January 1984
The presence of the Guatemalan refugees in Chiapas caused us Mexicans to turn our eyes deeper within Mexico, reminding us that we also have a southern border.
LUIS ORTIZ MONASTERIO, COMAR
Mexico takes pride in its long tradition of accommodating the persecuted and the displaced. In the twentieth century, over two hundred thousand people fleeing persecution sought refuge in Mexico. These included Irish, Turkish Jews, Spanish Republicans, Eastern Europeans, Lebanese, Cubans, Chileans, Argentines, Brazilians, Dominicans, Uruguayans, and Americans.1 Given this tradition, a long list of intellectuals and political leaders have exiled themselves to Mexico at some point in their careers: José Martí, Leon Trotsky, Pablo Neruda, Rómulo Gallegos, Gabriel García Márquez, Augusto Monterroso, Luis Cardoza y Aragón, Fidel Castro, Héctor Campora, and Seki Sano. Even César Augusto Sandino and Farabundo Martí, who inspired the Central American revolutionary movements, lived for a period of time in Mexico.2
Guatemalans, Salvadorans, and to a lesser extent Nicaraguans and Hondurans, are the most recent groups to migrate to Mexico. Of these groups, Guatemalans have the longest tradition of migration, especially to the Soconusco region. There they have worked in the cultivation and harvest of coffee beans, sugarcane, bananas, and other fruits. Their labor has been particularly vital to the Mexican economy since the 1960s. As the young men and women of Chiapas have sought employment in higher-paying industries, the Guatemalans have provided the labor critical to the region's agricultural industry: an estimated twenty thousand to a hundred thousand seasonal workers in Mexico each year.3 Until the 1990s, illegal immigration was tolerated and even encouraged, to maintain an abundant pool of lowwage labor. The border was fluid, and trade, commerce, and family ties extended across national boundaries. Given these connections, Mexico was a logical destination for the thousands of Maya and ladino refugees fleeing Guatemala during the 1980s: it was culturally and geographically accessible, offered safety and economic opportunity, and was close enough to Guatemala to facilitate a quick return once conditions in the homeland improved. These were the same factors that made Mexico an appealing choice for Salvadorans and other Central Americans during the 1980s and 1990s.
The Central Americans were distinct from other twentieth-century immigrants to Mexico simply because of their greater numbers: over two hundred thousand Guatemalans and half a million Salvadorans were believed to be living in Mexico by 1990.With the exception of a few hundred Guatemalan intellectuals who received asylum following the 1954 coup, the majority of Guatemalans who migrated to Mexico were Maya campesinos. It was a young population—63 percent were under the age of twenty—and fewer than a quarter of them spoke Spanish.4 Because of the Guatemalan army's “scorched earth” policies, many arrived in Mexico malnourished, suffering from a variety of diseases and psychological trauma.5 They settled largely in southern Mexico, especially in the state of Chiapas. The Salvadorans, in turn, were disproportionately young, single males from large towns and cities, who preferred to look for wage-earning opportunities in Mexico's largest cities. Like the Guatemalans, they viewed themselves as temporary residents who hoped to return one day to their homelands, but because of Mexico's restrictive policies, the Salvadorans were more likely to seek refuge further north, in the United States or Canada.
The Central American migration provided Mexico with one of its greatest challenges. For the first time in its history, it was forced into the role of country of first asylum for hundreds of thousands of people fleeing repressive conditions. Like Honduras, Mexico was not a signatory to the UN Convention and Protocol, and thus not bound to accept the Central Americans. It was a signatory to two regional conventions—the 1954 Convention on Territorial Asylum and the 1969 American Convention on Human Rights (or San José Pact)—but neither convention legally bound Mexico to accept refugees. The San José Pact did recognize the principle of nonrefoulement if the refugee's personal liberty was in danger for reasons of race, nationality, religion, social conditions, or political opinions. It was the American Convention on Human Rights that Mexico theoretically violated when it deported thousands of Central Americans in the early 1980s.6 However, government officials skirted the issue when they argued that the deportees were economic immigrants who had entered the country illegally, and thus were not protected under regional conventions.7
Nor did the Mexican Constitution offer a legal mechanism for granting refugee status. Mexican legislation only recognized the category of “persons granted asylum,” but asylum was rarely granted—and then only to those who applied from outside the country and could demonstrate that they had been persecuted strictly for political reasons. None of the other UN categories—persecution based on race, religion, nationality, or membership in a particular social group—qualified an applicant for asylum as they did in other countries. In the early 1980s, only one hundred Central Americans were granted the FM-10 visa (asylee), but none were granted this status from 1986 to 1990.8 An endorsement from the UNHCR (or any other international NGO) did not automatically secure recognition and protection. In 1982, for example, the UNHCR recommended 242 Central Americans for asylum, using Mexico's stricter criteria; of these the Secretaría de Gobernación (Secretariat of the Interior) allowed only 73 to legalize their status, and then mostly through the nonimmigrant FM-3 (visitor visa) or the FM-9 (student visa). Nor did Mexico's support for the Contadora peace proposal and the Declaration of Cartagena, which recommended adherence to the UN Convention and Protocol as a means of addressing the problems of refugees and displaced persons, lead to remedial legislation. However, despite Mexico's exclusionary policies, it accommodated one of the largest numbers of UNHCR-recognized refugees.9
It was the Central American refugee crisis—the questions it raised at all levels of society, as well as the pressure directed against the government by the church, the NGOs, and the news media—that forced Mexico's reexamination of its role as a country of safe haven. For decades, the United States—Mexico border and out-migration to the United States had dominated all national discussions of migratory issues. Bilateral diplomatic and trade negotiations always inserted some discussion of work visas, illegal immigrants, detention and deportation policies, and/or border control. However, the Central American refugee crisis—and specifically, the criticisms directed at Mexico for human rights violations—forced a reexamination of state policies. Mexico's credibility and moral authority in the Central American peace initiatives, as well as in migratory issues related to its northern boundary, became dependent on its response to the migration across its southern border.
REFUGEES, “BORDER VISITORS,” OR ILLEGAL ALIENS?
The first group of Central Americans to arrive in Mexico during the 1970s, albeit in comparatively small numbers, was the Nicaraguans fleeing the Somoza dictatorship and the Sandinista war. Most of those who comprised this first wave returned to their homeland. A second wave arrived after 1979, fleeing Sandinista policies and the Contra war, but like their predecessors they received no official recognition or assistance from the Mexican government. Most sources claim that they were simply transiting through Mexico on their way to the United States. By 1990, however, a few thousand Nicaraguans were believed to be living and working without documentation in Mexico, particularly in Mexico City, relying on church groups and their networks of family and friends for assistance.10
According to UNHCR sources, the Guatemalan refugee migration to Mexico began in 1980. The refugees were mostly Maya Indians, especially Kanjobal, Chuj, Jacalteca, and Mam. They came from the heavily populated departments of El Quiché and Huehuetenango, but also from Petén, San Marcos, Quetzaltenango, Totonicapan, Solola, Chimaltenango, Alta Verapaz, and Baja Verapaz. These departments were regarded by the government as the seat of the guerrilla movement, and thus targeted by the counterinsurgency campaign. It was a communal migration: the surviving members of families and communities migrated and settled together just across the six-hundred-mile Guatemala-Mexico border.11
During the first months, it was not uncommon for Guatemalan refugees to travel back and forth from their Mexican settlements to their villages (or what remained of them)
