Migrant Smuggling Data and Research

esearch has also emerged on the topic of human trafficking in the context of
irregular migration, literature that often suggests the transformation of human
smuggling into trafficking, or describes it as such by relying on the incorrect use
of both terms as interchangeable. The role of local, humanitarian organizations,
such as shelters, churches and ordinary citizens at providing assistance to
migrants has also received attention, although to a lesser degree and often in
the context of migrant transits analyses. Lastly, some publications that delve on
the topic of missing and dead migrants have sought to raise awareness over
the lack of data on migrant fatalities and the virtual absence of State-sponsored
mechanisms allowing migrants’ families to report the missing or locate or
recover their remains.
Investigative journalism
Investigative journalism has been behind the production of the majority
of the stories and research on irregular migration in the Americas, although with
varying degrees of quality and effectiveness. The topic has indeed generated a
substantial amount of coverage reliant on dramatic stories of often graphic nature
and depictions of human tragedy and pain where migrants and their families are
monolithically represented as victims. There is an onslaught of articles, books,
documentaries and movies on irregular migration within the Americas, often
produced and/or funded by global news organizations or foreign journalists who,
having travelled to some of the most notable migration corridors in the continent
(Central America and Mexico, or the United States–Mexico borderlands), produce
material that is often dubbed as representing the “human side of the migration
phenomenon” in a fashion that often lacks context and further fuels notions of
migration as problematic and in need of control. Journalism’s reliance on social
media has further allowed for the mass diffusion of these messages, many times
sensationalistic in nature, to a global audience – and for these messages in turn
to be construed and mobilized as factual evidence of the risks migration flows
pose to destination countries. Books, such as Enrique’s Journey (Nazario, 2013)
on the journeys of unaccompanied minors from Central America to the United
States, or The Beast (Martínez, 2014) on migrants’ encounters with organized
crime in their journeys through Mexico, have been translated and adapted for
western and English readers and enjoyed great editorial success – an acclaim
of a kind neither book received in Latin America. Journalistic coverage by Latin
American investigative journalists themselves remains relatively unknown,
marginalized as part of the global coverage on irregular migration across the
continent that favours European and American authors, sources and storylines.
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11. Latin America