Photo: Rey R. Jauregui / La Verdad
The year 2024 was marked by a regional migration management system that, under the false pretense of security, has externalized borders, subjugating Mexican immigration policy to external interests, particularly those of the United States. These immigration policies, intensified with the presidential reelection of Donald Trump for the 2025-2028 term, promoted mass deportations, border closures, and restrictions on the right to asylum, which directly impacted forced mobility in transit through Mexico.
This reality not only created new migration routes but also led to a worsening of arbitrary detentions, immigration checkpoints, and returns on the southern border. These practices prevent access to safe spaces such as civil society shelters, forcing migrants to take more dangerous routes under the control of criminal networks.
Changes in Migration Dynamics: Regionalization and Migrant Profiles
During 2024, REDODEM recorded 37,999 admissions to its shelters, 29% fewer than in 2023, a record year with 53,435 admissions. This reduction contrasts with the 59% increase reported by the Migration Policy Unit in the number of people in an irregular situation, highlighting the impact of more aggressive containment policies.
Geographically, the concentration of admissions persisted in the southern region (40%), but a significant increase stood out in the northern region (31%), altering the traditional importance of the central region, which declined. These changes are linked to new criminal and repressive dynamics of territorial control that affect humanitarian routes and access.
Regarding the sociodemographic profile, men predominate (68.2%), although the feminization of migration continues, with women representing almost 32%, who face specific violence and travel mostly in family groups, whose proportion increased to 65.2% in 2024, transforming the dynamics of care and protection.
National Diversity and Cultural Complexities
The diversity of countries of origin expanded, with Venezuela and Honduras as the main nationalities, a relative influx from 2023 to 2024, and a sustained growth in Colombian migrants. In addition, there was an increase in people from Asia, Africa, and other regions, posing new challenges in communication, coexistence, and infrastructure for humanitarian assistance in shelters.
However, many migrants come from backgrounds with low educational levels and precarious socioeconomic conditions, limiting their opportunities and leading to different migration strategies, such as applying for international protection.
Structural and Everyday Violence: A Transition Marked by Siege
One of the report’s most dramatic findings is the intensification of violence. More than 60% of the documented cases involved organized crime as the primary aggressor, surpassing immigration authorities, who historically had a greater role in the attacks.
Physical and psychological violence, kidnappings, and especially sexual and gender-based violence, disproportionately affect migrant women, while men face property-related violence such as robbery and extortion. The context of hostility and the presence of weapons exacerbate this reality, turning the migratory transit into an experience of high risk and vulnerability.
Humanitarian Work: Resistance to State Inaction
The organizations that make up REDODEM carry out essential work providing care, support, and documentation in a hostile environment, where access to safe spaces is increasingly difficult. The overcrowding of shelters and the implementation of repressive measures prevent full registration, but they do not diminish the complexity of the needs.
Humanitarian commitment stands as an act of political and ethical resistance to protect dignity and human rights in the face of a state administration that, with its restrictive and criminalizing policies, violates the lives of migrants.
Continuing to Resist in an Uncertain Scenario
In 2024, forced migration in Mexico did not recede. Rather, it shifted toward more uncertain paths, where political tensions, structural violence, and exclusionary policies set the tone for millions of people. However, hope persists in those who transit and those who accompany them, resisting under siege, demanding rights and dignity.
The data, testimonies, and analyses in the REDODEM report invite us to rethink migration policies from a comprehensive human rights perspective, with differentiated, intersectional, and humane attention, recognizing the complexity of this phenomenon and guaranteeing protection and security for those simply seeking to live.
Original article by Ana Carbonell, Zona Docs, September 3rd, 2025.
Translated by Schools for Chiapas.