Abstract

In Mexico, irregular international migration processes have historically been accompanied by civil society organizations, which have directly assisted migrants and refugees in their transit or stay in the different states of the country and have also generated political and social advocacy processes to guarantee access to human rights. This proposal offers an analysis and reflection on the changes in migration dynamics in Mexico, focusing particularly on the emergence of humanitarian spaces for the care of migrants and refugees, and their articulation in networks and collectives, to become key actors of hospitality and solidarity for migrant populations in the country. To this end, we analyze information generated from our own participation in humanitarian activism, with the support of desk research on this topic.

Keywords: shelters, migration, networks, civil society

immigration and networks of shelters in mexico

In Mexico, civil society organizations across the country have historically been involved in assisting immigrants and refugees both in transit and once they settle in their destination. Besides this service, these organizations also do political and social outreach to protect the human rights of these migrants. This article provides an analysis and discussion on the changes in migration dynamics in Mexico, focusing particularly on new spaces that offer humanitarian aid to immigrants and refugees, and the networks and collective organizations they form. It shows how these organizations have become key actors for immigrant populations in Mexico, welcoming them in solidarity. As part of the analysis, information stems from the researchers' own participation in humanitarian activism as well as desk research on the topic.

Keywords: migration, civil society, shelters, networks, Mexico.

Introduction

Since 2010, the dynamics of mobility in Mexico have undergone significant changes in their composition, profiles, routes, modalities of movement and institutional responses. The change in the flows, as well as the reasons for leaving their countries or places of residence, also implied an important change in the attention provided by social organizations, since the transit became slower and the wait longer and longer. In addition, the concept of asylum began to gain strength in the country, as people, knowing they were displaced and with the support and guidance of international organizations and agencies, began to demand their right to be recognized as refugees, which also posed an important challenge for the Mexican institutional response. This situation was compounded by the worsening of U.S. immigration policies, which meant that people had to stay more in the cities and, consequently, in migrant shelters, so that organizations were adapting to the circumstances, modifying their operational structure and response to these populations; this was visible in the number of people hosted, the services offered, the length of stay in the shelters and the integration of new services (medical, psychological, recreational, legal, educational).

Thus, in the migratory processes in Mexico, the presence of hundreds of civil society organizations distributed throughout the country, dedicated to the care and accompaniment of these populations in mobility, has become essential for humanitarian support, visibility and advocacy in favor of the problems associated with their transit or presence in our country.

Faced with the different responses given by State institutions -which could be described as lacking a humanist vision based on the protection of human rights-, with greater emphasis since 2010,1 civil society organizations (both legally constituted and not) have gained ground and made visible both the needs of people in mobility and the constant human rights violations to which they are subjected during their transit or stay in our country.

This paper analyzes the response generated by migrant shelters and houses and in particular the networking initiatives established between these civil society organizations, which have allowed the establishment of alliances, work, communication and protection mechanisms while developing their humanitarian work. In order to achieve the above, field work and an autoethnography exercise in the defense of human rights of migrants was carried out; in addition, a documentary search and analysis of works generated by civil society organizations was carried out, in order to write this text and analyze in the first instance the context of mobility that gives rise to the emergence of these projects. It continues with the configuration of the responses generated by the houses and shelters for migrants, as well as the presentation of some networking experiences that demonstrate the capacity for organization, collaborative work and articulated response in a context of high migration. The article closes with some reflections on the challenges and lessons learned from the experiences analyzed.

Human mobility in Mexico, between emergence, complexity and persistence

As has been widely documented, Mexico is a country of expulsion (Durand, 2017) and return (Canales and Meza, 2018) of migrants who go or have been in the United States. For nearly three decades, these mobility processes have included contingents of foreign populations, initially Central American, who use our country as a transit space to enter the United States (Casillas, 1996), to which, eventually, people from countries such as Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela or other regions such as Africa and Asia have been added.

In this regard, since approximately 2015, it became noticeable that these migratory processes were joined by people motivated not only by economic desires, but above all by fleeing from violence,2 Thus, they set out on the road to safeguard their lives and request recognition of refugee status in our country (Quijas and Hernández-López, 2023). Likewise, the restriction of U.S. immigration policies (Delkáder-Palacios, 2022) made it difficult to enter or even approach the U.S., which made transit and waiting longer, thus turning Mexico into a destination country, temporary or permanent, for thousands of people of different nationalities.

Particularly since 2019, to the historical mechanisms of migration control by the United States were added provisions that, in their eagerness to contain and inhibit the entry of undocumented persons, forced Mexico to become a place of reception of foreign population, as happened with the implementation of the program Quédate en México or Protocol for the Protection of Migrants.3 (mpp (Paris Pombo, 2022), the implementation of Title 42 (Paris Pombo, 2022), the application of Title 42 (Paris Pombo, 2022), the application of Title 424 of the civil code during the covid-19 pandemic (Hernandez and Ramos, 2022) and the use of the cbp-one for the management of asylum defense appointments (Rios, 2024) and the return to the application of Title 8.5 with penalties of between five and ten years for persons attempting to reenter the United States without documents.

As part of the dynamics of mobility in Mexico, we cannot ignore those related to the internal mobility of thousands of people displaced by the persistent criminal violence in different regions of the country (Silva Hernández, 2020), originally from states such as Guerrero, Michoacán, Jalisco or Tamaulipas, who seek in other states (mainly in the north of Mexico) the possibility of preserving their lives outside the context of violence that prevails in their places of origin.6

Particularly noteworthy is the fact that the arrival of internally displaced persons to Mexico's northern border has also become the prelude to international mobility, through the application for asylum in the United States. Although the magnitude of the phenomenon in border cities is unknown, due to the absence of official data, the problem can be felt in humanitarian spaces in cities such as Tijuana, where estimates indicate that 90% of the people sheltered in these spaces were of Mexican origin and in a condition of displacement (Jaramillo, 2024).

However, the aforementioned mobility dynamics have meant a gradual change in migration patterns (Canales and Rojas, 2018), that is, in the composition of the flows, as well as in the routes and migration strategies at the national level, among which stands out the shift from the clandestinity with which, historically, undocumented migrants moved through Mexico, to the visibility and demand for rights, This is evident in the formation of massive flows known as migrant caravans, which occurred with greater importance since the fall-winter of 2018 (Nájera, 2019) and recurrently until 2023, which attempted to transit through the national geography to reach the United States or simply to leave the southern border of Mexico and find in other entities of the country the possibility that their immigration procedures or asylum requests would be resolved in a more expeditious manner.

In this context of historical mobility, Mexico's northern border has been, par excellence, a favorable space for the concentration of the country's most important internal and international mobility dynamics. Cities such as Tijuana in Baja California or Ciudad Juárez in Chihuahua carry a long migratory tradition by becoming temporary or permanent settlements of migrants (Albicker and Velasco, 2016; Pérez, 2015; Castorena, 2021; Martínez Montoya, 2022). Specifically, Tijuana and Ciudad Juárez have become fundamental for understanding, firstly, Mexican migration to the United States, as they are places of forced passage to that country, but also as spaces of return (voluntary and involuntary). Hence, it is not by chance that in cities such as Tijuana, the first migrant house in the country was created in 1987, precisely to attend to the needs of people who have been systematically deported from the United States.

On the other hand, the southern border of the country, specifically cities such as Tapachula, Chiapas or Tenosique in Tabasco, have been an important part of the dynamics of undocumented mobility through the country for more than half a century, with the migration of the Guatemalan population that came to work in the Soconusco region of Chiapas (Castillo, 1990); However, due to the transit of people to the United States, its visibility began to become latent in the late 1990s, although in the last six years the massive presence of migrants and refugees from hundreds of countries has placed it at the center of public attention.

The porosity of Mexico's southern border gained relevance and attention in 2010 with the massacre perpetrated by organized crime against 72 migrants in San Fernando, Tamaulipas, which favored -due to national and international political and social pressure- the observation of migratory transit, access points to the country, routes, means of transportation, their profiles and the actors involved in the problem. This led the Mexican State to try on different occasions to control and order the southern border (Villafuerte, 2017; Castillo, 2022), increasing migration control and verification devices at points and cities that are not necessarily confined to the immediate border environment, but which, in short, serve to try to inhibit or discourage undocumented migratory transit.

In both borders, 2018 was a turning point due to the massive presence or transit of these flows of undocumented migrants. In the north, due to the arrival of nationals and foreigners seeking to enter the United States illegally, through clandestine crossings or by requesting asylum. In the south, due to the arrival of thousands of foreigners from different parts of the continent, seeking recognition as refugees in Mexico or continuing their journey to the northern border to enter the United States.7

However, the connection between both borders inevitably occurs under a transit dynamic, a category that has had to be resemanticized in order to capture the multiplicity of processes that take place within it (Nájera, 2016). Since we no longer speak of transit as we did at the beginning of the 2010s, where this dimension in migratory processes was considered as an interval between departure and arrival, often crossing national borders (although not exclusively), without a precise definition of temporality, but which guaranteed continuity in the movement of people in their journey and destination. It is also noteworthy that the first notion of migratory transit was more linked to the intention of a more labor-related migration, based on the poor living conditions in the place of origin and the possibility of finding better living conditions, employment and wages at the destination (Hernández, 2013; Nájera, 2016).

Now, the reality indicates that the movement of people is no longer to some extent linear, continuous or immediate, but rather it is a movement that can be prolonged over time, change destinations, and resort to different strategies to cross the national geography and enter the United States. Thus, migratory transit, as an analytical category, has acquired new dimensions and allows for longer time intervals, diverse trajectories and uncertain and indefinite waiting times.

In contrast to the traditional motivations for migratory transit (González, 2013; Nájera, 2016; Hernández et al.2019), the worsening of adverse conditions in the countries of origin, such as the exacerbated increase in violence (Castillo Ramírez, 2018), insecurity (Castillo, 2020), as well as major political changes and tensions (Pombo, 2016), in addition to the impact of natural phenomena (earthquakes and hurricanes) (Casillas, 2020), led to a change in the motivations for migration, and the transit was not only and strictly or primarily economic, but with a logic of escape from violence and, therefore, of preservation of life. In this sense, we are currently witnessing the overlapping of motivations that explain the movement of people, making the reasons for leaving one's place of origin or residence very diffuse and complex.

Along with this change in the dynamics of transit and in the motivations for migrating, came an increase in the magnitude of the flows, which brought with it the need for a variety of public institutional responses, many of which were based on a containment approach in force in the last 20 years in Mexican migration policy (Angulo, 2021); despite the fact that it has been repeatedly demonstrated that such measures lead to an increase in risk and vulnerability for migrants. In this sense, the flow of migrants in an irregular situation, despite attempts to contain it, has basically not been reduced and, on the contrary, many migrants have chosen to transform the way they make themselves visible and move in order to transit or remain in the country.8

Thus, from 2018 to 2024, the National Institute of Migration (inm) has registered more than 2,851,000 events9 of people10 of which almost 650,000 have been returned to their places of origin, while the Mexican Commission for Refugee Aid (comar) has a record of more than 555,000 persons11 of about 100 different nationalities that have applied to be recognized as refugees in our country.

Hospitality and solidarity: migrants' homes, shelters and soup kitchens in Mexico

In the face of the adverse situation faced by migrants throughout the country, an extensive solidarity network (Parrini and Alquisiras, 2019) has been formed by shelters and spaces for humanitarian attention that, motivated by the defense of human rights as well as accompanying those who transit or reside temporarily or permanently in the country in their most basic needs, generate spaces for social awareness and advocacy in public policies to counteract the punitive approach of the national migration management. These initiatives have become key spaces, because with their work and advocacy they offer inputs to understand both the changes in migration dynamics, the impact of migration policies and the inefficiency of protection policies, as well as the hospitality and solidarity promoted and exercised by an important sector of Mexican society.

The idea of hospitality goes hand in hand with what the philosopher Jacques Derrida (2004) called unconditional hospitality, which "does not consist of an invitation ('I invite you, I welcome you into my home [...]'").chez moion condition that you adapt yourself to the laws and norms of my territory, according to my language, my tradition, my memory', etc.)". But it is open in advance to anyone who may not be expected, invited and therefore absolutely strange. It becomes, therefore, a condition of the juridical and the political that allows us to think about otherness in a radical way. It necessarily exposes us to the presence of the other, to experiences of welcome and coexistence that would generate new narratives of trust, essential to configure a globalized order of peace (Herrero, 2018).

For its part, solidarity is an ethical category, a product of human sociability, it begins when people are challenged by the suffering of others and is a product of the freedom they have to assume such a commitment (Tischner, 1983). It depends on the historical and cultural context in which it develops and consists of a bond between human beings that favors mutual recognition, involving people in a shared responsibility and commitment. It encompasses humanity in breadth and depth referring to all people equally (Hernández and Mora, 2023).

The implementation of solidarity is a driving force for social organization processes, particularly in contexts where institutional mechanisms for the production and maintenance of justice are inexistent or ineffective. Solidarity also manifests itself in contexts characterized by an unequal distribution of wealth and in which large sectors of the population find themselves in conditions of marginality and poverty. This concept underscores the struggle for the recognition and guarantee of the material minimums indispensable for the development of a dignified life, encompassing the satisfaction of basic needs, the exercise of freedoms and the construction of interpersonal relationships (Hernández and Mora, 2023).

As previously mentioned, the first migrant house in the country was in the city of Tijuana, which was founded by the Missionaries of St. Charles Borromeo (Scalabrinians) with the intention of offering a space for the care of the population deported from the United States, and providing humanitarian services (accommodation, food), as well as support for labor insertion or return to their communities of origin.

Following the charisma of their congregation, the Scalabrinian missionaries gradually set up other spaces for humanitarian aid along the northern border, in 1990 in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua; 2001 in Agua Prieta, Sonora; 2006 in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, where traditionally this experience was very focused on Mexican populations returning from the United States; 2006 in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, where traditionally this experience of attention was very focused on Mexican populations returning from the United States; and on the southern border, with the opening in 1998 of the migrant house in Tapachula, Chiapas, as well as other entities in the country, such as Guadalajara, Jalisco, in 2016 or Mexico City in 2022. In the same vein and with the Scalabrinian charism, in 1994 the Madre Asunta Institute began operations in Tijuana, as an initiative of the Congregation of the Missionary Sisters of St. Charles Borromeo Scalabrinians, which is in 26 countries supporting welfare programs and care for migrants.

Since 2010, after the tragedy of the 72 migrants mentioned above, civil society organizations have been leading advocacy processes in the following years.12 The participation of other social actors, many of them linked to the Catholic Church (although not exclusively), was stimulated, and they began to give life to initiatives for the care, accompaniment and defense of migrants in transit. Thus, a significant number of initiatives for the protection of migrants emerged throughout the country in the form of soup kitchens, day centers and shelters that gradually diversified their services based on the needs identified by people in mobility (Candiz and Bélanger, 2018; Valenzuela, 2024), many of them with support in terms of accommodation, food, hygiene, some included specialized services such as counseling and accompaniment in physical and mental health, as well as legal issues and support for labor or educational insertion for those who made Mexico their destination.

Image 1: Haitian-Venezuelan cuisine in Suchiate, Chiapas. Source: América Navarro, 2023.

Today, there are more than 300 projects13 Many of them have their origins in organizations related to the care and accompaniment of people in transit, basically Central American people who used the rail corridors of the freight train known as La Bestia as a means of transportation to move within Mexican territory.

In this way, Central Americans entered Mexico through the states of Chiapas or Tabasco, where the railroad corridors begin (in cities such as Arriaga, Chiapas and Tabasco).14 and Tenosique, respectively), to continue its journey through the state of Veracruz and later towards the center of the country, from where three important routes emanate: 1) the Pacific or western route, which passes through states such as Guanajuato and Jalisco, until it reaches Sonora and Baja California; 2) the central route, which crosses Zacatecas, Coahuila and Chihuahua; and 3) the gulf route, which runs through San Luis Potosí, Nuevo León and Tamaulipas (Hernández and Valverde, 2018).

Each of these initiatives offers a variety of services to the migrant population, such as food, lodging, cleaning and medical assistance, mainly. In some cases, specialized services are also offered in legal, labor, civil and medical matters or support for local insertion and/or integration. The wide range of services and their quality depends on several factors: a) the level of institutional development (legal constitution, capacity to raise and manage funds, internal organizational structure, development of work plans); b) infrastructure (existence and type of physical space equipped to provide humanitarian services); c) location on migratory routes (this will determine the presence of migrants, as well as the level of flow through the region); and d) the local context (response of authorities and society in general).

In addition, it is worth mentioning that more than 90% of the country's humanitarian projects are articulated or depend directly on the ecclesial pastoral, specifically the Catholic Church.15 The rest are initiatives developed by other churches, such as evangelicals, or other religions such as Muslims, as happened in the city of Tijuana, Baja California, with the opening of a shelter for people of that religion (Mendoza, 2022) or, also, are secular initiatives or not attached to any religious denomination.

An important aspect to highlight is that the work of humanitarian organizations has to do with their capacity to adapt to the rapid changes in the migratory context, especially in the last decade, as it implies transformations in the profiles and needs of the people they serve and accompany. In the north of the country, for example, the variation in the response was related to the shift from priority attention to the Mexican population deported from the United States, to simultaneous attention to the population in transit (mainly Central Americans). In the other regions of the country, humanitarian assistance was focused almost exclusively on people in transit to the United States, from where a variety of services were offered, generally designed for short stays, limited to three days of attention, depending on the case and the organization's capacity.

Later, from migratory transit, there was a shift to prolonged stay, with the arrival of refugees from different regions of the world and, finally, the arrival of internally displaced people to humanitarian spaces in the north of the country.

Thus, all of this gradually contributed to a change in the operating dynamics of the humanitarian assistance centers, many of which, as mentioned above, had been built specifically to serve deported, in-transit or refugee populations, and this implied a specific operating logic in terms of time and form.

Although the causes of mobility are not mutually exclusive, since 2015 the migration pattern has undergone a significant change: first, due to the presence of family groups; second, because the reasons given for leaving the country were related precisely to the need to preserve life, given the spillover of violence and the inability or indifference of institutions in the places of origin to deal with the expansion of gang groups; and, third, due to political instability or tension in the countries of origin, such as Haiti or Venezuela.

This change in the composition of flows, as well as the reasons for leaving their countries or places of residence, also implied an important change in the attention provided by social organizations, since transit became slower and the waiting time longer and longer. In addition, the figure of asylum began to gain strength in the country, as people, knowing they were displaced and with the support and guidance of international organizations and agencies, began to demand their right to be recognized as refugees. At the same time and correlatively, the arrival or strengthening of the operation of international agencies such as the International Organization for Migration (oim) and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (unhcr) have contributed to these changes due to the funding and technical assistance they provide to humanitarian aid agencies.

The increase in forced displacement and problems associated with violence as an explicit reason for people to migrate also posed a major challenge for the Mexican institutional response, since institutions such as the comar had limited capacity to provide services. Thus, by 2015, it only had one office in Mexico City, from where it served the entire country, through the support provided by the inm.

Thus, the scarce or non-existent public institutional response to the vulnerability of migrants and the intensification of U.S. migration policies led people to stay more in the cities and, consequently, in migrant shelters, As a result, the organizations adapted to the circumstances and modified their operational structure and response to these populations, which was visible in the number of people housed, the services offered, the length of stay in the shelters and the integration of new services (medical, psychological, recreational, legal, educational).

In this regard, it should be noted that an increase in the number of people staying in such spaces also implies an increase in operating costs, but above all in the need for different responses to assist and accompany these waiting populations, since it is not the same thing to provide humanitarian assistance with food, a place to rest and hygiene, It is not the same to provide humanitarian assistance with food, a place for rest and hygiene, a bit of clothing and some advice for a person who is alone, in transit and will not stay long in its facilities, than to offer its services to someone who arrives with children or adolescents or who needs to stay for weeks or months due to the immigration or international protection procedures required to settle in the country.

On the other hand, and as mentioned, humanitarian work and especially the presence of shelters and migrant houses have grown significantly in the country, and along with it the ability to make links and alliances between peers. This has been partly motivated by the Christian charisma of many of the projects and their relationship with the Catholic Church, but, above all, by the context of violence, impunity towards migrants and their defenders, who have not been excluded from human rights violations by the State, and aggressions by individuals, such as organized crime groups, as was the case with Fray Tomás González and Rubén Figueroa in Tenosique, Tabasco, in 2013, threatened with death and of being found embalmed if they did not stop interfering with organized crime (Front Line Defenders, 2024), or the priest Alejandro Solalinde, in Ixtepec, Oaxaca, in 2013, for denouncing cases of torture in a migratory station of the National Institute of Migration (Vázquez, 2023), or Adrián and Wilson, murdered in 2014 in the State of Mexico while supporting migrants in transit (Fundar, 2014), or the organization fm4 Paso Libre de Guadalajara in 2015, which had to close its doors due to threats from organized crime and persistent insecurity in its service space (El Diario ntr, 2015).

All this has given way to the formation of interesting articulation efforts that, by seeking collaboration mechanisms, try to strengthen the capacities and work of its members, develop joint initiatives and maintain constant communication to meet the demands of migratory flows through the cities in which they are inserted.

Networking between organizations

Of the networking experiences that have emerged at least in the last decade, not all have managed to survive. Some of them have been transformed and others have had intermittent presence. Among them, three stand out, with different scopes and temporalities, which together show the existence of varied strategies for direct attention to the population in mobility, as well as political and social incidence.

A first effort to be mentioned is that of the Collective of Defenders of Migrants and Refugees (Codemire),16 born in 2015 and disappeared approximately five years later. Although it ceased to operate, it is interesting to highlight it as an iconic effort in the humanitarian response in the country, which managed to bring together a significant number of actors in the defense of the human rights of migrants and refugees, which, in turn, already positioned in its agenda the important presence of refugees in our country. It was a significant space in the defense of human rights defenders, in a context of strong and persistent aggressions against those who worked in the accompaniment of migrants.

Image 2: Migrant dining room in Frontera Hidalgo, Chiapas. Source: Alberto Hernández, 2023.

Codemire was a collective of Christian inspiration, formed by 28 houses/shelters for migrants, individuals and social organizations with presence throughout the national territory. It was born as an alternative and independent initiative to the ecclesiastical structure of the Catholic Church that brought together more than 500 pastoral agents including bishops, priests, religious, religious and volunteers who were part of the Dimension of the Social Pastoral of Human Mobility (Dimensión de la Pastoral Social de Movilidad Humana (dpmh)17 and that operate through their ecclesiastical provinces, dioceses and churches at the local level, from where the social work of the Catholic Church in Mexico is carried out (Guevara, 2015) which, among its functions, is precisely that of coordinating with shelters and migrant homes.18 (Casillas, 2021).

Among the objectives of Codemire was the promotion and defense of the human rights of migrants, refugees and their families, as well as their defenders, in the face of the serious and violent crisis faced by the migrant population in transit through Mexico (Centro Prodh, 2015). This collective, apart from bringing together a significant number of spaces dedicated to the direct attention of the population in mobility, had a very relevant component in terms of political advocacy at the local and federal levels, in which it permanently demanded the Mexican State to comply with its duty to protect migrants, regardless of their migratory status, as well as the cessation of migration verification operations in the country and the scrutiny of civil society in the implementation of migration policy, as they did when expressing their concern about the implementation of the so-called Southern Border Plan (Centro Prodh, 2015), or in front of the extraordinary meeting of the National Conference of Governors (Conago) in May 2017, in which they exposed the double discourse of the federal government in terms of human rights protection (gtpm, 2017).

There is no formal date for the end of Codemire's work since, like several other collective exercises, it ceased to have joint articulation and response activities with the passage of time; however, one of the reasons that contributed to its blurring and subsequent disappearance were the changes in the coordination of the initiative, motivated by appointments within the Mexican episcopate, which sought to qualify both the leadership and the ways in which advocacy actions in favor of migrants were being generated.

Two of the impacts that this space generated in its short existence had to do, firstly, with the possibility of articulating in an orderly and effective way the different dedicated, humanitarian and advocacy projects with a Christian mystique in a joint effort. Although each shelter and aid space for people in mobility was managed independently and autonomously, being part of this collective allowed for closer relationships between peers who carried out similar actions in different regions of the country, the construction of a common mystique, inspired by the Christian-Catholic religion, as well as the establishment of joint actions to face common challenges, which could be in operational matters, such as managing support for the operation of the spaces.

The second impact was the capacity for dialogue and advocacy as a collective, achieved at the national level at the federal level, but also at the state level through the strengthening and accompaniment of defenders, activists and local organizations. This allowed us to make visible not only the complex situation of migrants, but also the risks faced by human rights defenders, and the necessary participation of authorities at different levels to provide or strengthen protection mechanisms in their work in defense of human rights.

From another area of the humanitarian world emerged an initiative made up exclusively of shelters and migrant homes called Red de Documentación de las Organizaciones Defensoras de Migrantes (Documentation Network of Migrant Defense Organizations) (redodem), acThe program is comprised of 24 shelters and houses for migrants located in 14 Mexican states,19 that provide direct care and various support services to people in situations of human mobility and vulnerability (redodem, 2023). The redodem was born from the initiative of a group of defenders who, moved by the violence and impunity towards migrants, as well as by the lack of information about and invisibility of the processes associated with migratory transit, generated evidence with information obtained first hand by the shelters themselves, through their various mechanisms for recording the care provided to migrants, with the intention of showing the harsh reality of migration, raising awareness among the local population and positively influencing the transformation of migration policies. To this end, a database would be developed,20 which would be unprecedented in the collaborative efforts of organizations dedicated to humanitarian care.

This tool would generate a document archive that would be supplied from the different geographies of migratory transit and would allow for the monitoring of people, both for their care and for the generation of records that could address a case of possible disappearance. With the information generated, since 2013 annual reports began to be developed based on the registration of the socio-demographic profiles of migratory flows and the multiple human rights violations of which they are victims, in order to influence politically and socially to reduce the risk and vulnerability of migrants.

The work and effort of the redodem has been a pioneer in bringing together exclusively areas of direct attention, by creating a shared registry and generating information in parallel with official records (migration statistics) and important academic surveys (Emif North and South), thus carrying out interesting work born from the very context and space in which the information is generated on a daily basis.

In this way, the joint work of the redodem is a space for the generation of information, which serves not only to make the daily work of social organizations dedicated to humanitarian assistance more efficient, but also as a documentary basis for advocacy, the comparison of governmental data and work with the community.

On the other hand, in an effort recently developed in southern Mexico, the Network of Shelters for Migrants and Refugees has emerged,21 which seeks to be a support and strengthening network in various areas (humanitarian assistance, institutional development, linkage to the work being carried out on a daily basis by member organizations). The initiative that has given face to the emergence of this network is the "Volunteering Mexico", a program that seeks to strengthen the humanitarian work in shelters for the care of the population in mobility, through the solidarity collaboration for six months of people from different parts of Mexico and the continent.

The "Volunteering Mexico" project has been implemented since July 2021, in which more than 140 people of more than six nationalities have been able to join the work of 17 migrant houses in the south, center and north of the country, collaborating in areas of work such as humanitarian care, psychological and legal support, monitoring of immigration procedures and liaison with external actors.

Finally, it is worth mentioning that there are other initiatives in the country that bring together different social organizations working in the care and accompaniment of the migrant population. They bring together member organizations that have common interests, visions, work models, shared objectives or even common work regions.22 Some even go beyond humanitarian assistance and join forces with organizations dedicated to strategic litigation or public policy advocacy, such as Sin Fronteras, i.a.pThe following organizations are members of the Mexican Association for Justice and the Democratic Rule of Law in Mexico City; Fray Matías de Córdova in Tapachula, Chiapas; Alma Migrante in Tijuana, Baja California; and Amnesty International, nationwide.

In addition, there are organizations that are part of other broader networks that address a diversity of human rights issues, such as the National Network of Civil Human Rights Organizations "Todos los Derechos para Todas, Todos y Todes" (National Network of Civil Human Rights Organizations "All Rights for All, All and Todes"). tdt), which is defined as a meeting and collaboration space for human rights organizations in which joint strategies are developed to make more effective the defense and promotion of all human rights for all people. It is currently made up of 87 organizations from 23 states of the Mexican Republic (Red de Derechos Humanos). tdt2024), whose members include a number of organizations dedicated to migration issues.

Final thoughts

Mexico has an extensive solidarity network directed towards populations in mobility (Parrini and Alquisiras, 2019). The historical Mexican migration to the United States and the return to Mexico, the increase in flows from Central America and other regions of the world to or in transit through Mexico, as well as the intensification of migration policies with a punitive and criminalizing character have motivated the development of important initiatives that stand out for their humanitarian commitment to migrants and refugees.

The importance of these efforts lies, first, in the capacity that these organizations have demonstrated to address the needs of migrants and refugees in the context of a permanently convulsive and adverse context, showing more often than not that a lot can be done with little. In addition, each organization has developed models, mechanisms and strategies to attend to people in mobility according to their resources and capacities, which undoubtedly generate differences in the type of responses they provide, which does not detract from the commitment they make on a daily basis.

Over at least the last two decades there has been a significant emergence of humanitarian assistance projects aimed at migrants and refugees (shelters and migrant houses), which have developed alliances that have allowed them to accompany each other along the way, strengthen their care processes, distribute the burden and develop joint strategies that have a greater impact on the lives of people and on the policies that affect populations in mobility in the country.

Fundamental elements in the work of the organizations are those of hospitality and solidarity as recognition of the equality of human dignity, which allows consideration of the asymmetries and inequalities inherent in human life. This recognition promotes the transformation of the conditions that generate injustice, which violate people's dignity.

The efforts of the organizations in turn demonstrate the capacity for innovation in the generation of responses in accordance with the abrupt changes in the reality and context of the country, such as migratory transit. Actions are generated in favor of the human rights defenders themselves, as an act of solidarity and also of responsibility for those who are involved in processes of attention that, by their very nature, are exhausting, exhausting and, in scenarios such as the Mexican one, risky.

On the other hand, the creation of a tool for the registration of people in transit may seem a simple activity, but, framed in the context of the different capacities of shelters and migrant houses, it is a pedagogical training exercise for those who serve in these spaces, while generating reliable first-hand information that allows not only to operate to improve their spaces and manage resources with donors, but also constitutes a mechanism for social awareness and public policy advocacy.

In parallel, solidarity responses are built with the action of volunteers and demonstrate the innovative capacity of humanitarian actors, by recognizing the great work of these people who donate their time and service, and thus make possible the sustainability of many of these spaces. This generates forms of awareness that allow, by looking at the processes of human mobility, to sharpen the perspective, analyze the reality with other lenses or, at least, to question the different injustices, inequalities and violence that are experienced in different areas of life. Hence, the volunteer experience is also a formative space offered by the shelters for the national or foreign population that comes to them.

Undoubtedly, the challenges and areas of opportunity are still many; networking and humanitarian response are not exempt from tensions, disputes and conflicts that occasionally stagnate or make collaborative work and joint response difficult. Nevertheless, the examples shown here demonstrate that the efforts of these actors of organized solidarity (Casillas, 2021), continue to be key in a context such as the Mexican one. This demonstrates precisely that in the face of restrictive policies and exclusive societies, solidarity is the way forward.

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Rafael Alonso Hernández is a professor-researcher in the Department of Social Studies and coordinator of the PhD in Migration Studies at El Colegio de la Frontera Norte in Tijuana, Mexico. D. in Social Sciences from the Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social (ciesas-West). Award for the best doctoral thesis. Arturo Warman Interinstitutional Chair, 2016. Member of the National System of Researchers, level ii. Member of the Board of Directors of Hospitalidad y Solidaridad, A.C., an organization that shelters and accompanies refugees in Chiapas. He was president of the Citizen Council of the National Institute of Migration from 2018 to 2021 and director of fm4 Paso Libre in Guadalajara, Mexico, from 2014 to 2018. During the period from 2014 to 2017, he was the national coordinator of the Documentation Network of Migrant Defense Organizations (redodem), a space that articulates 23 shelters for migrants and refugees throughout Mexico. Its areas of interest are international migration (migratory flows, international protection, migration policy, human rights).