Description
As part of his re-election campaign, Donald Trump pledged to crackdown on ‘irregular migration’ by increasing border security and initiating mass deportations. Anti-migrant policies, particularly those implemented by conservative or far-right parties, are often highly visible and provoke mobilizations from migrant rights and migrant justice movements. However, less visible policies, particularly those that externalize or outsource ‘Global North’ borders to the ‘Global South,’ often go under the radar of migrant justice movements. Moreover, with some notable exceptions, they often remain ‘invisible’ through the collaboration of Global South states. This paper seeks to examine one such case of border externalization to illustrate the imperative for an internationalist migrant justice movement which can account for how migrants are increasingly caught between (settler) imperial borders and postcolonial states. Focusing on the migration politics of the US and Mexico, this paper examines how two megaprojects, the so-called ‘Mayan Train’ and Interoceanic Corridor, are being mobilized by the Mexican state to stop migration from southern Mexico and Central America to the US. The paper argues that these megaprojects will function as internal borders, whereby migrants are allowed to work in the tourism sector and industrial parks facilitated by these megaprojects, while also laying the infrastructural foundation to police migrants ‘out of place’ and those seeking to migrate to the US. The paper contributes to literature examining Global North anti-migrant politics, the politics of “outsourcing” or “externalizing” borders, and the development-migration nexus.
