“Por trocha”: Circumventing episodical criminalization of migration and restrictive mobility control in the Andes.
by Soledad Álvarez Velasco and Manuel Bayón Jiménez
Until the end of the 20th century, both Andean countries were predominantly migrant-sending spaces. 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 foreigner 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.
The global trend to integrate criminal law and immigration law to govern migrant mobilities and to reinforce securitized borders would seem to have no place in these two countries. Superficial appearances can, however, be deceiving and, here, ignore three crucial developments: 1) the adherence of both countries to the global anti-smuggling regime via the signature and implementation of the Palermo Protocol, 2) their transformation from sending to receiving and transit countries, and 3) the paradoxical coexistence of progressive laws with repressive anti-migrant mechanisms.
The studied borderland Ecuador-Colombia. Source: Álvarez Velasco and Bayón Jiménez
By concentrating on the span of time from 2000 to 2022, a period that coincides with pivotal changes in migrant mobility and control in Ecuador and Colombia, and by focusing on the mobility-control dynamics of their shared highland and Amazonian borderlands, we examine the forms in which the criminalization of migration has operated in Ecuador and Colombia and the ways in which migrants have resisted. We argue that the criminalization of migration has been implemented only episodically. Justified under the legal niche to combat the criminal offense of migrant smuggling, criminalizing mechanisms have been activated only at specific conjunctures to halt the augment of Global South irregularized migrations – mainly from South America, the Caribbean and, to a lesser extent, Africa, and Asia – in transit to the U.S. the article shows that border crossings por trocha, as unlawful river and land pathways are locally known, have served as strategy for resistance enhancing the expansion and refinement of illegal border economies and local livelihoods.
When we say that the criminalization of migration has been episodical, we mean that it has been applied only at very specific conjunctures and in certain locations. Justified under laws aiming to combat migrant smuggling, criminalizing mechanisms and restrictive migratory policies have been activated only at specific conjunctures to halt the irregularized migrations of Global South migrants in transit to the U.S. When activated, the mechanisms of enforcement have led to detentions, expulsions, deportations, closure and militarization of the studied borderlands, particularly during the peak of pandemic period (2020-2022). In response, migrants have deployed strategies to circumvent those episodical mechanisms; as criminalization has been activated, border crossings por trocha have multiplied. Not only has this sustained migrants’ mobility projects, but it has also contributed to illegal economies and local livelihoods in these borderlands.
Land trochas located in the Amazonian section of the Ecuador-Colombia border. Source: Álvarez Velasco, 2022.
Our analysis is based on a twofold perspective. On the one hand, we revisit Ecuadorean and Colombian migration policy documents to identify and contextualize changes in mobility control that have allowed for the implementation of the episodical criminalization of migration. On the other, we refocus our analysis on the micro-politics of border practices. Through an ethnographical exploration of the highland and Amazonian sections of the Ecuador–Colombia borderlands, we identify discrepancies between decision-making and norm developments at the centers of power and everyday life at borders. Here, we are interested primarily in how border actors, through their everyday transactions, configure the border crossings por trocha in ways that sustain migrant mobilities and border livelihoods more widely.
The Ecuador–Colombia border extends through a 600-kilometer-long territory. It has been shaped by two unsolved structural problems: 1) the long-standing Colombian armed conflict; and 2) both states’ historical abandonment of the region, which has resulted in growing impoverishment, scarce border control infrastructure, and an expansion of illegal border economies to sustain border livelihoods. This is a violent, conflictive, unequal transnational space where paramilitary, drug traffickers, criminals, military, state and humanitarian actors, local inhabitants, and migrants coexist in tension. Those border actors have historically opened trochas across river and land pathways to put into circulation diverse commodities (including food, fabrics, household appliances, gasoline, gas cylinders, and drugs, particularly cocaine) that are resold not only in the Ecuadorean and Colombian markets but also in other international markets. The smuggling of goods is a crime under Colombian Penal Code Article 319 and Ecuadorean Integral Organic Penal Code Article 301. Nonetheless, the local population has seen it as a legitimate activity and an alternative form of survival. Ecuadorean and Colombian border actors have operated within a wide spectrum of illegal and legal, licit and illicit practices that make up the comercio hormiga, as the crime of contraband is locally known.
Land trochas located in the Amazonian section of the Ecuador-Colombia border. Source: Álvarez Velasco, 2022.
As criminalizing mechanisms have been imposed episodically to deter the transits of Global South irregularized migrants, those migrants have turned to the already established trochas to continue their route to the U.S. Being a social construct, trochas are, therefore, places through which the circulation of commodities, capital, and migrants imbricate as a nodal element to sustain border livelihoods in Tulcán, Ecuador, and Ipiales, Colombia, and the Amazonian borderlands between Lago Agrio, Ecuador, and La Hormiga, Colombia. Through migrant’s testimonios we also show that the risk of trochas is present when traversing paramos, mountains and rivers because of potential natural hazards and abuses committed by authorities or border actors. The death of migrants by trocha is a reality in Ecuador-Colombia that is not only rumored about but increasingly reported by local press.
Our twofold analysis shows that the enforcement of criminalizing policies is not a rigid, top-down process, exported from Global North destinations to Global South transit countries, but a contested, paradoxical, and intricated practice, with internal contradictions that precisely allow for local socioeconomic reorganizations and resistance to control. Despite the fact that those criminalizing mechanisms have so far been implemented only episodically, it does not preclude the possibility that they may be reactivated at any moment or further refined to include other more aggressive mechanisms. Such appears to be the case when, in a present time when south-north irregularized migration in transit to the U.S. is multiplying by the thousands. Hardened borders and criminalizing measures do not defeat smugglers, they impact on migrants’ lives. Future research will benefit from future studies that explore the new ways in which regional actors criminalize migration; and those undertaking that research would do well to look carefully at whether and how criminalization deliberately targets migrants from the impoverished Global South—by and large a population that only seeks sanctuary from ongoing struggle. Such research could focus on how migrants simultaneously maneuver, navigate, and contest the imposition of being governed through criminalization.
Article Details
“Por trocha”: Circumventing the Episodical Criminalization of Migration in the Andes
Soledad Álvarez Velasco, Manuel Bayón Jiménez
First published June 11, 2024 Research article
DOI: 10.1177/00027162241245505
The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
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