Navigating systems of control as a humanitarian worker in battlegrounds of migration governance in Mexico and the United States

The term ‘battleground’ (Campomori & Ambrosini, 2020) has been adopted as a more realistic conceptualization of the collaborative and conflictual relations between multileveled actors who are involved in the governance of migration (Campomori & Ambrosini, 2020; Dimitriadis et al., 2021; Ambrosini, 2021). Humanitarian workers provide care to migrants which governments are unable or unwilling to. Many go beyond offering lifesaving essential aid to perform acts of solidarity, which makes relationships in battlegrounds more complex. Based on virtual qualitative interviews with humanitarian workers at multiple locations in Mexico and the U.S. in addition to document analysis, this research illustrates the relationships between humanitarian workers, government authorities, society, and migrants to gain a deeper understanding of the Americas’ migration management regime. It finds that while operating within systems of control which securitize and criminalize migration beyond the physical border, humanitarian workers find themselves at a nexus of protection/promotion. Here, humanitarian protection risks presenting as if it is promoting irregular migration. This research demonstrates how humanitarian workers and international and national NGOs navigate this nexus as well as the ‘battlegrounds’ of migration governance in Mexico and the U.S. to endure, confront, and/or escape systems of control. While the humanitarian principle of humanity is relevant, upholding the principle of neutrality is a struggle in this context in which migration is perceived as a policy-induced crisis founded upon the idea of national security. It ultimately provides insights into how the humanitarian sector along the U.S. and Mexico borderscape is shifting towards an unprincipled, human-rights based approach to bring about a more human-centered migration system.