ABRIL, 2026 (19-41)Número 28

DETERRENCE BY EMERGENCY:

SECURITIZED MIGRATION GOVERNANCE

AND HUMANITARIAN CONSEQUENCES

IN THE TIJUANA-SAN DIEGO BORDER

REGION (2022-2025)

DISUASIÓN POR EMERGENCIA:

GOBERNANZA DE LA MIGRACIÓN

SECURITIZADA Y CONSECUENCIAS

HUMANITARIAS EN LA REGIÓN FRONTERIZA

DE TIJUANA-SAN DIEGO (2022-2025)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.37135/chk.002.28.01

Research Article

Received: (26/08/2025)

Accepted: (21/11/2025)

1Research Professor, El Colegio de la Frontera Norte, Public Administration Studies

Department, Tijuana, México, email: ramosjm@colef.mx

2Postdoctoral Researcher, El Colegio de la Frontera Norte, Public Administration

Studies Department, Tijuana, México, email: ramos.jimmy@uabc.edu.mx

José María Ramos García1,

Jimmy Emmanuel Ramos Valencia2

DETERRENCE BY EMERGENCY: SECURITIZED MIGRATION GOVERNANCE AND HUMANITARIAN

CONSEQUENCES IN THE TIJUANA-SAN DIEGO BORDER REGION (2022-2025)

Número 28 / ABRIL, 2026 (19-41)

This study investigates the impact of the 2025 National Emergency Declaration (NED) on irregular

migration ows across the Tijuana-San Diego corridor, examining contemporary border governance

and human mobility. The objective is determining how the NED reshaped migration patterns and

whether intensied enforcement redirected routes and deterred crossings. Employing a qualitative–

interpretive paradigm with case study design, the research triangulates multiple data sources:

presidential proclamations, Department of Homeland Security directives, Customs and Border

Protection statistics, Congressional testimony, and humanitarian organization reports from northern

Mexico. Document analysis and thematic coding provided primary analytical instruments; no human

subjects were interviewed. The timeframe spans scal years 2022-2025, enabling comparative analysis

pre- and post-emergency. Results reveal profound border management restructuring: decision-making

centralized within Homeland Security, expanded military involvement, expedited removal procedures,

and intensied Mexico coordination. Irregular entries declined sharply, driven by deterrence and

externalized control rather than addressing structural migration drivers. Simultaneously, humanitarian

conditions deteriorated-migrant mortality increased, asylum access narrowed, and Tijuana shelters

became overburdened. These ndings underscore tensions between operational eectiveness and

humanitarian imperatives. While emergency measures achieved short-term enforcement objectives,

they deepened ethical, legal, and humanitarian dilemmas, questioning the sustainability of governing

migration through exceptional states.

KEYWORDS: International migration, border governance, state of exception, human rights, migration

policy

Este estudio analiza el impacto de la Declaración de Emergencia Nacional (DEN) de 2025 en los

ujos migratorios irregulares del corredor Tijuana-San Diego, analizando las transformaciones en la

gobernanza fronteriza y movilidad humana. El objetivo central consiste en determinar cómo la DEN

reconguró patrones migratorios y evaluar si la intensicación del control fronterizo redirigió rutas

y disuadió cruces no autorizados. La investigación adoptó un paradigma cualitativo-interpretativo

mediante diseño de estudio de caso, triangulando fuentes documentales diversas: proclamaciones

presidenciales, directivas gubernamentales, estadísticas fronterizas, testimonios congresionales e

informes de organizaciones humanitarias. El análisis documental y codicación temática constituyeron

los instrumentos metodológicos principales durante el período 2022-2025. Los hallazgos evidencian

una reestructuración profunda del sistema fronterizo: centralización decisoria en Seguridad Nacional,

militarización operacional, procedimientos expeditos de expulsión y coordinación bilateral intensicada

con México. Las entradas irregulares declinaron signicativamente, atribuible a estrategias disuasorias

y control externalizado más que a resolución de causas estructurales migratorias. Paralelamente,

las condiciones humanitarias se deterioraron marcadamente, manifestándose en mayor mortalidad

migratoria, acceso restringido al asilo y saturación de albergues tijuanenses. Estos resultados

revelan tensiones fundamentales entre ecacia operativa e imperativos humanitarios, cuestionando

la sostenibilidad ética y jurídica de gobernar la migración mediante la excepcionalidad permanente.

PALABRAS CLAVE: Migración internacional, gobernanza de fronteras, estado de excepción,

derechos humanos, política migratoria

ABSTRACT

RESUMEN

DETERRENCE BY EMERGENCY:

SECURITIZED MIGRATION GOVERNANCE

AND HUMANITARIAN CONSEQUENCES IN

THE TIJUANA-SAN DIEGO BORDER REGION

(2022-2025)

DISUASIÓN POR EMERGENCIA:

GOBERNANZA DE LA MIGRACIÓN

SECURITIZADA Y CONSECUENCIAS

HUMANITARIAS EN LA REGIÓN FRONTERIZA

DE TIJUANA-SAN DIEGO (2022-2025)

José María Ramos García, Jimmy Emmanuel Ramos Valencia

CHAKIÑAN. Revista de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades / ISSN 2550 - 6722

INTRODUCTION

The U.S.–Mexico border has long functioned as a symbolic and materi-

al crossroads where sovereignty, national security, and human rights in-

tersect. In January 2025, immediately after his inauguration, President

Donald J. Trump reissued a National Emergency Declaration (NED) at

the southern border. This action revived and expanded measures rst

enacted in 2019 and authorized extraordinary interventions, including

the diversion of military construction funds, the deployment of addi-

tional personnel from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and

the Department of Defense, and the implementation of expedited re-

moval procedures for non-Mexican nationals (The White House, 2025).

The administration framed the declaration as a response to an invasion

of irregular migrants, embedding migration within a national security

discourse. As Abrego and León (2025) observe, “US immigration pol-

icy begins to shape migrant experiences even before migrants arrive

on US territory. Prevention Through Deterrence relies on hypersecurity

measures to redirect migrant routes away from urban ports of entry and

into hostile terrain along the border” (Abrego & Leon, 2025, p. 411), il-

lustrating how border enforcement has long entangled national security

and humanitarian concerns.

The study examined the regional consequences of that decree for ir-

regular migration ows and governance practices, focusing on the Ti-

juana-San Diego corridor between scal years (FY) 2022 and 2025.

This corridor, one of the busiest migration gateways, registered 324,260

apprehensions from January 2021 to September 2024, an increase of

nearly 40 percent compared with FY 2023. Yet in early FY 2025, en-

counters dropped dramatically: only 45,400 were reported, a 79.6 per-

cent decline from the prior year. Such an abrupt shift, which positioned

San Ysidro as the sector with the steepest reduction in crossings, raised

critical questions about causality and broader implications for migra-

tion governance.

The investigation addressed two central questions. First, to what extent

did the 2025 NED contribute to the measurable reduction of irregular

migration through Tijuana-San Diego between FY 2022 and 2025? Sec-

ond, how did the expansion of enforcement practices-enhanced surveil-

lance, accelerated removals, and bilateral coordination with Mexico un-

der the emergency framework-reshape migration routes and inuence

the decisions of migrants attempting to cross?

By situating the Tijuana-San Diego metropolitan area within the larg-

er U.S.-Mexico border regime, the analysis illustrated how emergency

rule operated on the ground. The article presented the theoretical per-

spectives that guided the research, described the qualitative methodol-

DETERRENCE BY EMERGENCY: SECURITIZED MIGRATION GOVERNANCE AND HUMANITARIAN

CONSEQUENCES IN THE TIJUANA-SAN DIEGO BORDER REGION (2022-2025)

Número 28 / ABRIL, 2026 (19-41)

ogy employed, reported ndings on migration trends and institutional

changes, and then discussed the securitization and humanitarian dimen-

sions of the NED. The conclusion reected on the broader tension be-

tween border enforcement and human rights and on the implications of

normalizing emergency-based governance in contemporary migration

policy.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK: SECURITY, HU-

MANITARIANISM, AND MIGRATION GOVER-

NANCE

Migration was a complex social phenomenon understood through di-

vergent theoretical perspectives. At one end of the spectrum, a securi-

tization approach framed irregular migration as a fundamental threat

to the state-an issue tied to sovereignty and national defense that legit-

imized exceptional measures. At the opposite end, a humanitarian per-

spective highlighted migration through a human rights lens, emphasiz-

ing the dignity, agency, and protection needs of migrants. Scholarship

on migration governance frequently conceptualized these positions as

polar ends of an axis: sovereignty-centered, security-driven control on

one side, and rights-based, humanitarian approaches on the other (Coll-

rin & Bauder, 2025). While most academic and policy debates leaned

toward securitization, a smaller but signicant body of research placed

migrant rights and well-being at the center of governance. This ten-

sion resonated with broader critical debates on borders and mobility,

in which authors such as Sassen, Mezzadra, and Mbembe examined

how global restructuring, border regimes, and racialized hierarchies of

mobility congured unequal access to rights and security (Agamben,

2004; Mbembe, 2003, 2019; Mezzadra & Neilson, 2013; Sassen, 2014).

The securitization perspective rested on the Copenhagen School’s the-

ory of security threat politics (Buzan et al., 1998). Political actors em-

ployed crisis narratives-such as describing migration as an invasion-to

justify extraordinary policies beyond ordinary legal processes. This

dynamic was visible in the Trump Administration’s rhetoric, which

portrayed migrants as existential dangers and legitimized militarized

responses and the suspension of established immigration procedures

(Levitsky & Way, 2025). Declaring a national emergency transformed

migration from a matter of routine governance into one of exceptional

national security policy. De Genova’s notion of the “border spectacle”

was particularly relevant here, as it showed how enforcement perfor-

mances at the border rendered migrant “illegality” spectacularly vis-

ible while obscuring the political production of illegalized status (De

Genova, 2018). From this standpoint, there were “not really ‘illegal’

migrants so much as illegalised migrants,” whose condition originat-

ed in legislative and bureaucratic decisions (De Genova, 2018, p. 27).

José María Ramos García, Jimmy Emmanuel Ramos Valencia

CHAKIÑAN. Revista de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades / ISSN 2550 - 6722

Complementing this interpretation, the Bureaucratic Politics Approach

(Allison, 1971; Peters, 2024) explained how emergency frameworks

shifted power within the state apparatus. The 2025 NED, for example,

empowered the White House and the Department of Homeland Securi-

ty (DHS) to dominate interagency dynamics, subordinating humanitari-

an agencies and reinforcing security councils as the central authority in

migration governance, consistent with analyses of expanding homeland

security bureaucracies (Garrett, 2023).

In contrast, the humanitarian perspective prioritized the ethical and so-

cial dimensions of mobility. It treated migrants as rights-bearing indi-

viduals and evaluated policy not by deterrence outcomes but by levels

of protection and assistance provided. As Pécoud (2020) argued, there

was an inherent tension between rights-based migration governance

and sovereignty-rst frameworks: it was nearly impossible to fully pri-

oritize both simultaneously. Elements of this approach were evident in

the Biden Administration’s initiatives, which sought to expand asylum

pathways and Temporary Protected Status protections under the rubric

of orderly, safe, and humane migration. Although these programs fell

outside the direct scope of the study, they provided an important back-

drop for understanding the reversal that the 2025 NED represented.

Humanitarian and critical migration scholars further cautioned against

paradoxes such as “compassionate repression” (Fassin, 2012; Galemba

et al., 2019), in which limited humanitarian provisions coexisted with

intensied policing and deterrence, producing forms of conditional in-

clusion and heightened vulnerability rather than substantive protection.

To capture how these logics operated in practice, the framework also

drew on governmentality, biopolitics, and critical security studies. Fou-

cault’s analysis of security, territory, and population conceptualized se-

curity as a modality of power exercised over populations, in which le-

gal, disciplinary, and security mechanisms were articulated rather than

replaced (Foucault, 2007). This perspective enabled an understanding

of the NED not only as a legal-constitutional act, but as a dispositif

that reorganized surveillance, risk management, and control over mo-

bile populations. Building on this, Bigo’s work and the Paris School

emphasized that securitization functioned through “everyday technolo-

gies” and professional practices, rather than solely through exceptional

speech acts, while Sadik and Kaya (2020) argued that routinized bu-

reaucratic tools, databases, and surveillance systems were central indi-

cators of migration securitization. Walters (2015) similarly called for a

“more variegated and recombinant understanding of the governmental-

ity of migration,” questioning the automatic coupling of migration and

borders and underscoring the need to analyze how bordering practices

were eventualized and recongured across sites and scales.

Within this assemblage, the concepts of deportability, illegalization,

and the “economy of illegality” illuminated how securitized migration

regimes produced dierentiated precarity. De Genova (2002, 2018) and

DETERRENCE BY EMERGENCY: SECURITIZED MIGRATION GOVERNANCE AND HUMANITARIAN

CONSEQUENCES IN THE TIJUANA-SAN DIEGO BORDER REGION (2022-2025)

Número 28 / ABRIL, 2026 (19-41)

Bonilla (2021) showed how deportability inscribed the eects of bor-

der control onto migrant bodies and lives, revealing that immigration

“illegality” was experienced through a constant possibility of expulsion

and through mechanisms that generated “decapitalization and dispos-

session within the economy of ‘illegality’” (Bonilla, 2021, p. 2). These

insights underscored that emergency measures, detention, and expedit-

ed removal were not merely neutral instruments of control but part of

broader circuits of governance, labor exploitation, and accumulation by

dispossession (Harvey, 2003), in which migrants became simultaneous-

ly essential, removable, and exploitable.

Applied to the Tijuana-San Diego case, these intertwined perspectives

yielded contrasting but complementary expectations. A securitized

emergency regime anticipated stricter controls, fewer crossings, ex-

panded surveillance, and the consolidation of authority within security

institutions, consistent with both securitization theory and bureaucratic

politics. A humanitarian and critical lens emphasized the likely costs:

displaced routes, increased exposure to lethal geographies, pressure on

local shelters and services, and the deepening of racialized and gen-

dered vulnerabilities. The 2025 NED emerged as a convergence point

where securitarian logic, governmental rationalities of population man-

agement, and bureaucratic centralization met, while simultaneously

generating profound humanitarian and socio-political repercussions.

This analysis aligned with Hollield and Wong’s (2014) observation

that migration policy consistently operated at the intersection of state

security and human rights, and followed De Genova’s and Walters’ calls

to interrogate how bordering practices, spectacles of enforcement, and

regimes of (il)legality structured the governance of mobility in ways

that were both exclusionary and constitutive.

METHODOLOGY

This study employed a qualitative, interpretive design to examine how

the 2025 U.S. National Emergency Declaration (NED) reshaped mi-

gration governance along the Tijuana-San Diego border. Grounded in

a constructivist paradigm, the research prioritized context, process, and

meaning, following the principles of Guba and Lincoln (1994), who

note that “the constructivist paradigm assumes a relativist ontology

and a subjectivist epistemology. It emphasizes the social construction

of reality and the importance of understanding meaning, context, and

process in human inquiry rather than seeking universal causal expla-

nations” (Guba and Lincoln, 1994, p. 111). In addition, it drew on Pat-

ton’s guidance from Basic Methods of Policy Analysis and Planning

(Patton et al., 2015), which underscores systematic problem denition,

evidence-based evaluation, and iterative policy assessment. These prin-

José María Ramos García, Jimmy Emmanuel Ramos Valencia

CHAKIÑAN. Revista de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades / ISSN 2550 - 6722

ciples informed the triangulation of policy documents, government

datasets, and humanitarian reports, ensuring that data collection and in-

terpretation were aligned with a structured policy-analysis framework.

The theoretical framework drew on securitization theory (Buzan et al.,

1998) and the Bureaucratic Politics Approach to explain how emergen-

cy measures consolidated state authority and framed migration as a se-

curity threat. As Cohen et al. (2006) observe, “modern governments

implement most legal mandates through bureaucracies… regulate indi-

viduals and organizations” (p. 675). Moreover, crises “enlarge windows

of opportunity for legislative action… strategically mixing security

and nonsecurity functions within the same bureaucracy” (Cohen et al.,

2006, p. 678), illustrating how political actors can exploit emergencies

to restructure and centralize power. In a related vein, Hildebrand (2020)

noted that:

Emergency management and homeland security policy evolved

over time in the same manner as many other policy elds. When

‘focusing events’ occurred, like the September 11 attacks or the

landfall and aftermath from Hurricane Katrina, reactive change

in the form of new policies or mandates followed. (p. 2)

Underscoring how critical incidents enable sweeping institutional

change.

A case study strategy focused on the Tijuana-San Diego corridor, a crit-

ical site for observing the interaction of intensied U.S. enforcement

and shifting migration patterns. The temporal scope covered scal years

2022-2025, encompassing the nal phase of Biden-era policies and the

early reactivation of Trump-era emergency measures. This period al-

lowed a comparative analysis of conditions before and after the NED.

Data collection relied on triangulation of multiple sources. Primary ma-

terials included presidential proclamations, executive orders (Cannon

et al., 2025; Buck, 2025), directives from the Department of Homeland

Security (DHS), and operational memoranda from U.S. Customs and

Border Protection (CBP). Secondary evidence comprised quarterly and

annual CBP statistics on apprehensions by sector and nationality, tran-

scripts of U.S. Congressional hearings on border security, and internal

audits such as DHS Oce of Inspector General evaluations. Additional

qualitative data were drawn from humanitarian organization reports on

shelter conditions in Tijuana and from media interviews with migrants

and ocials conducted during the policy transition.

The analytical process unfolded in two sequential stages. First, a de-

scriptive analysis organized CBP statistics to track uctuations in mi-

grant volumes, changes in nationality composition, and sectoral dis-

placement. A detailed timeline of key policy events-including the NED

proclamation, bilateral enforcement agreements, and specic opera-

tions-aligned these actions with migration outcomes. Second, a quali-

tative content analysis followed Bowen’s (2009) approach to document

DETERRENCE BY EMERGENCY: SECURITIZED MIGRATION GOVERNANCE AND HUMANITARIAN

CONSEQUENCES IN THE TIJUANA-SAN DIEGO BORDER REGION (2022-2025)

Número 28 / ABRIL, 2026 (19-41)

analysis. An inductive–deductive coding framework was developed

around key themes such as national security framing, emergency pow-

ers, bureaucratic restructuring, and migrant response. Codes derived

from the theoretical framework were rened through iterative reading,

and emergent themes were incorporated as they appeared in the data.

To ensure reliability and transparency, all documents and datasets were

catalogued with complete citation metadata and stored in an encrypt-

ed digital repository. Coding was performed independently by two

researchers, with intercoder reliability assessed through cross-check

sessions until consensus was reached. MANUS AI supported the orga-

nization of data and the construction of thematic matrices.

The research relied exclusively on publicly available documents, aggre-

gated statistics, and secondary reports, which minimized ethical risks.

When sensitive or unpublished materials were consulted, condential-

ity protocols were observed. No direct interviews with human subjects

were conducted, but secondary accounts were handled with care to rep-

resent accurately the experiences and voices of migrants and frontline

workers.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

IRREGULAR MIGRATION TRENDS AND EN-

FORCEMENT OUTCOMES (FY 2022–2025)

Border data showed a uctuating and uneven trajectory of irregular mi-

gration during the study period. From FY 2022 through FY 2024, appre-

hensions rst declined and then surged in 2024 as routes and enforce-

ment contexts shifted (Durand & Massey, 2024). The most signicant

change occurred in FY 2025, when the reissued National Emergency

Declaration (NED) coincided with a marked reduction in encounters.

This inection point distinguished the 2025 downturn from the more

modest variations of previous years and indicated that the emergency

framework intensied enforcement eects.

Table 1 summarized total apprehensions recorded along the southwest

border, highlighted major migrant nationalities for each scal year, and

reported year-on-year percentage changes. The gures demonstrated

how the NED’s implementation corresponded with a sharper suppres-

sion of crossings than had been observed during earlier policy shifts.

José María Ramos García, Jimmy Emmanuel Ramos Valencia

CHAKIÑAN. Revista de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades / ISSN 2550 - 6722

Table 1: Southwest Border Apprehensions and Key Nationalities, FY

2022–2025

Note: Data compiled from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (2022,

2023, 2024a, 2024b and 2025

Between FY 2022 and 2025, irregular migration across the U.S.-Mexi-

co border followed an uneven course shaped by shifting routes, evolv-

ing policies, and external crises. After peaking in 2022, unauthorized

entries declined modestly in 2023-a trend that aligned with Biden-era

immigration initiatives aimed at expanding asylum pathways, increas-

ing parole programs, and rening enforcement priorities. As Jacobs

(2023) explains, “During the rst two years of the Biden administra-

tion, immigration policy focused on expanding legal pathways, creating

new parole programs, and narrowing enforcement priorities, resulting

in temporary reductions in unauthorized entries before external factors

and smuggling adaptations reignited ows” (p. 3). Flows then rose by

roughly 25 percent in 2024 as post-pandemic dynamics and adaptive

smuggling networks intensied, before contracting sharply in 2025.

The decline was not uniform. Heightened enforcement and new barriers

in long-active corridors such as Del Rio and the Rio Grande Valley pro-

duced immediate drops in apprehensions but displaced ows to other

sectors. Tucson and San Diego initially registered relative increases as

migrants sought alternative routes, illustrating a balloon eect in which

intensied control in one area redirected movement elsewhere. By mid-

2025, deterrence measures had spread border-wide, and encounters

in the San Diego sector also declined, suggesting that the emergency

framework eventually reshaped patterns across the frontier.

Migrant demographics evolved in parallel. Early ows consisted large-

ly of Mexican and Northern Triangle nationals, but by 2023-2024 ex-

tra-continental migration grew sharply, with Venezuelan, Haitian, and

Cuban arrivals reecting deepening political and economic crises in

their home countries. In 2025 the prole became more diverse, yet rap-

id-expulsion policies -including the termination of Title 42 in 2023 and

expanded expedited removals under Title 8 in 2025- disproportionately

aected certain groups. Honduran and Salvadoran asylum seekers de-

clined by roughly one-quarter, while Venezuelans continued to arrive

but often faced immediate removal or exclusion. These developments

highlighted both the immediate impact of intensied enforcement and

the enduring structural drivers of mobility (Department of State, 2023;

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Durand & Massey, 2024).

The 2025 NED also unleashed an extraordinary suite of enforcement

actions. Approximately three billion dollars in Department of Defense

funds were diverted to barrier construction projects in Arizona and Cal-

ifornia, while the Pentagon deployed intelligence, surveillance, and

reconnaissance assets -including drones and xed towers- along with

additional personnel to support Border Patrol operations. This mili-

tarization expanded real-time monitoring capacity and accelerated re-

sponses to attempted crossings. As Greenway et al. (2025) observed,

The U.S. military possesses unique resources and capabilities to

assist with a range of missions and roles to confront the various

aspects of the border crisis (…) steps can and should be tak-

en in congressional appropriations and Department of Defense

(DOD) planning to mitigate eects on military readiness else-

where. (p. 4)

A signicant personnel surge followed. U.S. Customs and Border Pro-

tection increased stang by roughly fteen percent-adding about 2,500

agents and contractors-who were equipped with mobile surveillance

systems and infrared cameras and supported by National Guard units

under federal authority. These measures heightened interception rates,

particularly in high-trac night areas (Isacson, 2025).

Legal and procedural changes reinforced the crackdown. The Depart-

ment of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security implement-

ed expedited-removal rules invoking provisions of the Immigration

and Nationality Act (§§ 102, 105) (Department of Homeland Security,

2025). Credible-fear interviews were curtailed, producing a 40 percent

drop in asylum referrals during early 2025. Simultaneously, the Migrant

Protection Protocols (MPP 2.0) were reinstated, obliging many asylum

seekers to remain in Mexico while awaiting hearings and discouraging

new arrivals. As the Congressional Research Service notes, “expedited

removal permits immigration ocers to order certain noncitizens re-

moved from the United States without further hearing or review, unless

the individual expresses a fear of persecution or an intent to apply for

asylum” (Eaton & Sterk, 2023, p. 2).

Bilateral enforcement completed the strategy. Under U.S. pressure,

Mexico deployed its National Guard to the northern border, intensi-

ed checkpoints in Baja California, and accepted larger numbers of

third-country nationals returned under expedited removal. Similar

U.S.-backed measures in Panama and Guatemala, including stricter

visa requirements, slowed migrant ows before they reached Mexico.

Within this framework, the Tijuana-San Diego corridor experienced

particularly sharp eects. In the San Diego sector, which includes the

Tijuana-San Ysidro and Otay Mesa crossings, encounters fell by more

than 45 percent in the rst half of FY 2025 compared with the previous

year. By mid-year this historically high-volume sector recorded one of

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CHAKIÑAN. Revista de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades / ISSN 2550 - 6722

the steepest declines on the border. Ocials attributed the drop to inten-

sive ISR surveillance and a catch-and-remove model that rapidly pro-

cessed apprehensions, sharply reducing the likelihood of successful en-

try for families and unaccompanied minors. As regional transportation

authorities have noted, “the two-year pilot uses advanced technology to

calculate how long vehicles wait in line to cross the border… leveraging

the region’s existing network of solar-powered, freeway call boxes as

detection points” (San Diego Association of Governments [SANDAG],

2018, p. 1), illustrating how real-time monitoring initiatives have sup-

ported more rapid responses and enhanced enforcement capacity.

Route adjustments soon followed. Migrants shifted eastward into the

mountains and deserts around Tecate and the El Centro sector as urban

crossings became more dicult, exposing travelers to harsher terrain

and greater risks. Finally, the NED facilitated bureaucratic integration

at the local level: CBP, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and

municipal law-enforcement liaisons operated under a unied Depart-

ment of Homeland Security command (Chacón, 2022). Mobile com-

mand centers and interoperable data platforms enabled instantaneous

information sharing and coordinated deployments, exemplifying the

Bureaucratic Politics Approach in which agency rivalries gave way to

a consolidated security mission (Martínez-Fernández & Beaver, 2025).

In summary, the NED produced a pronounced quantitative reduction

in irregular crossings in the Tijuana–San Diego corridor through un-

precedented resource mobilization, legal tightening, and binational

enforcement. These outcomes, however, have masked deeper conse-

quences—route displacement, heightened humanitarian risks, and the

entrenchment of a securitized model of migration governance. As Asy-

lum Access (2025) reported, the uncertainty caused by canceled ap-

pointments and the presence of security forces has increased the risks

faced by forcibly displaced people in the region, illustrating how policy

enforcement, even when reducing crossings, can escalate vulnerabili-

ties for migrants under emergency frameworks.

HUMANITARIAN AND SOCIAL IMPACTS IN THE

BORDER REGION

The humanitarian consequences of the emergency framework became

increasingly evident as 2025 advanced. Migrant mortality reached un-

precedented levels, with at least 547 deaths documented by mid-year

and projections surpassing 1,200 fatalities by December, the highest

annual toll ever recorded. Most fatalities resulted from dehydration

and exposure as displaced migrants attempted the hazardous moun-

tainous routes east of Tijuana. Humanitarian organizations and med-

ical NGOs reported sharp increases in dehydration cases and trauma

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injuries among those traversing these remote areas (CBP, 2025c; Asso-

ciated Press, 2025). These dynamics echoed the conditions described

by Solano and Massey (2022), who characterized Mexico’s northern

transit corridor as a corridor of death, where restrictive enforcement

policies and displacement expose migrants to extreme physical dan-

ger and widespread human rights violations. These dynamics echoed

the conditions described by Solano and Massey (2022), who observed

that “given these statistics, it is unsurprising that Mexico has become

known as El Corredor de la Muerte (the Corridor of Death) among the

Central American migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers who traverse

its territory on their way northward” (Solano & Massey, 2022, p. 148).

Access to asylum protections collapsed. The proportion of apprehended

migrants referred for asylum proceedings fell from roughly 23 percent

in 2022 to just 13 percent in early 2025. Emergency protocols curtailed

credible-fear interviews, and the reinstated Migrant Protection Proto-

cols (MPP 2.0) forced many asylum seekers to remain in Mexico. Large

encampments developed on the Mexican side of the border, where fam-

ilies endured prolonged legal uncertainty and precarious living condi-

tions (The Washington Post, 2025).

Shelter networks in Tijuana were likewise overwhelmed. Facilities

throughout northern Baja California operated well beyond capacity,

with an estimated 4,500-6,000 migrants housed across 30 shelters at

any given time by mid-2025. Reports described migrants sleeping in

overcrowded facilities, improvised camps, or on city streets, facing

food shortages, sanitation problems, and heightened vulnerability to in-

fectious disease (Mckee Irwin & Del Monte, 2021).

Migrants stranded in Tijuana also experienced severe psychological

stress and legal precarity. Studies on protracted displacement docu-

mented how deportees, asylum seekers, and internally displaced indi-

viduals endured long-term trauma, housing insecurity, and limited ac-

cess to employment opportunities (Gil-Everaert et al., 2023). As the

authors note,

situations of protracted displacement and insecurity present

challenges in four interconnected arenas of life: housing, legal

status, employment, and emotional well-being. For govern-

ments and local communities, protracted displacement requires

immediate humanitarian responses and the development and

implementation of public policies focused on integration. (p.

126)

Smugglers adapted quickly to the hardened environment. Heightened

enforcement led many migrants either to abandon attempts altogether

or to turn to human smuggling networks. Coyotes raised fees in re-

sponse to the riskier conditions, eectively monetizing access to remote

crossings and maritime routes. Those unable to pay were left strand-

ed, while others attempted perilous alternative passages. Anecdotal

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evidence pointed to a chilling Trump Eect, in which the visibility of

militarized operations and rapid removals dissuaded potential migrants

from embarking on the journey (Galemba et al., 2019).

Table 2 summarizes key humanitarian indicators before and during the

NED period to underscore the trend:

Table 2: Humanitarian Indicators in the U.S.-Mexico Border Context

Note: Data compiled from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (2022,

2023, 2024a, 2024b and 2025

These ndings underscored a fundamental trade-o: as border security

indicators improved through sharp reductions in irregular crossings, hu-

manitarian conditions deteriorated. The securitization strategy achieved

deterrence but did so by channeling migrants into more dangerous ter-

rain and systematically curtailing access to asylum. This outcome sup-

ported long-standing critiques that policies privileging security rst,

rights second inevitably reproduced humanitarian crises (Bozeman et

al., 2024; Galemba et al., 2019). As Bozeman and colleagues warn,

“neutral competence fails at the worst of times. It provides no useful

means of combating deformation of democracy perpetrated by persons

who hold legitimate political authority” (Bozeman et al., 2024, p. 800).

The 2025 National Emergency Declaration illustrated how securiti-

zation frames enabled the state to invoke existential-threat narratives

-such as the rhetoric of invasion- to concentrate executive power. In

practice, this generated a bureaucratic centralization of migration con-

trol. Agencies with overlapping mandates, including CBP, ICE, and im-

migration courts, were consolidated under a single homeland-security

mission. Joint command centers and integrated data-sharing systems

established in San Diego demonstrated the potential eciency gains

of such centralization, consistent with Allison’s Bureaucratic Politics

model. From a state-capacity perspective, this reconguration facilitat-

ed rapid removals and exible redeployment of personnel, contributing

to the short-term suppression of crossings (Garrett, 2023, 2024), a pro-

cess facilitated by structural reforms within the Department of Defense

that enabled rapid resource reallocation and operational exibility (Fer-

rari et al., 2025). As Garrett (2024) explains:

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the concept of border securocracy is dened to mean the ex-

pansion of the law enforcement/border security bureaucracy

(or apparatus) from the state (the U.S.) throughout the world

specically by way of the Department of Homeland Security

and its agencies (…) to expand U.S. and other global corporate

interests. (p. 262)

These eciency gains, however, came at signicant cost. Expedited

removal procedures minimized due-process protections, curtailed ju-

dicial oversight, and largely suspended asylum processing. Legal ac-

countability mechanisms -such as immigration-court reviews and inde-

pendent monitoring of detention conditions- were eectively bypassed,

aligning with critiques that securitization undermines transparency and

democratic checks (Bozeman et al., 2024; Nevitt, 2025). The 2025 case

thus t within a broader trend of executive aggrandizement in U.S. im-

migration policy, where emergencies served as vehicles for expanding

unilateral authority (Vaughan, 2024).

As Zagaris (2025) observes, this fusion of migration enforcement with

counterterrorism and sanction-based logics reects a global pattern

in which states justify exceptional measures through the language of

national security and transnational threats, enabling the normalization

of emergency governance. As Vaughan (2024) notes, “Trump’s immi-

gration doctrine was a central element of his America First vision and

a dening part of his presidency, representing a sharp departure from

previous administrations’ more permissive approaches and providing a

template for subsequent debates over border control” (p. 291).

Humanitarian consequences were profound. The celebrated decline in

crossings was achieved largely through the externalization of enforce-

ment: shifting the burden onto Mexico, displacing migrants into des-

ert regions, and deterring departures altogether. This dynamic reected

what Galemba et al. (2019) termed compassionate repression, wherein

humanitarian rhetoric coexisted with repressive practice. U.S. ocials

justied reinstating the Migrant Protection Protocols as a means of pro-

tecting migrants from dangerous journeys, while thousands were eec-

tively stranded in precarious camps on the Mexican side of the border.

These developments raised pressing ethical questions regarding pro-

portionality and responsibility. Although some argued that deterrence

ultimately saved lives by dissuading dangerous crossings, evidence in-

dicated that in the short term the NED increased risk, as reected in re-

cord migrant mortality in 2025. Moreover, by outsourcing enforcement

to Mexico, the United States shifted the humanitarian burden onto local

shelters and civil society actors in Tijuana, which faced chronic over-

crowding and resource shortages (Gil-Everaert et al., 2023).

Overall, these ndings reinforced the understanding of migration as si-

multaneously a security and a humanitarian issue. The 2025 emergen-

cy strategy, focused almost exclusively on security, succeeded in sup-

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CHAKIÑAN. Revista de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades / ISSN 2550 - 6722

pressing ows but generated new humanitarian crises. A more balanced

approach -combining enforcement with expanded legal pathways and

regional protection frameworks- might have mitigated these outcomes.

Historical patterns suggested that once emergency measures were lifted

or weakened, migration ows could rebound, underscoring the limited

sustainability of emergency-driven suppression.

The Tijuana-San Diego corridor illustrated how securitization measures

reshaped local dynamics. As a transborder metropolis, the region had

long sustained daily cross-border mobility for trade, labor, and family

life (Bae, 2003). The NED disrupted this equilibrium: intensied mili-

tarization at the San Ysidro crossing not only deterred irregular entrants

but also prolonged inspections for lawful commuters. Local authorities

in Tijuana warned that the city risked becoming a waiting room for U.S.

immigration policy, with shelters and public spaces overwhelmed by

stranded migrants. While federal cooperation between the United States

and Mexico remained strong, municipal actors and NGOs carried the

humanitarian burden, and binational advocacy networks sought to ll

the gap.

A critical question concerned the sustainability of emergency-driven

enforcement. Root causes of migration -including economic inequality,

violence, and climate stress— remained unaddressed. Historical prec-

edents suggested that once extraordinary measures were relaxed, ows

could rebound, creating a balloon eect in which migration pressures

were displaced rather than resolved. Moreover, the normalization of

emergency measures risked entrenching a permanent state of excep-

tion in border governance, gradually eroding democratic norms (Nevitt,

2025). Moreover, the normalization of emergency measures risked en-

trenching a permanent state of exception in border governance, gradu-

ally eroding democratic norms. As Nevitt (2025) documented,

Trump’s second executive order tasks the Secretary of Defense

to send as many units or members of the Armed Forces as ‘ap-

propriate to support the activities of the Secretary of Homeland

Security in obtaining complete operational control of the south-

ern border of the United States. (p. 3)

This underscores how the 2025 NED fused migration control with ex-

panded military authority, reinforcing concerns about long-term demo-

cratic erosion.

In conclusion, the 2025 NED demonstrated both the capacity and the

limitations of securitized migration governance. It conrmed that states

retain formidable ability to deter migration when political will and re-

sources align, while simultaneously highlighting the humanitarian costs

and accountability decits of security-rst strategies. The Tijuana-San

Diego experience therefore stands as both a cautionary example and a

critical lesson in the long-term dilemmas of emergency-based border

control.

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CONCLUSIONS

The analysis demonstrated that the 2025 reissuance of the U.S. Nation-

al Emergency Declaration (NED) functioned less as an isolated pol-

icy decision than as a crystallization of long-term dynamics in North

American migration governance. Drawing on Ramos García’s expertise

in U.S.-Mexico border policy and transborder governance, and Ramos

Valencia’s contributions to the anthropology of public policy and mi-

gration, the study treated the Tijuana-San Diego corridor as a critical

laboratory for examining how states recalibrate authority under con-

ditions of perceived crisis. Empirical evidence revealed that, while the

NED achieved a measurable and rapid decline in irregular migration

ows, this apparent success emerged through mechanisms of bureau-

cratic centralization, military deployment, and binational enforcement

that extended beyond standard immigration management.

Documentary analysis showed how this emergency measures concen-

trated decision-making power within security-focused agencies, con-

rming theoretical expectations of securitization and bureaucratic poli-

tics. Migrant encounters fell sharply after early 2025, yet this deterrence

coincided with a steep rise in humanitarian costs, including increased

mortality and reduced access to asylum. These patterns echoed ndings

from comparative migration research highlighted by both authors in

their broader academic work, underscoring the tension between nation-

al security imperatives and human rights obligations.

The evidence also demonstrated that the policy shock reverberated

far from the border itself. Reports of “migration pauses” at points of

origin suggested that the NED inuenced migrant decision-making

well before individuals reached Mexican territory, aligning with Ra-

mos García’s analyses of transnational policy spillovers. At the same

time, local dynamics in Tijuana complicated simplistic crisis narratives:

while some shelters reported overcrowding early in the emergency, sub-

sequent data indicated uctuating or even declining occupancy rates,

cautioning against overgeneralization of humanitarian strain.

Furthermore, the investigation conrmed that the NED reinforced a pat-

tern of externalized enforcement. By leveraging bilateral agreements

and regional deterrence strategies, the United States shifted operational

and humanitarian burdens onto Mexican institutions and civil society

organizations. This outcome highlighted Ramos Valencia’s emphasis

on the anthropology of state power, revealing how U.S. security logics

transformed local governance and reshaped the responsibilities of mu-

nicipal and non-governmental actors in northern Mexico.

The research also identied structural consequences for democratic

accountability. Expedited removal procedures curtailed due process

José María Ramos García, Jimmy Emmanuel Ramos Valencia

CHAKIÑAN. Revista de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades / ISSN 2550 - 6722

and sidelined independent oversight, supporting theoretical claims that

emergencies can normalize a “permanent state of exception.” Both

scholars’ prior work on governance and institutional resilience illumi-

nated how such centralization, while eective in the short term, risks

eroding legal safeguards and undermining the legitimacy of migration

policy over time.

Importantly, the ndings demonstrated that irregular migration drivers

-economic inequality, violence, and climate stress- remained largely un-

addressed. This reinforces a central lesson in Ramos García’s cross-bor-

der policy studies and Ramos Valencia’s anthropological inquiries: co-

ercive measures may temporarily suppress mobility but cannot resolve

the socio-economic and geopolitical forces that sustain it. Historical

precedents and the observed rebound potential support this conclusion.

Taken together, the study conrms that the 2025 NED exemplied both

the capacity and the limits of emergency-based migration governance.

It provided short-term enforcement gains but deepened humanitarian

vulnerabilities and institutionalized exceptional powers. By integrating

the perspectives of political science and social anthropology, as rep-

resented in the academic trajectories of José María Ramos García and

Jimmy Emmanuel Ramos Valencia, this research underscores that du-

rable solutions to irregular migration require policies that balance state

sovereignty with human rights protections and address the structural

determinants of mobility, rather than relying on episodic crises to justi-

fy extraordinary state action.

DECLARATION OF CONFLICTS OF INTEREST: The authors

state that they have no conicts of interest.

AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:

The rst author is the corresponding author of the article. The contri-

bution of each author is described according to the CRediT taxonomy:

− José María Ramos García: Conceptualization, Formal analysis, In-

vestigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Val-

idation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review

and editing.

− Jimmy Emmanuel Ramos Valencia: Conceptualization, Formal

analysis, Methodology, Investigation, Writing – review and edit-

ing.

The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of El Colegio de la

Frontera Norte (El Colef). Critical observations were also provided by

colleagues and reviewers during the research and review process, but

they are not responsible for the nal content of this article.

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STATEMENT OF DATA AVAILABILITY: The data supporting the

ndings of this study are drawn primarily from publicly accessible

sources. Aggregate statistics on migrant encounters and enforcement

actions are available through the U.S. Customs and Border Protection

(CBP) website (https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats) and the Depart-

ment of Homeland Security (DHS) publications library (https://www.

dhs.gov/publications-library). Supplementary policy documents, in-

cluding presidential proclamations, executive orders, and Department

of Justice announcements, are accessible via ocial U.S. government

repositories (e.g., https://www.whitehouse.gov, https://www.justice.

gov).

Additional qualitative material referenced in the article, such as reports

from humanitarian organizations and media interviews, is available

through their respective institutional websites. Due to the sensitive na-

ture of migration-related records and condentiality concerns, no pri-

mary individual-level data has been made publicly available. Further

details or clarications on the sources consulted may be provided by

the authors upon reasonable request to ramosjm@colef.mx & ramos.

jimmy@uabc.edu.mx

STATEMENT ON THE USE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE:

the authors declare that AI has been used as technical support, while

interpretation, analytical design and argumentative writing are the sole

responsibility of the authors. the tools used within the workow, with-

out substituting the academic judgment of the researchers were:

− GPT PRO: for the curation and organization of large data conglom-

erates (ocial documents, statistical reports and academic litera-

ture), exploratory syntheses and support in the preliminary struc-

turing of sections, although all output was veried, contrasted with

primary sources and rewritten with authorial voice.

− GROK: based on the monitoring of information on the internet,

press, networks and trends (hashtags) related to border dynamics,

for prospecting and follow-up purposes. It was used as an informa-

tion radar; the nal selection of inputs and their interpretation was

strictly human.

− CLAUDE: as support in style correction (cohesion, clarity and ter-

minological consistency), for academic texts and policy briefs. Ed-

itorial decisions (structure, emphasis, theoretical framework) were

dened by the authors and supervised by internal peers of the team.

− MANUS: for the in-depth analysis of legal and regulatory doc-

umentation on migration issues (independent variable), with ex-

traction and organization of relevant provisions to contrast them

with migration ows (dependent variable). All legal analysis was

reviewed by the authors.

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CHAKIÑAN. Revista de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades / ISSN 2550 - 6722

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