach. Since 2013, MS-13 and B-18 have sent gang members into Mexico to locate people who have fled gang persecution in Northern Central America and were now on their ‘hit list’.⁹ Gang members travel the usual migrant routes to catch certain people who have fled, and gangs also have ‘sentinels’ or ‘posts’ in specific places to detect them: “It depends on what you have done against the gangs. If they want to find you, they will”.¹⁰ This clearly has serious protection implications for those who have fled from these gangs, as they continue to be exposed to further risk from them while in Mexico.

The pattern of criminal attacks that emerged in southern Mexico after the implementation of Plan Frontera Sur comprised mainly armed robberies perpetrated by small groups of assailants. Ostensibly, links between the nature and perpetrators of the attacks and organised crime did not appear to be clear. However, while the perpetrators of many of these crimes were described as common criminals, such systematic criminal activity could not take place within territory controlled by organised crime without their authorisation and financial benefit. Any degree of organised crime control in Chiapas was denied by officials I interviewed, but contemporaneous media reports and several civil-society experts I spoke with attested to there being a significant organised crime presence in the region, that these groups were targeting migrants and that their presence was being fortified by new migration routes and impunity for crimes against migrants.

While there may not have been the same degree of territorial control and absence of effective state presence in Chiapas as there is in some other Mexican states, organised crime controlled several illicit activities in the region. These included the production, smuggling and local sale of drugs, extortion, human-trafficking, gun-running, sex-trafficking, prostitution and people-smuggling. Experts working with migrants in southern Mexico who I spoke with in 2015 expressed concern about the lack of response from the authorities and resulting impunity for these crimes, noting that this could lead to a further worsening of the situation and a high risk that organised crime could take a stronger hold in southern Mexico. In addition, after the implementation of Plan Frontera Sur, researchers noted an increase in extortions by state agents, indicating that some agents are acting independently, while others act in collusion with organised crime groups (Mariscal and Truax 2015, Hiemstra 2019). In summary, the key beneficiaries of Plan Frontera Sur were corrupt officials and organised crime groups who enjoyed impunity as they exploited migrants (International Crisis Group 2016, Bonello 2016).

Organised crime groups use precise strategies and tactics to target migrants. A key tactic used by organised crime groups has been military-style investigation of migrants’ movements and habits in order to target them effectively and infiltrate them at vulnerable points. Casillas (2011) describes the Zetas’ meticulously planned and executed approach to monetising migrants by studying the migration route and habits of migrants and then leveraging the social fabric that transit migrants had relied upon to travel through Mexico. The Zetas used migrants’ well-travelled routes, the train and migrant shelters to identify victims, learning about them by posing as migrants. Taking advantage of the fact that migrants travelled in groups, congregated at migrant shelters, often travelled together according to nationality, age or destination, and received wire transfers during transit, they were able to infiltrate and exploit these groups. Testimonies indicate the involvement of Central Americans in this approach, suggesting that they infiltrate the migrant flow to select and group migrants for kidnap and then deliver them to the armed groups. It is possible that such involvement could be forced, and that these people have themselves been kidnapped or trafficked. In all these processes, actual and threatened violence is used liberally and indiscriminately to ensure cooperation (Barrón et al. 2014, Casillas 2011, 2016b, Basok et al. 2015, Cantor 2014, 2016c). The other key element of organised crime groups’ strategy was to co-opt or corrupt state agents, guaranteeing their active or passive compliance.

The state: impunity, corruption and collusion

The very fact that crimes against migrants have continued on such a large scale for so long “and with such broad public knowledge points to a great deal of collusion or at least tacit approval and impunity by state actors” (Slack 2015: 4). Indeed, impunity “has enhanced the activity of criminal agents and increased the radius of their actions, the diversification of their activities and the territorial diversification of their organisations” (Casillas 2011: 303). As well as the obstacles to justice outlined previously, there remained a significant lack of state response to the abuse at all levels, which is rooted in a lack of political will and Mexico’s decision not to take firm action.

Abuse continued to happen in specific places but, despite knowing this, the authorities failed to intervene in these places to stop the violence against transit migrants. There was also a failure to investigate and bring prosecutions in spite of the appointment of special prosecutors for crimes against migrants, and the granting of humanitarian visas to victims of crime. There was no change in government action in defence of migrants following the discovery of the mass murder of seventy-two migrants in San Fernando in 2010, as might be anticipated. Instead, by 2015, the situation appeared to have deteriorated further. The inertia of the state to respond and the absence of political will to intervene was described by one interviewee as a very deliberate move: “an intention to make the problem invisible”.¹¹ Undeniably, impunity goes beyond the apathetic tolerance of violence on the part of the state, and instead acts as a facilitator of more acts of violence and enables the replication of unpunished crimes (see Chapter 5 for analysis of the implications of this under international law).

Corruption also plays a large role in enabling and perpetuating the situation, with criminal groups relying on being able to corrupt officials in order to successfully develop their networks and activities. Many testimonials documented by Amnesty International (2010) indicated that state actors were directly involved in abuse and that organised crime groups work in collusion with state actors or act with their acquiescence. Indeed, the coopting of state agents was a key part of organised crime groups’ strategy to guarantee profits and impunity for their actions: they targeted key players and local commanders, using blackmail, threats and violence to ensure their compliance (Casillas 2015). Ultimately, it is impossible to separate completely the issue of impunity from those of corruption and collusion, and these blurred lines mean that there is often a lack of clear distinction between criminal violence and state violence (Vogt 2013).

Characterising violence during transit migration as structural violence

I adopt here Jácome’s (2008) reading of structural violence that relies on Galtung’s (1969) definition of structural violence as deriving from social, political and economic factors and manifesting as systematic harm experienced by certain people or groups because of underlying social structures. This structural and indirect violence, which has been “the norm rather than the exception” (Jácome 2008: 8) in transit migration through Mexico for many years, results directly from restrictive migration controls and would rationally be expected to increase proportionally as migration controls are tightened. Jácome maps lines of accountability between indirect violence and social structures and policy, arguing that indirect and direct violence are intertwined during transit through Mexico and that the relationship between them is not wholly unidirectional. He argues that they derive from the same socio-economic factors and are linked on many levels, with indirect violence serving as the “ ‘gatekeeper’ for most forms of direct violence affecting migrants” (Jácome 2008: 8). On one level, these links are geographical, with the spaces associated with danger – specifically around the train route – nurturing criminal structures dedicated to exploiting migrants. On another level, they are political, with an official tolerance demonstrated by apathy and a lack of state response and protection (Knippen et al. 2015). Thus, even though direct violence has a perpetrator, it is “not incidental but a result of larger socio-political processes” (Jácome 2008: 30).

Tolerance of indirect violence is indicated by both its persistence and its development into structural violence, and it follows that this tolerance of indirect violence is mirrored by impunity for direct violence. As such, structural direct violence is marked by “the construction and prevalence of the impunity that characterises it, the systematic nature of its perpetration, and the social forces, policies, and institutions that perpetuate it” (Jácome 2008: 4). Jácome’s self-confessed “unorthodox” reading of the situation of violence against migrants in Mexico as structural violence is key to understanding the dimensions and dynamics of the abuse. This is precisely because of these “underlying social, political, and economic structures that perpetuate this violence” (Jácome 2008:21) and marginalise migrants, reinforcing their vulnerability and their lack of access to justice during migratory transit.

Contextual factors that enable criminal abuse during transit

Vulnerability during transit is multidimensional, deriving from exposure to great risk, legal exclusion and social isolation. It exposes migrants to a triad of risks: the dangers inherent in their physical journeys, the risk of apprehension by migration authorities and the threat posed by organised criminal groups. Systemic risk from organised crime is now part of the transit portion of migration, adding to the state migration controls and enforcement activities, resulting in “an unofficial vertical border overlapping the [official one], tacitly blocking transit due to criminal groups that live off the exploitation of migrants” (Hernández 2015).

Teasing out the sources of this vulnerability helps us clarify the contextual factors in Mexico that enable organised crime groups to take advantage of migrants and for this to develop into a structural factor during transit. Aspects of the state that contribute to this include an ineffective state presence, weak rule of law, lack of state protection and response, impunity, and corruptible state agents. Aspects of the journey that contribute to this include restrictive migration controls, the marginalised routes and clandestine nature of transit migrants’ journeys, migrant agency exercised within the constraints of this context, and the pre-existence and tolerance of structural indirect violence during the transit portion of migration. Factors relating to organised crime include the presence of large criminal groups on key routes through Mexico and the dynamic and responsive nature (Paoli 2002, Medel and Thoumi 2014) of such groups.

First phase: organised crime evolves as structural factor in transit migration

The first change to be examined is the development of organised crime into a structural factor in transit migration. This evolution derives from policy changes which began in 2006, and analysis here examines to what extent the government crackdown on organised crime (dubbed the ‘War on Drugs’ or the ‘Kingpin Strategy’) acted as a causal mechanism of this change. Prior to 2006, some abuse of transit migrants in Mexico had been reported, but by 2008, much more extreme and extensive abuse of migrants was taking place. By 2010, the situation had changed dramatically, and organisations and academics were recording and reporting widespread and systematic abuse of migrants transiting Mexico by organised crime groups. Abuse has been extensively documented and, in 2010, Amnesty International deemed Mexico to be the most violent country in the world for transit migrants (Amnesty International 2010).

Increased migration controls after 2001 had resulted in more detention and deportation and led to migrants using more marginalised routes to avoid apprehension by state agents, hence increasing their vulnerability. However, factors unrelated to migration that altered the way that Mexican organised crime groups operated had the effect of refocusing some of their activities from 2006 onward. Indeed, in the context of transit migration through Mexico, the involvement of these groups is firmly related to “the evolution of crime, an evolution of criminal practices, and the emergence of new social actors into the criminal realm”.¹²

Experts I interviewed agreed that the involvement of Mexican organised crime groups in the systematic abuse of transit migrants began in 2006 and was a direct result of the government’s crackdown on organised crime. Prior to this time, a few large criminal groups dominated the Mexican criminal landscape in a fairly stable manner and with official acquiescence (see Introduction). Migrants generally passed through Mexico relatively calmly, albeit with some small-scale extortion and kidnapping. The crackdown took the form of intense military intervention from the start of President Calderón’s presidency in December 2006. The successful removal of cartel heads led to the fragmentation of groups, which in turn created a need for these smaller groups to broaden their portfolios and diversify into new income-generating activities, and to develop private militias to enforce criminal governance. Violent battles for territorial control between groups erupted as each group sought to consolidate its space and to maintain complete control over the business activities in its territory. At the same time that these policy changes were affecting the structure and activities of organised crime groups, internal changes within cartels were also affecting their operations, the most significant of these being the development of militarised arms and new revenue structures within the groups.

Following the crackdown, two key changes in organised crime activity occurred that were directly relevant to the involvement of organised criminal groups in migration activities: the expansion of criminal portfolios and the focus on territorial control. While groups continued to pursue their existing business activities – such as drug trafficking – they needed to open additional revenue streams, and exploiting transit migrants became part of their operations. Criminal activities related to migrants were attractive because there was a continuing flow of migrants, impunity for crimes against them, and migrant routes often overlapped with those of drug trafficking.

Other factors internal to organised crime groups also influenced the development at certain points, such as in 2010 when the Zetas officially split from the Gulf Cartel. They then began a programme of expansion, battled for territorial control, opened further revenue streams and formed allegiances with Central American maras. This led to an exponential rise in abuse of migrants by the Zetas and to this abuse becoming systematic. Impunity was a critical factor in making the targeting of migrants in transit a viable and profitable business activity for organised criminal groups and also to the abuse becoming systematic, because it allowed the acts to go unpunished and be replicated.

Hence, in this phase, the implementation of policy not related to migration (the crackdown under the ‘War on Drugs’) triggered critical changes in the structures of organised crime groups. Restrictive migration controls contributed to two further critical variables: they ‘illegalised’ migrants and they constrained migrants’ agency, forcing them to take the most marginalised and dangerous transit routes. It is because of the undocumented and clandestine nature of their migration journeys that migrants are made vulnerable and accessible to organised crime groups with control over tracts of territory. The co-presence of impunity was a critical factor in this process, enabling the replication of crimes and the establishment of an ‘industry’ of abuse. In summary, restrictive migration controls, in conjunction with impunity, contributed towards the development of organised crime as a structural factor during transit. In this elaboration, migration controls are contextual factors with indirect, rather than direct, causal properties.

Second phase: impact of new migration controls on criminal activity

The second change to be analysed is the impact of the implementation of Plan Frontera Sur on criminal violence in southern Mexico. The focus here is solely on the states in southern Mexico, because that is where most of the new, in-country migration controls were first put into operation, taking advantage of the narrowest part of Mexico and its proximity to the southern border. Experts I interviewed were unanimous that Plan Frontera Sur had had a negative effect on the human rights and security situation for migrants in southern Mexico. While this had led to increased threat from state agents and the use of more marginalised routes, those who were working on the ground in southern Mexico additionally spoke of its immediate and devastating consequences, which included huge increases in criminal violence and a worsened situation regarding human rights. It was clear that the implementation of these new in-country migration controls led to migrants facing intense danger from criminal actors in the south, as well as increased risk from state actors: “Plan Frontera Sur is the perfect plan for extortion, violence and crime”.¹³

At the point of Plan Frontera Sur being implemented in August 2014, organised crime had already established itself as a structural force on the transit portion of the migration journey through Mexico, and the abuse of migrants had become widespread and systematic. Not only was abuse rife, but it was met with near complete impunity. Thus, it was implemented in a context that was different from how it had been previously, with the pre-existence and tolerance of structural direct violence as well as indirect violence during the transit portion of migration. After the implementation of the policy, migrant agency was constrained by the restrictive controls in southern Mexico. This increased migrants’ vulnerability by impeding access to both road and rail transport and forcing them onto more marginalised and isolated routes. Migrants now had to walk longer distances, avoid population centres where specialist services were established and make diversions to avoid migration checkpoints. However, agency was not constrained to the extent that they did not migrate, and the constant flow of migrants continued. As well as persecution by migration agents while suffering from the physical difficulty of their journey, migrants were routinely assaulted, robbed and raped along the way by assailants who lay in wait. Staff I interviewed in migrant shelters told me that after the implementation of in-country migration controls and restrictions on transport options under Plan Frontera Sur, there was a marked increase in violent attacks on migrants in southern Mexico.

While some contemporaneous reports indicated that the Zetas were responsible for criminal activity against migrants in the state of Tabasco and the east of Chiapas, it appeared to be primarily local gangs who were perpetrating the offences in Oaxaca and the rest of Chiapas. The perpetrators would lay in wait on isolated rural routes and ambush migrants as they made diversions around migration checkpoints. While these attacks may have started opportunistically, such sustained activity could not take place in areas controlled by organised crime without authorisation and financial benefit through the payment of dues. There were varying degrees of organised crime presence in the southern states of Mexico, with some local criminal groups operating in territory controlled by large organised crime groups under some of the models described previously, such as franchises, contracts or concessions. Given the known control of the migratory routes by organised crime groups prior to this (notably maras conducting migrant-related activities under the authorisation of the Zetas), whatever systematic criminal activities are being conducted in the area will be subject to this same authorisation and level of control, regardless of the perpetrators.

As such, these changes are not so much structural changes, but rather an elaboration of the activities and modus operandi of organised crime in the region. Criminal entities reacted dynamically, quickly adopting operating models that better suited the different environment. The implementation of restrictive in-country migration controls has been the direct causal mechanism for this, leading to the elaboration of criminal activities and operating models (rather than the elaboration of a structural factor as was seen previously).

The causal role of policy

From this analysis, we can see that restrictive migration controls acted as a contextual factor in the development of organised crime as a structural factor in transit migration. However, once such a structural force is established, the introduction of more restrictive migration controls results in rapid changes to criminal activities on the ground: a markedly different form of structural elaboration. As a framework designed to analyse change, the morphogenetic approach allows for subsequent elaborations of a situation to be analysed, accommodating the change that occurred in previous elaborations and capturing the nature of subsequent changes.

This is particularly useful for analysing the changes that occurred following the implementation of policy – notably, Plan Frontera Sur – and for generating explanations of the different causal roles of migration controls in each context. This analysis allows us to see that after organised crime is established during transit, the implementation of migration controls acts as a catalyst to change or increase criminal activity during the transit portion of migration. Such insight is critical when developing and implementing policy in areas affected by weak rule of law, corruption and/or organised crime, and in anticipating the consequences of policy change. Two factors exposed by this analysis have implications for our understanding of state accountability (see Chapter 5). Firstly, understanding the direct or indirect causal properties of both policy and contextual factors – such as impunity – enables us to trace lines of state accountability. Secondly, if such adverse consequences are foreseeable, or even anticipated, this raises salient questions about state accountability.