The Role of Legal Documents in the Lives of Children and Adolescents on the move within and through Mexico

Abstract

Exerting control over borders has become one of the main preoccupations of contemporary nation states, particularly regarding the access of irregularized migrants who, in their view, pose a threat to national security. To this end, they erect walls and increase border surveillance.

One of the forms of border control and surveillance exerted by nation states over foreigners is the use of identity documents. Identity cards, passports and birth certificates determine inclusion and exclusion from citizenship, as well as playing a fundamental role in the eligibility for international protection, such as political asylum or the admission of unaccompanied Children and adolescents.

The objective of this article is to explain the role of these documents in the lives of children and adolescents on the move within and through Mexico. Their access, or lack thereof, to some of these documents directly affects or even determines their migration experience, journey and process, particularly in the cases in which some become "unaccompanied children" precisely because of their legal guardians' lack of a document. This article explores the effects of documents on children and adolescents related to them, through different situations investigated in the fieldwork I conducted in Mexico City 2021, 2022 and Tijuana for my doctoral thesis, between August and December 2022.

The main finding of this research is that it is precisely the process of strict document enforcement that produces more illegality among unaccompanied migrants, as well as more unaccompanied migrants per se.