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David Bacon

Families in the camp’s tents cook their food for lunch.

On the Line: Waiting for Refuge in Mexico City

With all the attention on the detention centers on the border, U.S. media rarely, if ever, acknowledge that camps of migrants and displaced people exist throughout Mexico.

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With all the attention on the detention centers on the border, U.S. media rarely, if ever, acknowledge that camps of migrants and displaced people exist throughout Mexico. Since May, I’ve photographed Haitian refugees who began living in a settlement in downtown Mexico City in April. More than one hundred families were heading for the border when they realized that they would not be able to cross or that, if they were unsuccessful in getting asylum (hardly any Haitians are able to), they would be immediately deported back to Haiti. In May alone, nearly 4,000 Haitians were deported by the United States government.

The Mexican government provides some minimal services to the Haitians, who are debating whether they should stay in Mexico. There is a process, albeit cumbersome, in which they can apply for permission to stay and work. As you can see in the accompanying photos, next to the Haitian encampment is a plantón, or Occupy-style protest camp set up by Otomí Indigenous people and the association United for Farmer and Indigenous Rights. They are demanding decent housing and protesting gentrification. 

The neighborhood authorities who maintain the plaza have painted on a wall behind the migrant tents, “El Amor Es el Vínculo de Vínculos,” or “Love Is the Bond of All Bonds.” It is an ironic statement, given the world’s (and especially the United States’) hostility to migrants, but it is also a nod to the people of this neighborhood who have granted them the use of the park as a place to rest.