As officials from around the world gather in the United Nations to evaluate progress on the Global Compact of Migration, their governments continue to build walls, militarise borders, and criminalise human mobility. This harms the world's most disadvantaged, including women, children, Indigenous, and Black migrants.
Instead of addressing the root causes and drivers of migration, or creating regular channels for those escaping climate and socio-political crises, governments are also continuing to conclude bilateral and multilateral agreements to prevent migrants and asylum seekers from crossing borders in search of protection. In Central America alone, more than a million migrants have been subjected to expulsions, pushbacks, and violence at borders often in violation of international human rights and the principle of non-refoulement. This principle guarantees that no one should be returned to a country where they would face torture, cruel, inhuman treatment or other irreparable harms.
The Global Compact for Migration (GCM) guarantees respect for the human rights of migrants and establishes a framework for international cooperation to save lives. Yet, along the North and Central American migration corridor, migrants face suffering and life-threatening situations at all stages of migration. This includes food and housing insecurity, walls and military forces, organised crime, family separation and unjust and prolonged detention. At the US-Mexico border especially, ‘prevention through deterrence’ policies single out Brown and Black migrants as targets of their simple message: ‘don’t come’.
