La Gran Cárcel: Two Militarized Borders, Two Failed Asylum Systems and a Mexico-Wide Prison

Abstract

Donald Trump's anti-immigrant build a wall message and Andrés Manuel López Obrador's "soluciones de raíz, libertad e igualdad" approach couldn't be more different. Yet, both administrations' immigration agenda synchronized to transform Mexico into a country-wide prison for migrants and asylum seekers. This thesis engages with that transformation—on how a country became a prison. Two main research questions guide this project: How did the ideologically different political projects of Presidents Donald Trump and Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) interact and harmonize to produce a disturbance to the American and Mexican asylum systems? What conditions and pressures transition Mexico into a prison for asylum seekers? In this thesis, I analyze Trump's interlocking immigration policies, the forces driving López Obrador's border militarization efforts, and the deficiencies in Mexico's asylum system that created the real crisis at the border(s)—an incarceration crisis. This thesis argues that Mexico became a prison for migrants, a prison delineated by border militarization on both of its borders and two failed asylum systems.