“Por trocha”: Circumventing the Episodical Criminalization of Migration in the Andes

• Published date: 01 September 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00027162241245505
• Author: Soledad Álvarez Velasco,Manuel Bayón Jiménez
• Date: 01 September 2023

24 ANNALS, AAPSS, 709, September 2023

DOI: 10.1177/00027162241245505

“Por trocha”:

Circumventing

the Episodical

Criminalization

of Migration in

the Andes

By

SOLEDAD ÁLVAREZ

VELASCO

and

MANUEL BAYÓN JIMÉNEZ

1245505ANN THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMYCIRCUMVENTING EPISODICAL CRIMINALIZATION OF MIGRATION

research-article2024

We analyze how the criminalization of migration has

taken hold in the borderlands of Ecuador and Colombia

from 2000 to 2022, despite the existence of progressive

legal frameworks in those two countries that have his-

torically allowed for relatively open borders and recog-

nition of migrants’ rights. We use a historical and

ethnographic approach to explore how criminalizing

mechanisms have been implemented, showing that the

criminalization of migration happened episodically.

The criminalization of migration has been justified

under the legal regime of migrant-smuggling statutes,

and mechanisms of criminalization have been activated

only at specific junctures to halt the growth of irregu-

larized migrations from the Global South to the U.S.

We go on to argue that border crossings por trocha, as

unlawful river and land pathways are locally known,

have served as a strategy for resistance to criminaliza-

tion and have enhanced the expansion and refinement

of illegal border economies and local livelihoods.

Keywords: transit; irregularized migration; open bor-

ders; contraband; South America

This article examines the criminalization of

migration and local forms of resistance to

reinforced migration governance in Ecuador,

Colombia, and their shared borderlands. Until

the end of the 20th century, both Andean coun-

tries were predominantly migrant-sending

Correspondence: solalv7@uic.edu

Soledad Álvarez Velasco is an assistant professor in the

departments of Anthropology and Latin American and

Latino studies at the University of Illinois Chicago. She

analyzes the interrelationship between mobility, con-

trol, and spatial transformations across the Americas.

She is the author of the book Frontera sur chiapaneca:

El muro humano de la violencia (Mexico: CIESAS-

UIA, 2016).

Manuel Bayón Jiménez is a researcher at El Colegio de

México, in the international project Wealth & Space,

and part of the Colectivo de Geografía Crítica del

Ecuador, with whom he has worked on the series of

publications Migrant Justice on mobilities during the

pandemic in Ecuador.

CIRCUMVENTING EPISODICAL CRIMINALIZATION OF MIGRATION 25

spaces. Steadily since the late 1960s, Colombia (with approximately 3 million

emigrants or approximately 5 percent of its total population) and Ecuador

(approximately 2 million or approximately 11 percent of its total population)1

have experienced significant emigration flows of their nationals (International

Organization for Migration [IOM] 2017). Contrary to many other states in the

world, their legal frameworks have enshrined an open-border, migrant-rights-

based approach. For instance, the constitutions of Colombia (1991) and Ecuador

(2008) both recognize, among other things, equal rights for foreign noncitizens

and citizens and the right to seek asylum within their national territories.

Additionally, current immigration policies—the Migratory Law 2136 of Colombia

(2023) and the Organic Law of Human Mobility of Ecuador (2017)—openly

prohibit the criminalization of migration. Those policies have led to freedom-of-

movement and residency programs for mobile populations as part of regional

mobility agreements like those contemplated under the MERCOSUR and the

Andean Community2 (Stang 2009). Those policies have also led to an increase in

migrants entering and transiting those countries.

Given that Ecuador’s and Colombia’s progressive legal framework is still in

force, the global trend to integrate criminal law and immigration law to govern

migrant mobilities and to reinforce securitized borders (Huysmans 2000; Stumpf

2006) would seem to have no place in these two countries. Superficial appear-

ances can, however, be deceiving and, here, ignore three crucial developments:

(1) the adherence of both countries to the global antismuggling regime, (2) their

transformation from sending to receiving and transit countries, and (3) the lim-

ited implementation of their progressive legal frameworks that have allowed for

a paradoxical coexistence of progressive laws with repressive antimigrant

mechanisms.

The criminalization of migration, which started in the mid-1980s as a strat-

egy to combat unwanted migration in the U.S. (García Hernández 2021), was

externalized across the Americas under the pretext of fighting transnational

crime, including migrant smuggling (Mountz 2020). In 2000, Ecuador and

Colombia signed the Palermo Protocol, which categorizes migrant smuggling

as a criminal offense. Ever since, both countries have implemented legal regu-

lations and operations to combat this crime and indirectly irregularized migra-

tion (Mansur Dias 2015). Additionally, in the early years of the 21st century, the

migratory pattern of both Andean countries shifted from being predominantly

migrant-sending countries; they have also become destinations and transit

spaces to the U.S. used by new flows of Global South migrants coming from

South America, the Caribbean, and, to a lesser extent, Africa and Asia (Ceballos

Medina, Clavijo Padilla, and González Gil 2021). As an effect, their shared

borderlands, particularly the highland and Amazonian sections, have turned

into a connecting node within the new geography of migration in the Americas

(Álvarez Velasco 2020). As these new migratory flows have increased, visa

requirements have been reimposed, and stronger requirements for regularizing

migrants or granting asylum have been adopted; as a result, migrant illegality

has increased, as has confinement to risky, irregularized border transits

(Echeverri Zuluaga et al. 2023; Herrera and Cabezas Gálvez 2019). In this way,