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GLEESON
BADA
International migrants’ home countries often play an integral part in protecting
SCALING

HOW ADVOCATES COLLABORATE AND CONTEST STATE POWER

SCALING MIGRANT WORKER RIGHTS
their citizens’ labor and human rights abroad. At the same time, institutions such
as labor unions, worker centers, and legal aid groups are among the most visible
actors holding governments of immigrant destinations accountable. Focusing on
Mexico and the United States, Scaling Migrant Worker Rights analyzes how these
organizations pressure governments to defend migrants. The result is a multi- MIGRANT WORKER
layered picture of the impediments to migrant worker rights and the possibilities
for their realization.

“Highly original and timely, this book shines a light on underexplored actors in the labor rights
and protection enforcement process.” —LEAH F. VOSKO, author of Disrupting Deportability:
RIGHTS
Transnational Workers Organize

“A very robust and nuanced empirical analysis documenting how co-enforcement mecha- HOW ADVOCATES COLLABORATE AND CONTEST STATE POWER
nisms across transnational civil society, consulates, and national governments work to imple-
ment existing labor rights protections.” —ALEXANDRA DÉLANO ALONSO, author of Mexico
and Its Diaspora in the United States: Policies of Emigration since 1848

“This important and innovative work provides a nuanced, rich, and detailed meso-analysis of
institutions and institutional collaboration in Mexico and the US.” —NANCY PLANKEY-VIDELA,
author of We Are in This Dance Together: Gender, Power, and Globalization at a Mexican Gar-
ment Firm

XÓCHITL BADA is Associate Professor of Latin American and Latino Studies at the University of
Illinois Chicago. She is author of Mexican Hometown Associations in Chicagoacán: From Local
to Transnational Civic Engagement.
SHANNON GLEESON is Professor of Labor Relations, Law, and History at the School of Indus-
trial and Labor Relations at Cornell University. She is author of Precarious Claims: The Promise
and Failure of Workplace Protections in the United States.

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS   [Link]

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University of California Press’s Open Access publishing program. ISBN: 978-0-520-38445-3
Visit [Link] to learn more.
Cover illustration: U.E.-F.A.T. Hands in Solidarity, Hands of Freedom. Mural at the
United Electrical Workers union hall in Chicago, Illinois. The mural was painted 9 780520 384453
in 1997 by Daniel Manrique, a Tepito Arte Acá muralist from Mexico City, as part
of a crossborder mural project between the United Electrical Workers union
and Frente Auténtico del Trabajo in Mexico City. XÓCHITL BADA AND SHANNON GLEESON
 Luminos is the Open Access monograph publishing program
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Scaling Migrant Worker Rights
Scaling Migrant Worker Rights
How Advocates Collaborate and Contest State Power

Xóchitl Bada and Shannon Gleeson

UNIVERSIT Y OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

University of California Press
Oakland, California

© 2023 by Xóchitl Bada and Shannon Gleeson

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND license.

To view a copy of the license, visit [Link]

Suggested citation: Bada, X., and Gleeson, S. Scaling Migrant Worker Rights:
How Advocates Collaborate and Contest State Power. Oakland: University
of California Press, 2023. DOI: [Link]

Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress.

isbn 978-0-520-38445-3 (pbk. : alk. paper)

isbn 978-0-520-38446-0 (ebook)

28 27 26 25 24 23
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
We dedicate this book to all low-wage undocumented workers.
 C onte nts

List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgments xi
Abbreviations Used in Text xv

1. Introduction: Constructing Portable Rights for Migrant Workers 1

2. The Mexican Consular Network as an Advocacy Institution 19
3. The Sending State and Co-enforcement: Mexico’s Role in Brokering
Immigrant Worker Claims Making 63
4. Advocacy and Accountability in State–Civil Society Relations 97
5. The Strategies of Transnational Labor Coalitions and Networks 121
6. Conclusion: Scaling Migrant Worker Rights 151

Notes 169
Appendix. Key Institutions, Instruments, and Actors in Transnational
Labor Regulation and Consular Affairs 181
References 183
Index213
 Li st of I llustration s

F IG U R E S

1. Mexican consulates in the United States 11

2. Percentage of foreign-born population that is Mexican born 11
3. Percentage of Latino population identifying as Mexican 12
4. Percentage of Mexican immigrant population that is noncitizen 13
5. 
2016 presidential election: Democratic percentage of vote for cities
included in project 16

TA B L E S

1. Time line of key events in bilateral collaboration (1994–2017) 29

2. Labor Rights Week outreach summary 43
3. 
Labor cases intake at the Mexican consular network in the United States 52
4. Yearly themes for the Semana de Derechos Laborales (2009–20) 57
5. 
Key institutions, instruments, and actors in transnational labor
regulation and consular affairs 181

ix
 Ack nowle d gme n ts

This book is the culmination of over a decade of research with Mexican immigrant
workers and the legions of civil society groups who advocate on their behalf. We
first and foremost thank Jonathan Fox for bringing us together to realize this joint
interest when he introduced us during a conference on Latino immigrant civic
engagement at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in the sum-
mer of 2010. Jonathan’s pioneering work on accountability politics in Mexico and
immigrant civil society was formative to us both, as was his dedication to mentor-
ing us as junior scholars.
We came together to understand the role of the Mexican consulate in labor
standards enforcement after participating in the workshop “Mexico and Its Dias-
pora in the United States: Past and Present Emigration Policies,” convened by Ale
Délano during the 30th Latin American Studies Association Annual Conference
in San Francisco in 2012. After a transformative conversation that continued after
all workshop participants were long gone, we left the room with the goal of launch-
ing the first national survey to assess the Mexican consular network’s role in the
Labor Rights Week that had long intrigued us both.
Over two hundred interviews across the United States and Mexico were
­completed with the help of many amazing graduate students, undergraduates,
and colleagues, including Manlio Correa, Tania Cruz Salazar, Rubén Espinoza,
Jackie Estrada, Nick Ghezavat, Vanesa Guridy, Claudia López, Gloria Marvic,
Patricia Nicolás Flores, David Rocha Romero, Heidy Sarabia, and Guillermo
Yrizar-Barbosa.
We also thank our research assistants at Cornell (Hannah Cho, Clady Corona,
Amy Saz, Albaro Tutasig, and Zakiya Williams Wells) and the University of
Illinois-Chicago (UIC) (Michaela Byrd, Jackie Estrada, Nick Ghezavat, Vanessa
xi
xii    Acknowledgments

Guridy, Debbie Patiño, Ashwini Reddy, and Agnieszka Wieczorek) for their many
hours transcribing and coding interviews, managing bibliographies, and conduct-
ing many other aspects of the research. Florio Arguillas at Cornell University pro-
vided expert research training and software support with [Link].
Early analysis of book themes were workshopped during annual meetings
of the American Sociological Association, the Law and Society Association,
the Latin American Studies Association, and the United Association for Labor
­Education, as well as other convenings hosted by generous colleagues at the
­University of Colorado Law School, Texas A&M Law School, Rutgers University,
the ­Ruhr-Universität Bochum, the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México,
Queen’s ­University, Berlin’s Institute for Advanced Study, El Colegio de la Frontera
Norte, and Bielefeld University.
Generous funding has been provided by each of our home institutions, includ-
ing, at UIC, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (LAS), the Institute for
Research on Race and Public Policy, the Chancellor’s Undergraduate Research
Award, and the LAS Undergraduate Research Initiative; the University of Califor-
nia–Santa Cruz Committee on Research; UC MEXUS-CONACYT (University of
California Institute for Mexico and the United States–Consejo Nacional de Cien-
cia y Tecnología); and, at Cornell, the Cornell Institute for the Social Sciences, the
Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies, the Qualitative and Interpretive
Research Institute, and the Center for Social Sciences. Open Access was funded
through Cornell’s Hull Fund and a grant from the American Sociological Associa-
tion’s Fund for the Advancement of the Discipline.
The Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (WIKO) provided invaluable support to
Xóchitl during her academic fellowship, which she spent writing and navigating
the first few months of the pandemic. At the WIKO, we received important feed-
back on our book proposal from Nicolas Dodier, Bénédicte Zimmermann, and
Norbert Cyrus in the winter of 2019 during one of the last business trips that Shan-
non made prior to the pandemic.
With support from the Cornell University ILR School Pierce Memorial Fund,
we hosted a workshop in 2016 where many of our generous colleagues provided
feedback on our previous edited volume Accountability across Borders (University
of Texas Press, 2019), which provided much of the intellectual stimulus for this
monograph.
With support from the National Science Foundation and the Law and Soci-
ety Association International Research Collaborative, we also hosted two round-
tables in 2017 and 2019, “Enforcing Rights across Borders: The Case of Mexican
Migrants,” and “The Future of Immigrant and Worker Rights after NAFTA.” These
convenings offered invaluable feedback from colleagues and advocates from across
North America.
We give immense gratitude to our colleagues at Cornell University, the Uni-
versity of California–Santa Cruz, UIC, and the University of Houston for all their
 Acknowledgments    xiii

support and feedback throughout the development of this manuscript. Special

thanks go to Adam Goodman, Alejandro Madrid, and Pamela Anne Quiroz.
Our incredible support staff at Cornell (Claire Concepcion) and UIC (Bruce
Tyler) spent hours shepherding us through the university bureaucracies.
Four anonymous reviewers provided valuable feedback to the manuscript at
different stages.
The maps in chapter 1 were created by award-winning cartographer Mike
Boruta. Yoselinda Mendoza assisted with tabulations for the population maps.
Matt Seidel and Elisabeth Magnus provided vital editing throughout the many
versions of the manuscript. We thank Lisa Rivero for compiling the index. All
errors are our own.
The cover art was photographed with the help of Claudio Ugalde.
University of California Press staff Maura Roessner, Madison Wetzell, Cindy
Fulton, and Teresa Iafolla, as well as Paige MacKay helped shepherd the book
to publication.
Earlier analyses of this research can be found in our previous publications in
the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, the International Journal of Compara-
tive Labour Law and Industrial Relations, and the Labor Studies Journal, and in
the volumes Diaspora Organizations in International Affairs (Global Institutions
Series, Routledge), Activismos transnacionales desde México (Instituto de Inves-
tigaciones Dr. José María Luis Mora), the Labor Employment Relations Associa-
tion Research Volume Series, and chapter 5 of Shannon’s 2009 book Conflicting
Commitments: The Politics of Enforcing Immigrant Worker Rights in San Jose and
Houston (Cornell University Press). With thanks also to our coauthor, friend, and
colleague Els de Graauw.
 Abbreviati ons Use d in Text

AEU arrangement establishing understanding

ANEC Asociación Nacional de Empresas Comercializadoras de Productores
del Campo / National Association of Marketing Companies of Rural
Producers
CCIME Consejo Consultivo del IME / Advisory Board of the IME
CDM Centro de los Derechos del Migrante / Migrant Rights Center
CIAM Centro de Información y Asistencia a Mexicanos / Center for
Assistance and Information to Mexicans
CIBAC Carpeta Informativa Básica Consular / Basic Consular Information
Binder
CMW UN International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All
Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families
COMPA Colectivo Migraciones para las Américas / Migration Collective for
the Americas
CORPS Community Outreach and Resource Planning Specialists
DACA Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals
DGPME Dirección General de Protección a Mexicanos en el Exterior / General
Directorate for the Protection of Mexicans Abroad
DOL Department of Labor
EEOC Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
EMPLEO Employment, Education and Outreach
FAT Frente Auténtico del Trabajo / Authentic Workers’ Front
ICE Immigration and Customs Enforcement
ILO International Labour Organization
IME Instituto de los Mexicanos en el Exterior / Institute of Mexicans
Abroad

xv
xvi    Abbreviations Used in Text

INAI Instituto Nacional de Transparencia, Acceso a la Información y

Protección de Datos Personales / National Institute of Transparency,
Information Access and Private Data Protection
INILAB Regional Initiative on Labor Mobility
LOA letter of agreement
MOU memorandum of understanding
NAALC North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation
NAFTA North American Free Trade Agreement
NLRB National Labor Relations Board
OSHA Occupational Safety and Health Administration
PALE Programa de Asistencia Jurídica a Personas Mexicanas a través de
Asesorías Legales Externas en los Estados Unidos de América / Legal
Assistance Program to Mexicans by Attorneys in the United States
PCME Programa para las Comunidades Mexicanas en el Extranjero /
Program for Mexican Communities Abroad
PRECADEM Prevención, Capacitación y Defensa del Migrante
PRI Partido Revolucionario Institucional / Institutional
Revolutionary Party
ProDESC Proyecto de Derechos Económicos, Sociales y Culturales / Economic,
Social, and Cultural Rights Project
RMALC Red Mexicana de Acción Frente al Libre Comercio / Mexican Action
Network Confronting Free Trade
SEIU Service Employees International Union
SEM Servicio Exterior Mexicano / Diplomatic Civil Service
SHCP Secretaría de Hacienda y Crédito Público / Finance Ministry
SITRAJOR Sindicato Independiente de Trabajadores de La Jornada / Independent
Trade Union of Workers of “La Jornada”
SRE Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores / Ministry of Foreign Affairs
STPS Secretaría del Trabajo y Previsión Social / Ministry of Labor
TPS Temporary Protected Status
UE United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America
UFCW United Food and Commercial Workers International Union
WHO World Health Organization
 1

Introduction
Constructing Portable Rights for Migrant Workers

As international migration continues to rise, sending states1 have increasingly cre-

ated policies and programs to engage their diasporas, in some cases even offering
a plethora of services and acting as the legal champions of their erstwhile resi-
dents. In fact, countries are actively using their engagement with diasporas as a
tool for nation building (Délano Alonso and Mylonas 2019). Citing sovereignty
constraints, many nation-states engage in immigration governance directly and
unilaterally rather than adopting a coalitional approach. There are, however, some
exceptions. In December 2018, more than 150 United Nations member states
approved the Global Compact for Migration, the first internationally negotiated
statement of objectives for migration governance. This compact attempts to bal-
ance migrant rights and the principle of national sovereignty (Newland, McAu-
liff, and Bauloz 2020). Chief among its objectives is safe, orderly, and regular
­migration. Member states also pledged to facilitate the fair and ethical recruitment
of migrant workers and to ensure safe and decent working conditions according
to the basic ­principles of the International Labour Organization (ILO). While
­neither the Global Compact’s nor the ILO’s principles are legally binding in prac-
tice, the growing collection of multilateral “soft laws” around the governance of
migrant workers (Serna de la Garza 2019) nonetheless sends a clear message:
migration policy must involve both sending and receiving states (i.e., origin and
destination countries) cooperating bilaterally and multilaterally to address the
needs of diaspora populations.
Excellent comparative work has been done on the institutions and governance
of global diasporas across various countries (Collyer 2013; Gamlen 2014). In this
volume, we focus on the Mexican government as perhaps the clearest example of
a country with a growing interest in the rights of its diaspora, the second largest
in the world. Mexico has increasingly directed resources to its more than eleven
1
2    Constructing Portable Rights for Migrant Workers

million nationals living in Canada and the United States, notably by extending
expatriate voting to facilitate the de jure political rights of Mexicans living abroad
(Délano 2011; Délano Alonso 2018). Yet as Délano Alonso (2018) also documents,
Mexico’s diaspora policies have extended to other arenas of social rights as well,
including health, education, financial literacy, and finally labor rights—this book’s
focus. Mexico is not alone in this shift (Lafleur 2012; Pedroza et al. 2016), as many
other countries have also moved to further engage their diaspora via expanding
voting and social protection rights.2 Indeed, Mexico’s relatively active consular
structure has been replicated throughout Latin America (Délano Alonso 2018).
While Mexican emigrants have enjoyed renewed political power in their coun-
try of origin, they face a litany of challenges in their destination contexts. Voting
and full citizenship rights are vital to the well-being of Mexican emigrants, though
an array of other rights and forms of social protection are equally important. There
are promising signs, as the sending state has moved away from simply enabling a
pool of exportable emigrant labor to also working to uphold the rights of these
workers. However, we still know little about how sending states are being held
accountable for the everyday lives of their diaspora. Here we argue that migrant
civil society on both sides of the border has been a vital force driving the Mexican
state’s relatively prolabor policy shifts.
While past research has chronicled various aspects of migrant life such as
­voting, workplace experiences, and remittance behavior (Duquette-Rury 2019;
Gleeson 2012, 2016; Leal, Lee, and McCann 2012; Medina Vidal 2018; Apostolidis
2010), this focus tends to obscure the important role that civil society and other
meso-level institutions play in helping migrants access rights and resources in
their local communities. Supranational governing bodies have called on origin and
sending states to ensure that migrant workers can access basic social security
and services, though national enforcement instruments lack the ability to actu-
ally ­implement the rights encoded within the domestic laws of the receiving state.
Instead, ­meso-level institutions (such as unions, legal aid groups, social service
organizations, and other migrant advocates) must hold the governments of immi-
grant destinations accountable. Scaling Migrant Rights is an account of these on-
the-ground transnational efforts to defend the rights of migrant workers.
The Mexican diaspora in the United States is diverse in all respects, but in this
book we focus on those precarious migrants laboring in low-wage agricultural,
restaurant, construction, and cleaning jobs, as well as those occupying a whole
host of service-sector positions in the gig economy. Of these workers, of whom
close to five million are Mexican immigrants, many are undocumented (Passel
and Cohn 2019). With few exceptions, undocumented workers in the United
States are afforded the same basic labor protections as their documented coun-
terparts, but overburdened and underresourced agencies at the federal, state,
and local levels often fail to uphold the laws on the books. Immigrant workers’
struggle for rights is compounded by language and cultural barriers, along with a
 Constructing Portable Rights for Migrant Workers     3

­ ell-founded ­distrust of both Mexican and US governments. These challenges can

w
frustrate the efforts of labor regulation, a largely claims-driven system that relies
almost entirely on vulnerable workers’ willingness or ability to come forward and
submit a complaint to the appropriate labor regulator for wage theft or any other
violation. The COVID-19 pandemic has only exacerbated these challenges, ren-
dering this enforcement system aspirational at best.
Across the United States, local civil society groups have led outreach efforts to
disseminate worker education materials and ensure that basic workplace protec-
tions are enforced for migrant workers. These protections cover not only lawful
permanent residents and naturalized citizens but also the nearly 5 percent of the
US civilian workforce that are estimated to be undocumented; the many migrants
in liminal statuses such as DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) and
TPS (Temporary Protected Status) (Passel and Cohn 2018); and the tens of thou-
sands of temporary agricultural guest workers in the country (Beltran 2018).
Immigrant workers—especially those in low-wage and unregulated work-
places—are particularly vulnerable to wage theft, occupational safety and health
hazards, racial discrimination, and sexual harassment (Bernhardt, Spiller, and
Polson 2013; Bernhardt, Spiller, and Theodore 2013). Consequently, local worker
advocates have pressed for more proactive enforcement models and have lever-
aged community organizations to strengthen existing enforcement efforts (Fine
and Gordon 2010). Co-enforcement frameworks have proliferated, as neither reg-
ulators nor advocates alone can ensure employer compliance. These cooperative
models seek to bring government enforcers, workers, and businesses to the table
with the understanding that—despite the limitations of such cooperative efforts—
an exclusively individualist claims-driven approach has proven unworkable. A
range of meso-level civic groups have also taken part in these efforts, including
traditional labor unions, worker centers, legal aid groups, and other immigrant
advocates, each with its own relationship to immigrant workers, US regulators,
and the Mexican state. To be sure, sending states benefit enormously from the eco-
nomic engine of migrant labor and have been called upon by advocates to play a
stronger role in the enforcement of labor standards. Transnational advocates, too,
have worked across borders. Many argue that sending states have a responsibility to
protect the rights of their emigrating citizens as forcefully as they would the rights
of those citizens who stay behind. For example, early twentieth-century transna-
tional labor activists such as the Flores Magón brothers and Vicente Lombardo
Toledano attempted to build international working-class solidarity and a coop-
erative relationship with organized labor unions across the United States (Álvarez
1995). In contrast, some staunch activists, most famously the Zapatista revolution-
ary movements of the mid-1990s, have argued against devoting resources to the
needs of emigrants, viewing them as essentially defectors from national strug-
gles. However, today the overwhelming consensus of activists is that immigrant
rights should be championed across borders (Héctor 2017; Fox 2001). To realize
4    Constructing Portable Rights for Migrant Workers

a ­functional system of portable worker rights, however, requires both a grander

vision of universal justice and a sharp focus on improving the bureaucratic minu-
tiae of local labor enforcement. This tension is at the heart of increased efforts to
improve Mexico’s accountability to its emigrant workers through large-scale social
movement organizing and everyday claims processing. This book explores these
parallel efforts to reform migrant labor rights enforcement.

T H E O R E T IC A L F R A M EWO R K

Migrant Labor Rights Enforcement and the Role of Tripartism

On March 25, 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory burned to the ground in New
York City, killing 154 garment workers and precipitating the growth of the modern
system of workplace regulation in the United States. One would think that more
than a century after the implementation of such regulations, workplace fatalities
would be a thing of the past. However, while significant progress has been made,
work is now more deadly than war. According to Guy Ryder, the general director
of the ILO, workplace fatalities account for approximately 2.3 million deaths per
year (ILO 2014). These workplace risks persist despite the enactment of count-
less new worker protections because the labor standards enforcement regime is
broken. Enforcement agencies are underfunded, understaffed, and often the target
of political machinations. In the United States, it would take sixty-six years for
investigators of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to
inspect each workplace under its jurisdiction just once, assuming 2012 staffing lev-
els (Piore and Schrank 2018).
Foreign-born workers, especially the undocumented (Hall and Greenman
2014), are particularly vulnerable to workplace hazards and other violations (Loh
and Richardson 2004), in large part because of their concentration in key offend-
ing industries (Bernhardt, Spiller, and Theodore 2013).3 Existing immigration
scholarship has tended to focus on the rights afforded to legal migrants through
international instruments and through relevant federal, state, and local statutes
and enforcement agencies. Less attention, though, has been paid to the mecha-
nisms in place that actually help workers realize these rights. Through the lens
of Mexican immigrant workers, this book takes a closer look at the relationship
between governing bodies and migrant civil society organizations in the fight to
access migrant labor rights.
In this examination of government and civil society interactions, we unpack
the role of the state, across various scales and statutes, and consider the enforce-
ment capacity of domestic agencies, which together form a “jurisdictional patch-
work” (Varsanyi et al. 2012). Within this context, we center the sending state, as
it operates on both sides of the border to ensure the rights of its emigrants and
to oversee the returns on its export labor. Both sending and receiving states have
become targets of accountability efforts led by civil society groups. Our analysis
 Constructing Portable Rights for Migrant Workers     5

takes ­seriously the impact of these civil society groups in working with—and tar-
geting—state agencies tasked with ensuring migrant worker rights. Some of these
groups work domestically with migrant workers, while others operate transna-
tionally to demand a more portable rights regime, often through a human rights
frame that poses particular challenges and opportunities for forging coalitions and
staging successful campaigns (Keck and Sikkink 1998). Using the case of Mexico
and the United States, we assess the feasibility of advocating for the portability of
worker rights across borders and the key role that the sending state and transna-
tional civil society can play in such struggles.
We begin by considering the rights afforded to migrant workers in the United
States. In general, most federal, state, and local labor laws grant all workers basic
protections—like the right to a minimum wage, overtime pay, and a safe and
healthy workplace. US courts have affirmed that even undocumented workers
have standing as employees and are eligible to bring claims against their employ-
ers. Antiretaliation measures prevent employers from threatening, intimidating,
or in any other way taking actions against any workers attempting to mobilize
their rights under the law (Gleeson 2016). Yet despite these protections, a steady
“race to the bottom” in terms of labor rights has disproportionately affected immi-
grant workers and foiled the realization of these statutory aims. Post-Fordist labor
enforcement models are poorly equipped to deal with the realities of fissured
labor markets in which the large assembly plant is no longer the norm. In the cur-
rent gloves-off economy of fragmented and flexible work arrangements, workers
fall outside the legal definitions of covered employees, and subcontracting helps
employers evade their responsibilities to these workers (Bernhardt et al. 2008;
Weil 2014).
Underfunded agencies often work in jurisdictional silos and thus are reliant
on legal specialists rather than a generalist staff who can work across issue areas
and coordinate with sister agencies to tailor their outreach to specific vulnerable
populations like immigrants. In the United States, “street-level bureaucrats” (Lip-
sky 1980) typically follow an “economies of scale” model where inspectors focus on
a small subset of violations that afflict a wide swath of workers (Piore and Schrank
2018). This model relies heavily on individual claims, which has benefits and draw-
backs. On the one hand, a claims-based system provides an equal opportunity
structure for all those seeking redress and limits the biases harbored by inspectors,
who may devalue the claims of certain laborers (e.g., temporary or migrant work-
ers). On the other hand, this “fire alarm” approach to claims making has heavy
time, opportunity, and financial costs for workers, who must navigate a highly
technical claims process and rely on expensive, and often unattainable, legal coun-
sel (Gleeson 2016). Worker advocates play an important role in bridging these
jurisdictional gaps and holding regulatory agencies accountable.
The tripartite protection model seeks to address some of these challenges by rely-
ing on coordination between state regulatory agencies and worker ­organizations
6    Constructing Portable Rights for Migrant Workers

to jointly enforce labor standards (Amengual and Fine 2017).4 These alliances
often operate in conjunction with migrant and worker civil society, which have
better access to sectors that are difficult for government inspectors to penetrate
(Fine and Gordon 2010).5 In this book, we highlight an additional partner in the
model: the sending state, which often operates via a global network of consular
offices whose charge is to advocate on behalf of its emigrants across a range of
issues, including health care, education, family law, immigration protections,
and indeed labor rights. We draw specifically on the example of Mexico and its
­consular network across the United States, which, despite its many shortcomings,
is arguably the most widespread and influential of any Latin American country.
In the next section, we consider the legal framework for governing migrant
worker rights.

The International Framework for Migrant Worker Rights

Over the past two decades, US immigration policy (particularly toward its south-
ern border and Latin American migrants) has seen the rise of two opposing
forces. On the one hand, the United States has ramped up immigrant surveillance
and deportation efforts, often in conjunction with state and local authorities.
There have also been attempts, even during Democratic administrations (which
have claimed to be less xenophobic and to champion immigrant rights), to curtail
the rights of immigrants in the workplace and beyond (Macías-Rojas 2018). On the
other hand, a growing number of localities have declared themselves “sanctu-
ary” or “welcoming” cities, pushed back on enforcement efforts, and extended
additional rights even to undocumented workers (such as protections against
wage theft, the right to organize farmworkers, and COVID-19 pandemic relief).
Meanwhile, civil society watchdogs have advocated on behalf of those low-wage
migrant workers most vulnerable to exploitation and have pressed state actors to
guarantee their rights. Similarly, global governance bodies have leveraged instru-
ments to extend migrant rights. For example, the UN International Convention
on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their
Families (CMW)—while nonbinding and currently pending ratification by 130
countries—has influenced regional processes such as the labor side accords of
the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), leading to the develop-
ment and dissemination of best practices concerning migrant labor rights in
trade negotiations.
Within this framework, sending states play a unique role in migrant worker
advocacy. In 2003, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, in response to a
request by Mexico, issued a landmark advisory opinion on the juridical condition
and rights of undocumented migrants. The court ruled, inter alia, that the legal
status of migrant workers can never constitute a justification for depriving them
of enjoying and exercising their human rights, including those related to work.
The court also ruled that upon procuring employment, migrants acquire rights by
virtue of being workers and that these rights should be recognized and guaranteed
 Constructing Portable Rights for Migrant Workers     7

independently of their legal status (Cholewinski 2008). While an advisory opinion

is mostly hortatory, the request issued by the Mexican government signaled a clear
shift in its interest and investment in the well-being of its diaspora.
While some argue that international laws are merely symbolic instruments,
especially in the United States, they do help determine minimum principles and
parameters for regulating global problems that transcend national borders. These
ideals alone, however, cannot enact social change without accompanying resources
or enforcement mechanisms. For example, the World Health Organization lacks
both the financial and political heft to singularly manage an actual epidemic, let
alone a full-blown pandemic (Global Preparedness Monitoring Board 2019). Sim-
ilarly, international labor law offers limited protections to migrants working in
the United States (authorized and unauthorized) but does not prescribe national
enforcement paradigms for labor regulation. There are still further examples of
arguably symbolic instruments. The ILO’s Migrant Workers (Supplementary Pro-
visions) Convention 143 (1975) sets basic minimum protections, and building
upon that and ILO Migration and Employment Convention 47 (1949), the CMW
includes protections for both documented and undocumented migrants. More
recently, in the declaration of the High-Level Dialogue on Migration and Devel-
opment of 2013, member states collectively vowed to protect the rights of migrants
irrespective of their legal status (Berg 2016). However, all these declarations are
nonbinding and lack effective oversight mechanisms. True to form, the United
States has not ratified the CMW, and in 2017 it ended its participation in the UN
Global Compact for Migration, citing sovereignty concerns.
That said, these international instruments provide a form of “soft law” that can
be a useful tool for advocates as they work to hold host and sending states account-
able for the labor conditions of migrant workers (Compa 2017). While civil society
organizations have over the past two decades succeeded in raising their profile,
many countries have not ratified them, largely because of stalled economic growth,
increased xenophobia, and a growing disdain for global governance structures. In
truth, many national laws (in theory) already cover the rights stipulated in these
international agreements. Yet many other laws directly undermine these rights
(Ruhs 2013). Even before the spate of punitive US immigrant legislation passed
in the mid-1990s, immigration law scholar Arthur Helton (1991) warned that the
CMW would entail significant changes to US labor, immigration, and civil rights
laws, thus raising serious doubts about the likelihood of its ratification.
This book offers a glimpse into how a now two-decades-old set of evolving
labor rights agreements between Mexico and the United States has been imple-
mented on the ground in both countries. We argue that this cooperation should
not be seen as an organic flowering of goodwill; rather, it has been the result of
(ongoing and often adversarial) civil society advocacy. Our research complements
extant analyses across diverse destination contexts, including Laurie Berg’s (2016)
case study on the vulnerability of temporary migrant workers in Australia; Leah
Vosko’s (2019) extensive work on the challenges of collective bargaining in the
8    Constructing Portable Rights for Migrant Workers

Mexico-Canada temporary migrant work program; Ines Wagner’s (2018) study of

the challenges facing migrant workers in the European Union; and Luis Enrique
González Araiza’s (2018) analysis of Mexico’s mostly failed attempts to prevent
labor trafficking. Through a multisited set of interviews and archival analysis,
we affirm the ultimately local nature of all enforcement efforts, documenting the
varying ways that binational agreements are implemented across the United States
and the many roles played by the Mexican state at home and abroad.

Holding the Sending State Accountable on Migrant Worker Rights

Mexico shares almost two thousand miles of a porous border with the United
States, a geopolitical reality that keeps Mexico often beholden to US interests
when it comes to border control. Thus, although Mexico has attempted to craft
a more humane border control policy, this goal has proven elusive, and during
bilateral trade negotiations much of the discussion usually focuses on Mexico’s
willingness to institute containment and deterrence mechanisms to discourage the
northward exodus of Central Americans. Mexican politicians have long used
the CMW (which Mexico has ratified but the United States has not) to push for
better treatment of Mexican workers in the United States. They have done so, how-
ever, without granting similar rights to migrant workers living in or transiting
through Mexico. Transnational advocates also argue that the Mexican government
enjoys the economic benefit of labor exports while failing to guarantee its citizens
at home the right to “dignified and socially useful employment” (as stated in Arti-
cle 123 of Mexico’s constitution).6 In other words, Mexico has in effect deprived
its citizens of the right to find decent work, and thus to remain, in Mexico. While
the CMW has fueled Mexico’s attempt to promote migrant rights in the United
States (Díaz Prieto and Kuhner 2009), Mexico’s reputation has been marred by its
own poor record of human rights and labor abuses against Central Americans and
other migrants in transit.7
In this book, we describe the Mexican government’s shift from a limited to an
active engagement with its diaspora (Délano 2009) as it navigates the tricky ter-
rain of being both a sending and a transit state with its own uneven labor rights
track record. We home in on the different instantiations of the US-Mexico accords
on labor cooperation, which vary across US cities and have led to locally defined,
transnationally coproduced enforcement practices. We demonstrate that cross-
sectorial alliances are responsible for building a migrant rights movement and
institutionalizing migrant protections. We focus especially on efforts to develop
and implement the binational accord between Mexico’s Secretaría de Relaciones
Exteriores / Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE) and the US Department of Labor
(DOL) in 2008, interrogating the diverse perspectives of bureaucrats and advo-
cates who have participated in these initiatives over the last fifteen years. We argue
that these tripartite models of co-enforcement are promising but not panaceas,
working better in some communities than in others.
 Constructing Portable Rights for Migrant Workers     9

This volume expands on our earlier work (Bada and Gleeson 2019), which
presented a general overview on the best practices and pitfalls of enforcing
­employment, health, and educational immigrant rights across borders in Canada,
Mexico, and the United States. Rather than adopting the dominant framework
in immigration studies that centers immigrant integration to the host country,
our focus here is on Mexico, the sending state, and its engagement with migrant
civil society. Pioneering scholars of this approach have (in our view) rightly aban-
doned methodological nationalism (i.e., concentrating on immigrant communi-
ties within the sole context of their host countries) to document the sending-state
policies driving migrants to invest back home and to explain the ways in which
that state manages the economic and political demands of its nationals living
abroad (Byrnes 2003; Duquette-Rury 2019; Iskander 2010; Félix 2019; Bada 2014).
We build on Alexandra Délano Alonso’s foundational work on the evolution of
the Mexican government’s policies from a limited to an active engagement with its
thirty million nationals living in the United States, as well as her more recent work
on how Mexico’s newest model of consular advocacy has facilitated the incorpo-
ration of Mexican immigrants into US institutions (Délano 2011; Délano Alonso
2018). Moreover, we highlight a range of advocacy strategies that often (but not
always) involve civil society and the Mexican government working together. These
range from the consular network facilitating the minutiae of everyday worker
claims making (chapter 3) to migrant civil society’s demand for broader account-
ability across a variety of social issues (chapter 4) to high-profile, grasstops litiga-
tion across borders (chapter 5).
While our previous work discussed the dynamics of local labor agencies tasked
with enforcing immigrant worker rights (Gleeson 2014, 2016), here we privilege
the perspectives of domestic and transnational nonprofits in brokering binational
enforcement initiatives. We also highlight the importance of consular initiatives
on labor advocacy and the extent to which advocates have engaged with the con-
sular network. To do so, we document the genesis and evolution of the annual
Labor Rights Week, a nationwide consular partnership between the US DOL and
Mexico’s SRE that began in 2007 as a pilot with a few consular offices and has
now been institutionalized across all Mexican consulates in the United States. The
legal backbone of this federal initiative comprises more than sixty bilateral memo-
randa of understanding that have been periodically signed between various local
US labor standards enforcement agencies and Mexico’s government over the last
fifteen years. We also draw on examples of iconic transnational struggles, such as
the decades-long campaigns to strengthen labor rights for temporary H-2 immi-
grant workers via the symbolic power of a nonbinding trade policy framework
under the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (NAALC) (Brooks
and Fox 2002b; Hertel 2006; Kay 2011; Kay and Evans 2018). Finally, in examining
bottom-up processes, we reveal how top-down attempts to build solidarity have
also reproduced cross-border power imbalances.
10    Constructing Portable Rights for Migrant Workers

Beyond outlining the aspirational proclamations of governments, this book

reveals the key role that advocacy organizations play in pressuring government
bureaucracies to defend migrant rights in theory and in practice. Adopting a
multiscalar approach, we detail the varied strategies pursued by transnational
civil society organizations across a range of social arenas. We talk to an array
of actors, including Mexican diplomats, US labor agency officials, and a host of
civil society groups such as legal service providers, worker advocates, and other
­migrant-serving nonprofits. In doing so, we identify the particular challenges fac-
ing migrants who inhabit a transnational existence: away from their homeland,
and often liminally tied to their host society, they have precarious rights on both
sides of the border. Our study follows in the bottom-up analytical tradition of
other works focused on Europe and Latin America (García Agustín and Jørgensen
2016; Margheritis 2016) by not only considering the impact of elite actors but also
viewing migrants as political actors in their own right. We look at advocacy on
both sides of the border but see transnational alliances as opportunities for soli-
darity that can either be fruitful (though never tension-free) or entrench divisions.

M E X IC A N M IG R A N T S I N T H E U N I T E D STAT E S

Demographic Profile
The Mexican consular network in the United States, as described in greater detail
in chapter 2, has fifty-two offices. The uneven distribution of offices across the
country reflects a story about Mexican immigrant demography in the United
States. Mexico’s diplomatic presence in the United States has widely varying capac-
ity and priorities: some states or even certain metropolitan regions are home to
multiple consular offices, while other offices cover several states where the immi-
grant density is lower (figure 1).
In terms of demographics, all told, in 2019 there were approximately 10.9 mil-
lion Mexican-born individuals living in the United States, a 7 percent decline
over the decade prior (Israel and Batalova 2020). Mexicans constitute the largest
national-origin plurality of immigrants in the United States, at about a quarter of
the foreign born in 2018 (Budiman et al. 2020). Nationally, Mexican-origin indi-
viduals are by far the largest national-origin subgroup of Latinos in the United
States (Noe-Bustamante and Flores 2019), making up nearly two-thirds of the
total. The immigrant populations with the largest proportion of Mexican nationals
are concentrated in the Southwest, and especially in the states and cities along the
border (figure 2). These are the areas with the densest concentration of consular
offices. However, Mexicans are a very small (though growing) part of the Latino
population in the South and along the Eastern Seaboard (figure 3).
The local contexts of immigration policy differ widely, and each region has a
unique industrial profile in which Mexican immigrant workers are embedded.
Labor regulations also vary most significantly from state to state. Some cities
have created their own protections and policies, and co-enforcement models with
Figure 1. Mexican consulates in the United States. Source: Authors’ compilation, based on
the consulate’s directory published by Mexico’s Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores / Ministry of
Foreign Affairs (SRE n.d.-b). This map includes all offices that existed at some point during our
period of fieldwork. The consulate in Anchorage no longer operates.

Figure 2. Percentage of foreign-born population that is Mexican born. Source: All maps
in this series are compiled using estimates from the five-year sample of the American Com-
munity Survey 2014–2018 (US Census Bureau 2019). We include in the foreign-born sample
anyone who is born outside of the United States (which we define to include all US possessions)
(IPUMS USA n.d.-a).
12    Constructing Portable Rights for Migrant Workers

Figure 3. Percentage of Latino population identifying as Mexican. Source: The American

Community Survey queries all individuals regarding their “Hispanic status” using the question
“Is Person X of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin?” Here we classify as “Latino” all those
who affirm YES, including the categories “Mexican, Mexican Am., Chicano,” “Puerto Rican,”
“Cuban,” or “another Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin” (IPUMS USA n.d.-c). We classify as
Mexican those who select the “Mexican, Mexican Am., Chicano” subcategory of Hispanic and
those who were born in Mexico.

civil society are more likely to emerge in urban areas (Fine and Gordon 2010;
de Graauw 2016; Gleeson 2016). Meanwhile rural and suburban communities—
which are increasingly migrant destinations—are typically far removed from con-
sular resources, lack public transportation options, and face a dearth of both labor
regulation and civil society resources (de Graauw, Gleeson, and Bloemraad 2013;
de Graauw and Gleeson 2020). The unauthorized immigrant workforce is particu-
larly disadvantaged by these obstacles.
The 10.5 million unauthorized immigrants in the United States constitute about
a quarter of the US immigrant population. Forty-seven percent of these unau-
thorized immigrants are from Mexico, and 43 percent of all Mexican immigrants
are unauthorized (Gonzalez-Barrera and Krogstad 2019; Passel and Cohn 2019).
Notably, the US’s unauthorized population has changed substantially in the last
decade, with a 28 percent decrease in undocumented Mexicans since 2010 (CMS
2021). Again, the characteristics of Mexican migrants differ across place. Pro-
portionally, the noncitizen population of Mexicans is currently highest in “new
­destinations” where Mexican immigrants have relatively recently arrived (figure 4).
These places are also more likely to have more restrictive immigration policies that
 Constructing Portable Rights for Migrant Workers     13

Figure 4. Percentage of Mexican immigrant population that is noncitizen. Source: The

American Community Survey queries citizenship status of all foreign-born persons. We classify
noncitizens as those who identified as such, namely, those who were not born in the United
States, were not born abroad of American parents, or were not naturalized citizens (IPUMS
USA n.d.-b).

make migrant worker organizing even more challenging (Wong 2012; Pham and
Van 2014).

Mexican Labor Precarity

Though the oldest and most established of Latino immigrant groups, Mexi-
can migrants are also among the most precarious. Many Mexican migrants are
recently arrived, have low levels of human capital, and have limited English profi-
ciency. In general, low-wage migrant workers experience precarious employment
and struggle to gain access to basic labor protections. A number of factors have
made this precarity all but a foregone conclusion: a race to the bottom for cheap
labor, a steep drop-off in unionization, and increasingly defunded labor agencies,
which often lack the political will to enforce the laws on the books (Bernhardt et
al. 2008; Gutelius and Theodore 2019). Many industries such as hospitality, care-
giving, warehouse work, agriculture, and construction sectors across the United
States and other developed economies are dependent on low-wage, precarious
migrant labor (Ruhs 2013).
For the majority of Mexican low-wage immigrant workers, access to decently
paid and adequately protected work is elusive. While Mexican immigrants have
14    Constructing Portable Rights for Migrant Workers

a 70 percent labor force participation rate, 33 percent earn salaries that are lower
than half of the national median, and 58 percent lack access to basic social protec-
tions like health care and a pension. In comparison, only 36 percent of US native
workers are in similarly precarious employment situations (Canales Cerón and
Rojas Wiesner 2018). Low-wage Mexican workers toil in dangerous industries
with scant regulation, and Mexican migrant workers are the most affected by fatal
occupational injuries among foreign-born workers. Between 2011 and 2018, 4,453
foreign-born workers died in the workplace, 65 percent of whom were Mexican
(BLS-DOL 2019).
Fifty percent of the Mexican immigrant labor force have low-wage jobs,
mostly working as day laborers in construction or in personal services such as
domestic work, food preparation, cleaning services, and other service occupa-
tions. Apart from the low wages, these jobs are characterized by unpredictable
scheduling and low rates of unionization. Immigrant workers fill 38 percent of
the US structural employment deficit (Canales Cerón and Rojas Wiesner 2018),
reflecting both a degradation of the jobs listed above and the increasing recruit-
ment of exploitable immigrant labor (Milkman 2020).
In this labor environment, wage theft is one of the most common forms
of workplace abuse.8 As such, it has become one of the most tangible targets of
co-enforcement efforts, spurring partnerships between the sending state and
domestic labor regulation agencies, including cities that have developed their
own regulatory frameworks.9 The most vulnerable workers are the most targeted:
foreign-born workers are 1.5 times more likely than their US-born counterparts
to suffer a minimum-wage violation. According to the labor intake database pub-
lished by Mexico’s SRE, between 2010 and 2018, 4,539 Mexican victims of wage
theft requested help to recover their US-earned wages inside Mexican consular
offices across the United States. These efforts are the subject of our analyses. In
addition to workplace abuse, highly criminalized immigration employment sys-
tems continue to foil labor regulation efforts the world over (Berg 2016; González
Araiza 2018; Kip 2017; Vosko 2019; Wagner 2018). This is especially true for the 4.6
percent of the foreign-born workforce in the United States who are unauthorized.
In a statistic that demonstrates the permanent nature of undocumented work,
Mexican unauthorized workers now average fifteen years of continuous residence
in the United States (Passel and Cohn 2019), and they are usually confined to pre-
carious labor markets and occupations with weak—and sometimes nonexistent—
enforcement mechanisms.
While the number of Mexican immigrants living in the United States with-
out authorization has declined, three-quarters of immigrants deported by the
Department of Homeland Security every year are Mexican nationals. In a national
environment that insists on criminalizing Mexican low-wage workers (Goodman
2020; Macías-Rojas 2016), it is imperative to assess the mechanisms that advocates
 Constructing Portable Rights for Migrant Workers     15

and bureaucracies have implemented to facilitate (or hinder) claims making in

labor rights enforcement.
It is within this context that Mexico has begun to rethink how it addresses the
rights of its highly precarious emigrants living and working in the United States, as
well as those who ultimately return and attempt to reintegrate into Mexican society.

R E SE A R C H S T R AT E G Y

The analysis presented in this book draws on surveys and interviews with relevant
stakeholders from both civil society and government bureaucracies who have
been instrumental in establishing transnational practices of labor co-enforcement
for Mexican migrant workers. These include staff from various labor enforcement
agencies, Mexican diplomats, labor union and worker center organizers, legal aid
organizations, and immigrant grassroots associations. We focus on the local and
transnational challenges across multiple levels of governance and the importance
of migrant civil society in holding government actors accountable.
In the fall of 2012, we conducted a survey of fifty-two Mexican consular offices
to assess their cooperation with US labor standard enforcement agencies and to
gather information on Labor Rights Week, the most important co-enforcement
program established by bilateral agreements between the United States and
Mexico. We asked survey respondents to outline the extent of the outreach
and resources provided to workers as well as the nature of consular collaborations
with other labor standards enforcement agencies and community organizations.
We then conducted twenty-five in-depth interviews with embassy and legal affairs
staff at consular offices who had pioneered Labor Rights Week. On the basis of the
survey results and the consular interviews, we created an organizational database
of local civil society actors who had collaborated with the Mexican consular offices
to implement the Labor Rights Week or who were part of broader advocacy refer-
ral networks.
The second stage of data collection took place between 2013 and 2015, when
we interviewed Mexican diplomats, government agency staff, and nonprofit
­organization leaders across fifteen consular jurisdictions. We spoke with represen­
tatives of organizations in regions that spanned the political gamut (see figure 5):
Atlanta, Austin, Chicago, Fresno, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, Nashville, New
York, Omaha, Orlando, Phoenix, Raleigh, Sacramento, Salt Lake City, San Diego,
San Francisco/Oakland, San Jose, Tucson, and Washington, D.C.10 Additionally,
during 2016–17, we interviewed staff from transnational labor advocacy
nonprofits operating in Juxtlahuaca, San Luis Potosí, Piedras Negras, and Mexico
City. A­ ltogether, we draw on 206 interviews with labor standards government
­bureaucracies, diplomats, worker centers, labor unions, and other ­migrant-serving
­nonprofits operating across the United States and Mexico.
16    Constructing Portable Rights for Migrant Workers

Figure 5. 2016 presidential election: Democratic percentage of vote for cities included in
project. Source: Presidential election voting data are drawn from Politico (2016). Data identify-
ing sanctuary cities—which we define as jurisdictions that have enacted policies to curb local
officials’ involvement in the enforcement of federal immigration law—are drawn from Bal-
lotpedia (n.d.).

We also relied on participant observation at selected events and field sites in

order to examine the co-enforcement challenges encountered by the sending state.
For instance, we attended charlas (talks) held in consular offices and across the
broader community, as well as resource fairs where various community partners
distributed informational material. To complement our data collection efforts,
we organized two action research panels with labor activists to discuss migrant
rights enforcement across borders at the annual Law and Society Association
­conferences in Mexico City and Washington, D.C., in the spring of 2017 and 2019.
In October of 2017, we participated in a Trinational Labor Gathering discussing
labor responses to the renegotiation of NAFTA in Chicago.
Finally, we requested statistical and budget information on consular outreach
programs from Mexico’s Instituto Nacional de Transparencia, Acceso a la Infor-
mación y Protección de Datos Personales / National Institute of Transparency,
Information Access, and Private Data Protection and reviewed key institutional
documents going back to the original 2002 ministerial negotiations between the
DOL and the SRE; more than sixty memoranda of understanding established
between the DOL and various consulates; one hundred local media announce-
ments about Labor Rights Week; correspondence between stakeholders while
 Constructing Portable Rights for Migrant Workers     17

implementing Labor Rights Week; and local press releases from government agen-
cies that developed collaborative relationships with immigrant worker advocates.

R OA D M A P F O R T H E B O O K

Our story of transnational labor co-enforcement practices in the United States

unfolds across six chapters. Chapter 2 offers a road map for understanding the
Mexican consular network as an advocacy institution. We describe the genesis and
evolution of consular efforts to enforce the workplace rights of immigrant workers
in the United States and introduce Labor Rights Week, a significant program that
coordinates efforts among local consular offices, federal and state labor standards
enforcement agencies, and other immigrant worker advocates. We trace how the
consular network expanded its territorial notions of citizenship and became
the premier support system for the most vulnerable of migrant workers. We exam-
ine the current role of the Mexican consular network in co-enforcement efforts
with the US DOL (and sister agencies), detailing how these efforts have been
institutionalized through a web of consular bureaucracies. We argue that consular
representatives depend on this international cooperation because, while they are
endowed with unique resources and legitimacy, their efforts to defend the rights of
immigrant workers are constrained by the US enforcement bureaucratic apparatus
and by budgetary issues.
Chapter 3 analyzes the local implementation of binational agreements between
the US DOL and Mexico’s SRE in cooperation with local civil society organiza-
tions, in particular labor unions and legal services providers. We find that con-
sular partnerships are highly variable, depending on the given jurisdiction and the
characteristics of the local immigrant community. We consider the motivations
and goals for participating in co-enforcement efforts with the consulates, find-
ing that collaboration with the Mexican government, among other benefits, can
fortify claims making, the engine of labor regulation in the United States. We also
find that while the Mexican consulates can wield substantial influence, help civil
society organizations access the formal halls of power, and act as a linguistic and
cultural resource for migrant communities, they are cautious and reluctant advo-
cates. Moreover, their constantly shifting staff further hampers advocacy efforts.
We therefore conclude that tripartite enforcement is more challenging than the
recurring memoranda of understanding suggest and that scaling up and sustain-
ing these partnerships is difficult at best.
Chapter 4 examines the diverse relationships that emerge beyond the well-
defined realms of labor co-enforcement by exploring the wide array of immi-
grant rights organizations that are seeking to expand the scope of sending-state
accountability. We find that immigrant rights organizations have slowly gained
more negotiating power with diplomatic bureaucracies over migrant labor rights.
We situate migrant labor rights within the broader context of Mexico’s ­historical
18    Constructing Portable Rights for Migrant Workers

s­tate-society relations, noting how this history has shaped the wide-ranging
demands that migrant groups have placed on the sending state, including, but also
expanding far beyond, the issue of labor co-enforcement. Finally, we chronicle the
many frustrations advocates have expressed about consular institutions and exam-
ine how advocates balance the collaborative potential of the consular network with
the necessity of holding consulates and the sending state accountable.
In chapter 5, we shift our analytical approach to track the emergence of a “porta-
ble rights” frame to defend migrant workers. We map the conditions and c­ hallenges
shaping organizations’ ability to mobilize NAFTA’s labor side accord protecting
migrant worker rights, including funding limitations, mission foci, and the extent
of civil society infrastructure. Focusing on the cross-border actions of twenty-two
migrant rights advocacy institutions, we examine how organizations decide whom
to defend (such as H-2 workers and undocumented Central A ­ mericans in transit),
which policies to target (domestic, bilateral, or international), and which models
of service provision to deploy on the ground. ­Considering Mexico as both a sender
and a host of vulnerable migrant workers, we survey the field of transnational
advocacy that defends migrants across both of Mexico’s borders.
Our concluding chapter assesses the impact of efforts to increase sending-state
accountability for migrant worker rights. While the sovereignty of the state remains
unchallenged in immigration policy making, the state has certainly become less
autonomous as unfettered globalization accelerates and multiple actors push for
universalizing labor rights. Because of the enormous challenges that labor advo-
cacy organizations face in defending the most precarious migrant workers, their
impact has often been downplayed by social movement scholars. Indeed, we offer a
sobering account of the nonbinding agreements that have proven to be minimally
effective in ameliorating conditions on the ground. However, over the years, the
influence of advocacy organizations has been undeniable. Despite the challenges
of erecting a robust co-enforcement regime, the tripartite state-society labor rela-
tions we document here provide some optimism regarding advocates’ strategies
and give us hope for the future of transnational labor alliances and coalitions in
North America.
 2

The Mexican Consular Network

as an Advocacy Institution

There is a limited but growing literature in the field of international relations

regarding how sending states engage with their diasporas on demands for social
protection. The programs offered by Mexico’s consular network are situated within
a larger set of policies aiming to respond to the social vulnerabilities faced by
its nonresident citizens. Most sending states in Europe and Latin America have
developed some infrastructure on this front, ranging between descriptive (mainly
a ­consular network presence offering basic services) and substantive (providing
rights and services that address social welfare needs of nonresident nationals)
(Lafleur and Vintila 2020; Pedroza et al. 2016). Several Western European coun-
tries with robust welfare systems have the capacity to offer substantive diaspora
infrastructure to their nonresident citizens living abroad by providing or facilitat-
ing access to concrete welfare services for nonresident nationals, thanks to bilat-
eral agreements with host countries. For example, French citizens living abroad
enjoy extensive health care services and contributory pensions offered by France’s
extensive consular network. In contrast, Latin American countries are less likely to
offer substantive social protections to nonresident nationals working abroad. Part
of the challenge is a matter of scale. While the French government is able to extend
social services to a diaspora that represents less than 3 percent of the French popu-
lation, the Mexican government is expected to offer services to the estimated 10
percent of its population who are emigrants, 97 percent of whom reside in the
United States (Li Ng 2022).
In the late 1990s, the Mexican consular network expanded its offices throughout
the United States and increased its volume of services related to documentation
and civil, labor, and legal rights, as well as financial education, basic health ser-
vices, literacy, and cultural programming. Perhaps it is not a coincidence that these
changes followed an increase in the Bank of Mexico’s annual estimate of ­family

19
20    Mapping the Mexican Consular Network as an Advocacy

remittances. Once the state was presented with data about the scale and impact
of their contributions to millions of Mexican households, migrant workers could
collectively start making stronger claims on it by demanding more consular ser-
vices.1 Remittances from Mexican immigrants reached $20 billion in 2005 and $26
billion in 2007. This revenue was exceeded only by oil exports and was generally on
par with the level of foreign investment, placing Mexico at the top of remittance-
sending countries worldwide. In the recessionary year of 2008, annual remittances
from Mexican immigrants surpassed foreign investment ($25 billion vs. 23 billion)
(Mendoza González and Valdivia López 2016). Since 2014, remittances sent by
Mexican immigrants have continued to grow steadily, reaching $51 billion in 2021,
with 95 percent of the total amount coming from the United States (Li Ng 2022).
While Mexican consular services are decidedly not capable of expanding social
welfare protections to all nonresidents living abroad, the Mexican government
has a clear vested interest in addressing the basic needs of migrant workers in
the United States, as their economic contributions represent an increasingly large
share of the GDP (3.8 percent in 2020) and offer an escape valve from poverty to
the 5 percent of Mexican households who depend on family remittances (Associ-
ated Press 2022).
Mexican emigrants living in the United States do not have access to special
retirement programming; the Mexican government does not have any pension or
social security agreement with the United States. Mexicans working abroad with-
out health insurance cannot access Mexico’s public universal health care system
except through the Seguro Popular, a public health insurance offering minimal
health care services to the families left behind using an annual sliding fee scale.
Thus the bureaucratic diasporic infrastructure for most Mexican workers in the
United States is limited to basic consular services aimed at informing low-wage
workers how to access services in their local destination. They may be directed, for
example, to health services offered by federally qualified health centers to undocu-
mented workers, food pantries and literacy services offered through partnerships
with local NGOs, and legal consultants for advice regarding workplace complaints.
To deliver on both descriptive and substantive services, the Mexican consular
network and its representatives must navigate the legal mandates and cultural
norms of at least four jurisdictions: the supranational instruments of international
law, the national mandates of the Mexican government (and whatever political
party is in power), the eternally polarized partisan politics of the United States (or
of other host countries), and the subfederal (state and municipal) governments
where the physical consular office is located. These mandates affect not only the
parameters of diplomatic engagement but also the rights of migrant workers more
specifically. In this chapter, we describe how each of these arenas shapes the abil-
ity to implement the Mexican government’s aspirational promise to advocate for
Mexican immigrants working in the United States. In the pages that follow, we
provide the legal and institutional context for how street-level bureaucrats (at both
 Mapping the Mexican Consular Network as an Advocacy     21

US labor agencies and the Mexican consulate) are implementing their mandate
to address immigrant worker precarity. We assess the practical impact that these
bilateral investments may have in the long run, beyond their symbolic importance
for bilateral cooperation.
In this analysis, we use Lipsky’s (1980) concept of street-level bureaucrats,
understood as frontline governmental staff workers who directly administer and
enforce labor and employment law in the United States or who offer direct social
services in the Mexican consular network. These bureaucrats typically work for
perpetually underfunded and overburdened organizations. We aim to understand
how frontline staff prioritize their goals because of limited time and resources due
to the chronic underfunding of services to meet the needs of precarious migrant
workers. In the next section, we outline the framework for labor standards
enforcement in the United States. We highlight the need for a co-enforcement
model that engages relevant domestic civil society organizations as well as for the
cross-border approach that has been embraced—to varying degrees—by diaspora
bureaucracies.

L A B O R S TA N DA R D S E N F O R C E M E N T
I N T H E U N I T E D S TAT E S : C HA L L E N G E S
A N D O P P O RT U N I T I E S F O R C O N SU L A R A DVO C AC Y

Several volumes have chronicled the specifics of US labor regulation and the many
endemic challenges of a system in which employer compliance is elusive and
companies race to the bottom in terms of labor rights in a globalizing capitalist
world (e.g., Bernhardt, Milkman, and Theodore 2009; Parks 2014; Gleeson 2016).
These dynamics have rendered migrant workers among the most vulnerable, lead-
ing both labor advocates and enforcement agencies to seek ways to promote their
rights. It is in this context, and following immense grassroots pressure to hold
both governments accountable for the workplace conditions of migrant workers,
that a bilateral partnership has emerged between Mexico and the United States.
Workers and their advocates must navigate a multijurisdictional regulatory
apparatus that both offers and frustrates opportunities for collaboration. While
different statutory arenas often process their own claims entirely separately (e.g.,
wage and hour violations at the Department of Labor [DOL], sexual harassment
claims at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission [EEOC], or unfair
labor practices at the National Labor Relations Board [NLRB]), consulates are in
theory able to bridge these bureaucratic divisions in order to provide holistic assis-
tance to workers, who are often considering filing a multitude of claims.
Another challenge is that despite increasing efforts to invest in strategic
enforcement (Piore and Schrank 2018), the vast majority of labor compliance is
still claims driven. This approach disadvantages the most vulnerable, especially
undocumented workers, who may be especially wary of approaching government
22    Mapping the Mexican Consular Network as an Advocacy

regulators and who have higher exposure to occupational health risks than their
documented counterparts (Rocha Romero, Medina Sánchez, and Orraca Romano,
2022). For all these reasons (detailed further below), there is ample opportunity
for local consulates to act as critical intermediary institutions.

Siloed Issue Arenas

The US labor standards enforcement system is a collection of agencies charged
with enforcing a variety of disparate statutes. Employment relations and workers’
rights have been dispersed across a complicated menu of regulations. Take, for
example, the minimum-wage and overtime rules. These federal rules are set by the
DOL’s Wage and Hour Division, which enforces the Fair Labor Standards Act, a
law that also guarantees meal and rest breaks. A separate unit within the DOL—
the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)—enforces train-
ing and hazard prevention requirements, often in conjunction with state OSHA
agencies. These regulations are separate from the workers’ compensation system,
which relies on private insurance schemes, each regulated by the nation’s fifty state
boards. Other civil rights protections—against harassment, retaliation, or other
discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, gender, disability, reli-
gion, or genetic information—fall to the EEOC and the dozens of partner state and
local Fair Employment Practice Agencies across the country. Finally, the rights of
the small percentage of unionized workers engaged in collective bargaining activi-
ties are overseen by the twenty-six regional offices of the NLRB.
Unlike Mexico’s more consolidated approach, the siloed nature of workers’
rights in the United States complicates workers’ and Mexican diplomats’ ability
to quickly identify the appropriate advocate in the event of a violation. Mexico’s
model of labor inspection employs dedicated health and safety inspectors as well
as generalists capable of addressing wages and hours, working conditions, child
labor, and other areas of the labor code in a single visit, as opposed to the highly
specialized nature of US labor inspectors (Piore and Schrank 2018). These differ-
ences in labor enforcement mechanisms make it necessary for consular bureau-
crats to undergo specialized trainings offered by US labor standard agencies to
become proficient in the alphabet soup of labor enforcement silos. The challenges
are multiplied for immigrant workers, who may have limited English proficiency
or may lack experience interacting with US bureaucracies. While some agencies
have informally developed joint task forces or engaged in collaborative outreach
efforts, there is no statutory requirement for cross-filing claims across agencies.
And even when there is coordination, each statute may have distinct employee and
firm coverage, statutes of limitations, and claims processes. Within this context,
worker advocates become critical intermediaries for helping claimants navigate
the patchwork of laws and offices. Consulates can also play a key intermediary role
and are especially needed in places with a thin network of worker advocates serv-
ing Spanish-speaking immigrant workers. In some cities, as we detail in the next
 Mapping the Mexican Consular Network as an Advocacy     23

chapter, consulates have been critical for coordinating the cross-filing of claims. To
this end, in 2004, Mexico’s Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores / Ministry of For-
eign Affairs (SRE) and the US DOL signed a Joint Declaration to advance immi-
grant worker rights, setting the stage for other sister agencies to follow suit.

Overlapping Jurisdictions
Labor standards enforcement in the United States is complicated not only by the
ways it is split up by issue among various federal agencies but by the ways state
and local governments have increasingly taken the initiative to address labor stan-
dards themselves (Galvin 2016; Fine et al. 2020). This shift can be attributed in part
to the intransigence of the US Congress, which has neglected to raise the mini-
mum requirements of key protections. For example, the minimum wage, which
requires congressional approval, has remained stagnant for more than a decade.
Labor standards at the federal level make exceptions for certain precarious work-
ers such as domestic caregivers or farmworkers, categories that several states have
now chosen to include in their basic protections. Meanwhile, many states and
localities have stepped in to provide stronger standards and enforcement mecha-
nisms (Goldman 2018). As a result, workers pursuing restitution, particularly
those living in big cities, are faced with a plethora of overlapping jurisdictions and
options for legal mobilization. This array is both a blessing and a curse, and can be
especially confusing for workers who need translators and cannot afford a lawyer
to help them navigate the bureaucratic labyrinth.
Within this context, there is ample opportunity for consulates to collaborate
with government agencies and civil society groups that advocate on behalf of
immigrant workers. Generally, federal memoranda of understanding (MOUs) can
set the tone at the local level. As described in chapter 3, MOUs are frequently rep-
licated in local jurisdictions in the form of letters of agreement (LOAs), which are
signed by the local agency lead (e.g., district director or regional administrator for
the local DOL’s Wage and Hour Division Office). While the template for federal
bilaterally negotiated MOU agreements with the DOL, EEOC, and NLRB dates
back to the Joint Declaration signed between the DOL and the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs in 2004, certain local offices of these federal agencies were coordinating
with Mexico’s consular network across the United States long before their national
agencies signed onto the federal MOU, thanks to collaborative relationships
between street-level diplomatic bureaucrats across Mexico’s consular network
and local labor standards enforcement agents (Gleeson and Bada 2019). However,
because of the explicitly diplomatic mission of Mexico’s consular network, federal
agencies are their sole official counterparts, the only body with whom they are able
to sign formal MOUs.
While these memoranda are arguably only symbolic agreements that do not
necessarily determine the actual extent of consular collaboration on the ground,
our interviews with key stakeholders reveal that the jurisdictional mismatch
24    Mapping the Mexican Consular Network as an Advocacy

between federal and local initiatives has implications for generating sustained
political will and commitment from consular leadership to advance workers’
rights.2 More mundanely, the consular-federal relationship steepens the learning
curve for new consular staff, who must familiarize themselves with both local and
national regulations and players. In places like San Francisco—where the Califor-
nia Labor Commission enforces a more robust set of policies than does the federal
DOL’s Wage and Hour Division and where the city/county Office of Labor Stan-
dards Enforcement enforces one of the highest minimum wages in the country
(twice that of the national standard)—the relationships between local consulates
and their federal counterparts are practically inconsequential.
Finally, this federated approach to labor standards enforcement also heightens
the importance of proactive local consular initiatives. Top-down national outreach
strategies like the annual Semana de Derechos Laborales / Labor Rights Week are
critical to coordinating the entire consular network around promoting workers’
rights as a key part of consular protection. However, without consular leadership
that is attuned to the realities facing the local immigrant workforce (be they agri-
cultural workers in Salinas, meatpackers outside of Chicago, or restaurant workers
in Houston), a uniform approach to workers’ rights advocacy is bound to fail.
Local co-enforcement efforts—usually instigated by civil society actors—have
emerged precisely from the on-the-ground experiences of these workers, and thus
local consulates must learn to carefully navigate and not co-opt these movements.

Claims-Driven Worker Regulation

The defining aspect of the labor standards enforcement regime in the United States
is that it is fueled almost entirely by worker-generated claims. Though many of
these agencies have proactive outreach and education initiatives (including the
DOL’s Community Outreach and Resource Planning Specialists program) (Wage
and Hour Division 2021), a bottom-up “fire alarm” approach to labor investiga-
tion predominates and disadvantages the most vulnerable of workers, especially
those who may be undocumented (McCubbins and Schwartz 1984; Griffith 2012;
Alexander and Prasad 2014). This approach is problematic for compliance efficacy,
given that it necessarily directs regulators to focus on those willing workers most
capable of filing complaints by themselves. It is also problematic for marginalized
workers (Garcia 2012), who must surmount a long list of challenges in order to
ascend the dispute pyramid and file a formal claim (Felstiner, Abel, and Sarat 1980;
Gleeson 2016). Owing to these barriers, the claims-driven approach heightens the
importance of institutional intermediaries, a role that civil society organizations
and other legal advocates have long played.
Consulates are particularly well equipped to broker workers’ claims given their
ability to wield state power in communications with employers or to coordinate
with US agencies as diplomatic counterparts. In contrast to the siloed nature of
the claims-making bureaucracy, some consulates even serve as case managers for
 Mapping the Mexican Consular Network as an Advocacy     25

workers struggling to navigate disparate agencies. Language and cultural connec-

tions, as well as the (limited) community trust they have established, grant con-
sular officials a huge advantage over US agencies. But more practically, consular
officials can be granted unique access to overworked and underresourced US labor
agency staff, who may otherwise keep worker advocates at arm’s length or view
them as adversarial. In some rare cases, consulates may also provide their citizens
with legal referrals and even pay for outside representation. Usually, though, con-
sulates at the very least act as a central referral node for the various community
partners able to provide additional assistance and organizing support.
However, the availability of third parties who can educate workers about their
rights and shepherd their claims through the system depends on a number of
factors. Only immigrant workers in central cities tend to have access to pro bono
legal advocates willing to take their cases. In the absence of these pro bono law-
yers, few workers possess the resources to hire an attorney for this work, and
lawyers will typically offer a contingency plan only for certain rare, high-reward
cases. Given this context, a consular office enjoys certain advantages over other
organizations in performing this brokering role. For example, consulates are par-
ticularly well positioned not only because they can provide workers with informa-
tion and (potentially) legal advice in their native language but also because they
can take on cases regardless of a worker’s immigration status. While worker cen-
ters and other legal advocates serving immigrant workers have proliferated across
the country (Fine and Gordon 2010; Fine 2011), many legal aid organizations are
prohibited from taking cases for undocumented workers (Compa 2017, 232; Guild
and Figueroa 2018, 161), and these organizations are often inaccessible in many
suburban and rural areas. Moreover, when workers are captured in a raid at the
workplace, many immigrant advocacy organizations do not have the direct and
immediate access to detention centers that consular officials have when citizens
of their country face difficulties in a foreign state (according to Article 36 of the
Vienna Convention on Consular Relations).3 Consequently, good relationships
between advocates and consular staff are necessary to establish smooth triage and
communication channels to prevent the potential deportations of workers. The
perennial challenge, however, is the disconnect between the scale of the need and
consular capacity.

Immigration Enforcement Considerations

Perhaps the most consequential aspect of claims making for consular advocacy is
the particular vulnerability of undocumented immigrants, who make up 43 per-
cent of the Mexican immigrant population in the United States (Gonzalez-Barrera
and Krogstad 2019). As other scholars have explained in more detail (Griffith
2011), undocumented workers or those with other precarious statuses face a
complicated labor protection framework. Protections in the United States are by
and large available to workers without regard to their immigration status, but,
26    Mapping the Mexican Consular Network as an Advocacy

with several exceptions, remedies are often severely limited for claims ­involving
back pay or reinstatement (arguably rendering relevant protections meaningless
in the ­aftermath of ubiquitous employer retaliation).4 Furthermore, immigra-
tion enforcement in the United States has long relied on the workplace as a site
of enforcement, be it through large-scale raids (common in the George W. Bush
era), workplace Social Security number audits (which proliferated during Barack
Obama’s presidency and could be thought of as “silent raids”), or both (as with the
all-in enforcement strategy of the Donald Trump administration) (Griffith and
Gleeson 2019).
While there do (still) exist long-standing MOUs between the DOL and
the Department of Homeland Security (US DOL 2011; National Employment
Law Project 2016), these are viewed as privileging the directives of immigra-
tion ­enforcement and have proven largely ineffective in protecting the rights of
undocumented workers. In other words, there is no functional “firewall” between
the information gathered by labor agencies and immigration enforcement offi-
cials (including Immigration and Customs Enforcement [ICE]). In fact, examples
abound of workers who lodged claims against an abusive employer then being
swept up in an ICE raid (e.g., Rosenberg and Cooke 2019), with labor advocates
able to do little to slow their removal or advance their claims (Landon 2008). While
some protections do empower undocumented workers to file a claim against their
employer, such as applying for a U or T visa (designed for victims of crime and
trafficking), these legal options have many requirements and place claimants on a
long waiting list; moreover, efforts to broaden these protections have been unsuc-
cessful (Constante 2018).
The entanglements between worker protections and immigration enforce-
ment place consulates in a complicated situation. Despite the many institutional
­motivations to remain independent from immigration enforcement (Gleeson
2014), some state agencies have capitulated and shared information with fed-
eral immigration enforcement agencies (Thomsen 2018). More practically, many
federal buildings (where both immigration and labor agency offices are often
located), may prove inaccessible for workers who lack the proper documentation
to get through ­security or simply do not want to risk being in proximity to ICE
offices. As a result, despite the Mexican government’s sordid history of expos-
ing vulnerable immigrant workers to possible deportation in the United States
and interfering with the unionization efforts of Mexican farmworkers (Goodman
2020; González 1999), its consulates have become one of the few official federal
government allies to whom an undocumented worker can safely turn. However,
consulates’ trademark “noninterventionist” stance, while helpful diplomatically,
severely limits their ability to fully mobilize their power and resources on behalf
of their most vulnerable emigrants seeking labor protection. This neutrality—or,
as some would call it, indifference—not only enhances the cynicism of an already
disaffected diaspora but can also create huge rifts with civil society advocates.
 Mapping the Mexican Consular Network as an Advocacy     27

It can be difficult for Mexican diplomats to negotiate better working conditions

for migrants without alienating Mexico’s largest commercial partner, the United
States. For example, Mexican ambassador Medina Mora often defended migrant
rights and offered support for a comprehensive immigration reform when speak-
ing to connationals. Yet the ambassador noted the challenge of this dual obligation
in an address to community leaders at the Chicago consulate during the Obama
administration:
The Mexican consuls and the ambassador have to be very careful. They can’t appear
publicly as an advocate. I don’t shy away when I need to say something, but I have
to say it in a way that supports the desired outcome without blocking it. So, it is not
by showing high levels of militancy that we will win. We need to search the best
way to be vocal instead. We have to ask ourselves, where can we be more efficient? I
assure you that we are not shy, but we try to be very smart in approaching this deli-
cate subject.5

Civil society advocates are not satisfied with these explanations, however, fre-
quently decrying what they see as the refusal of consular and embassy officials to
make bold moves toward comprehensive immigration reform.

M E X IC O’ S H I S T O RY O F M IG R A N T
WO R K E R E N G AG E M E N T

The Supranational Legal Framework for Migrant Worker Protection

According to embassy staff, the principal legal function of the SRE and its consular
network across the globe is to protect the rights of Mexicans living abroad. The
Mexican Secretaría del Trabajo y Previsión Social / Ministry of Labor (STPS)
also has an important role to play both within Mexico and in countries where
there are bilateral labor export programs. Yet there are relatively few temporary
foreign workers in the United States, which limits the STPS’s reach there. Since
the end of the Bracero Programs (1942–64), which issued temporary work permits
to millions of Mexicans to ease US labor shortages after the Second World War,
temporary labor programs available to Mexican migrants through the STPS have
been small in scale, with annual quotas of less than half a million temporary work
visas allocated to Mexicans each year to work legally in the United States. The
STPS manages an even smaller (but proportionally more significant) program,
the Mexico-Canada Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program, which was inaugu-
rated in 1974 and still operates. In 2022, twenty-six thousand farmworkers partici-
pated in this program (STPS 2022).
While the STPS regulates basic protections for temporary workers in Canada
(STPS 2019), Mexico’s labor law does not include any special enforcement mecha-
nism governing labor disputes for Mexican workers posted abroad. The STPS does
have a Federal Attorney’s Office for Labor Protection / Procuraduría Federal de
28    Mapping the Mexican Consular Network as an Advocacy

la Defensa del Trabajo, though this agency focuses on worker-driven claims and
has neither the capacity nor the jurisdiction to intervene in labor disputes in the
United States, except in cases of international labor recruitment (as discussed in
chapter 5).
The STPS has therefore played a largely consultative role, while the SRE—as the
major actor with the legal responsibility of protecting Mexicans living abroad—
was the key bilateral US counterpart in the MOUs that were signed in 2004 between
the two countries. Bilateral agreements such as the MOUs between the SRE
and the US DOL helped to solidify the notion that consulates have a duty to aid
their citizens. These MOUs stemmed from a number of bilateral instruments,
including the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (NAALC),
which was signed in 1993 alongside the hallmark North American Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA). The NAALC established a National Administrative Office
in each party country (Canada, Mexico, and the United States), whose job is
to review complaints, coordinate tripartite activities, and provide information to
the public (ILAB 2005) As shown in table 1, bilateral collaborations on issues
related to trade, worker rights, and health care have increased in the region since the
mid-1990s.
In practice, these consular obligations have manifested perhaps most visibly
around law enforcement, with consuls intervening in the event that a citizen is
jailed without counsel. The Vienna Convention on Consular Relations requires
“consular notification” upon arrest and the right for consulates to access their
detained foreign nationals (US Department of State 2018). The Mexican SRE
describes this function as a core aspect of their presence abroad, vital to ensuring
that their emigrants are afforded their rights in a timely and consistent manner
(SRE 2016). Though officials in various detention facilities may reach out directly
to consular staff, in practice this communication relies on detained individuals
invoking these rights themselves. Moreover, while detention centers routinely
have the rights posted, the volume of immigration enforcement activity (even in
“immigrant-friendly” jurisdictions) far outweighs the capacity of consular per-
sonnel to actually respond in a timely manner, thus rendering them an ineffective
resource in all but the most extraordinary cases.
Consular officials are similarly obliged to intervene in the case of nonpayment of
child support or alimony, especially when the child or spouse or both have remained
in Mexico. In these cases, consular officials often have direct agreements with local
law enforcement to, for example, carry out judicial orders for partners and children
back in Mexico. Yet these local arrangements are rarely replicated with consular offi-
cials to enforce labor protections. In fact, many consular leaders explained that their
diplomatic post limited the formal arrangements they could create with subfed-
eral governments.6 As labor standards enforcement increasingly becomes a subject
for states and municipalities (Fine and Round 2021), though, these arrangements
are almost certain to be made with local community partners, at least informally.
 Table 1 Time line of key events in bilateral collaboration (1994–2017)

Date Key Event

1994 The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is enacted.

1994 The North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (NAALC) establishes the
Commission for Labor Cooperation and country-level National Administrative Of-
fices (NAOs).
2001–9 Elaine Chao’s term as US DOL (Department of Labor) secretary.
2001 Houston’s Justice and Equality in the Workplace Program is created (to be modeled
in Dallas in 2003).
2001 Binational Health Week is established in seven California counties.
2002 The Instituto de los Mexicanos en el Exterior (IME) is created, and the first cohort
of the Consejo Consultivo del Instituto de los Mexicanos en el Exterior (CCIME) is
appointed/elected.
2002 The OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) Alliance Program is
created with various community partners, including the Mexican consulate, along
with the Centers for Disease Control’s National Institute for Occupational Safety and
Health (NIOSH).
2002 Hoffman Plastic Compounds, Inc. v. National Labor Relations Board—a landmark US
Supreme Court decision.
2002 Mexico’s federal Tres por Uno program is expanded to all Mexican states.
2003 The Employment Education and Outreach Alliance (EMPLEO) partnership is
launched in Las Vegas, then expanded to Los Angeles.
2003 The Washington, D.C.–based Farmworker Justice Fund, Inc., files the first petition
with the Mexican NAO in conjunction with the Central Independiente de Obreros
Agrícolas y Campesinos, an agricultural worker
organization based in Mexico City.
2003 Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride.
2004 President Fox inaugurates Seguro Popular, which includes access for returned migrants
from Mexico and offers health care services to Mexico-based families of migrant
workers living in the US who wish to pay the corresponding family contributions.
2004 A joint declaration is signed between the DOL and the Mexican Secretaría de
Relaciones Exteriores. This leads to the creation of memoranda of understanding
(or letters of agreement) between national agencies and the consulates, followed by
arrangements establishing understanding (AEUs) implementing these agreements at
the local level.
2005 The Northwest Workers’ Justice Project of Oregon, the Andrade Law Office of Boise,
Idaho, and the Brennan Center for Justice in New York submit a new petition to the
Mexican NAO in conjunction with six NGOs in Mexico and four in the US.
2006 Historic immigration protests take place across the US in response to the
controversial 2005 Sensenbrenner Bill.
2006 El Salvador and Guatemala join Binational Health Week.
2007 Colombia, Honduras, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Peru join Binational Health Week.
(Contd.)
Table 1 Continued

Date Key Event

2007 Chicago’s first Ventanilla Laboral is established.

2008 The first memorandum of understanding is signed to establish a framework for the
Semana de Derechos Laborales.
2008 The fifty-fifth jornada informativa of the IME: Líderes Sindicales is celebrated in
Mexico City, May 11–14.
2008 The Consular Partnership Program is created at the US DOL, facilitated by the Bu-
reau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB).
2009–13 Hilda Solis’s term as DOL secretary.
2009 The LABORAL call center is established with the US DOL, the New York State DOL,
and the Catholic Migration Office of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn.
2010 Ambassador Arturo Sarukhán and DOL secretary Hilda Solis re-sign the joint
declaration.
2010 SB 1070—Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act—is passed in
Arizona.
2010 The Centro de Información y Asistencia a Mexicanos (CIAM) is established (in part
to respond to SB 1070 concerns).
2011 The Centro de los Derechos del Migrante introduces a new petition on behalf of three
migrant returnees, supported by a binational coalition of fourteen organizations.
2011 The entire consular network is now participating in the Semana, along with ten other
members of the Latin American consular corps (Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica,
Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Peru).
2013 The Secretaría del Trabajo y Previsión Social establishes a labor attaché office in
Washington, D.C., to address public petitions under the NAALC.
2013–17 Tom Perez’s term as DOL secretary.
2014 The Tres Amigos Cumbre is held in Toluca to outline trade goals between the US,
Canada, and Mexico (February 9).
2014 Ambassador Medina Mora and DOL secretary Perez re-sign the joint declaration.
2014 Ministerial consultations are held following the NAALC.
2014 Predeparture workshops are held in Mexico (for H-2 guest workers) in eleven
sending states (Estado de México, Guanajuato, Hidalgo, Jalisco, Michoacán, Oaxaca,
Querétaro, San Luis Potosí, Sinaloa, Veracruz, and Zacatecas).
2014 Argentina, Bolivia, Guatemala, Uruguay, and the Philippines are now collaborating
with the Semana de Derechos Laborales.
2014 The CCIME comes to an end.
2014 Mexico offers temporary, ninety-day access to health care, funded by Seguro Popular, to
undocumented migrants entering by Campeche, Chiapas, Quintana Roo, and Tabasco.
2017 Colombia expands Binational Health Week from the US and Canada to Colombian
consulates in Mexico, Venezuela, Ecuador, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Costa Rica,
Panama, Brazil, France, Spain, and Belgium.
2020 The Tres por Uno Program comes to an end.
 Mapping the Mexican Consular Network as an Advocacy     31

While many other volumes have delved deeply into the global governance
instruments protecting migrant workers, here we choose to highlight several that
are relevant to how the Mexican-US relationship operates. According to legal
scholar José María Serna de la Garza (2019), these instruments are neutral struc-
tures that reflect massive power imbalances on the international stage. Especially
for the United States, global governance is typically not legally binding and has
minimal consequences. However, this is not necessarily the case for the Estados
Unidos Mexicanos. Mexico has signed far more mechanisms for migrant rights
than has the United States, which, along with many other migrant-receiving coun-
tries in Western Europe and Australia, has not signed the Convention on the Pro-
tection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families (Ruhs
2013). As of August 2021, only fifty-five countries—many of them primarily coun-
tries of origin such as Mexico, Philippines, and Morocco—have ratified the con-
vention. This deference to international standards arguably provides Mexico with
a modicum of moral leverage against the hegemonic power of the United States.
But it also reflects a major paradox of geopolitical power: while Mexico purports
to defend the rights of its emigrant population in the United States, half of whom
are undocumented, and elsewhere, it also deports a stunning majority of Central
American migrants at its own southern border without due process (Feldmann
Pietsch, Bada, and Durand Arp-Niesse 2020; Rojas Wiesner 2022).
In his work, Serna de la Garza (2019) magnificently details the various instru-
ments and institutions that have established standards of immigrant rights, the
three most significant of them being UN General Assembly resolutions and UN
Secretary General reports, the Inter-American System for the Protection of Human
Rights and Migrant Worker Rights, and the NAALC. He argues that viewed cyni-
cally, these nonbinding “soft laws” open the door for “empty promises” from
­politicians (56). By contrast, Lance Compa (2001), a renowned international labor
law lawyer and scholar, contends that while these instruments may be symbolic,
they are still useful, providing advocates a framework for leaning on employers and
other leaders to recognize, and do something to protect, migrant worker rights.
In previous accounts (Bada and Gleeson 2019), we have detailed the signifi-
cance of these international instruments for transnational advocacy networks,
which we also revisit in chapter 5. It is clear that UN conventions and bilateral
accords have created openings for groups like labor unions, worker centers, and
migrant advocates operating on both sides of the border to bring their concerns
before supranational bodies. But unlike the traditional “boomerang effect” model
introduced by Keck and Sikkink (1998), we find evidence for a two-way dynamic
whereby advocating on behalf of migrants in or bound to the United States can
also aid advocacy efforts for workers who remain in or return to Mexico.7 By
pressuring the Mexican government to be accountable to its diaspora, advocates
have exposed its hypocritical failure to uplift the conditions of workers within its
own national territory. This irony is not lost on advocates: the very degradation of
32    Mapping the Mexican Consular Network as an Advocacy

workers at home is one of the key drivers of out-migration, or as Sassen (2014) and
Golash-Boza (2015) call it, their neoliberal expulsion.
These same instruments have been leveraged by the Mexican labor movement,
which has also used the labor regulation infrastructure of free trade governance
to hold the Mexican government to account for violations of collective bargaining
rights (Graubart 2010). These struggles have exposed state-allied charro unions
and have aligned the demands of Mexican workers who have remained with those
of migrant workers abroad.8 Such transnational solidarity was clearly evident in
the high-profile campaigns waged by Campbell’s Soup farmworkers in the early
1980s and North Carolina cucumber pickers in the early 2000s, both of which
garnered solidarity from Mexican labor movements.

Mexico’s Labor Regimes

Over the last century, Mexico has made significant progress toward a fairer labor
regime inspired by the ideals of the 1910 Mexican Revolution. Article 123 of Mexi-
co’s 1917 Constitution established expansive protections for workers, including the
ability to organize unions, conduct strikes, and bargain collectively. After the ini-
tial triumph of these revolution-era laws, it was elite liberal reformers, and not the
peasantry, who legislated labor law regulations in the 1930s and granted enormous
power to the state to enforce worker protection (Bensusán 2000).
In the 1930s, governments across the world had to cope with the Great Depres-
sion and devise policies to benefit struggling workers. In Sweden, for example,
the victorious Labor Party brought about the modern welfare state. Germany and
Italy produced pro-worker programs during the fascist era, and Franklin Roos-
evelt created Social Security and signed the National Labor Relations Act. Many of
those moves secured the political loyalties of the labor movement, and Mexico was
no exception (Hathaway 2000). Few independent unions flourished prior to the
1970s, though, as the Mexican state used clientelism, political patronage, and cor-
poratism to exercise absolute control over organized labor, requiring unions to be
official members of the ruling Partido Revolucionario Institucional / Institutional
Revolutionary Party (PRI). Every member of the Confederación de T ­ rabajadores
de México (Confederation of Mexican Workers), the largest confederation
of labor unions, was automatically enrolled in the PRI, and the party and the
unions formed a natural alliance that allowed political elites to control resources
(Roberts 2014).
Over time, multiple reforms to Article 123 mandated minimum wages, over-
time pay, minimum health and safety standards, seniority, bonuses, paid vaca-
tions, rest days, housing subsidies, an eight-hour workday, participation in profit
sharing, equal pay for equal work, and protections against sex discrimination and
child labor (La Botz 1992). With regard to enforcement and protection, federal
labor law established the Board of Conciliation and Arbitration, a tripartite mech-
anism operating at federal and state levels in Mexico. The federal government had
 Mapping the Mexican Consular Network as an Advocacy     33

a privileged role in deciding labor management and intraunion conflicts, as well

as discretionary authority to interpret constitutional labor protections through its
control of the tripartite labor boards and tribunals, which still maintain tight con-
trol over wages and strikes (Bensusán 2000; Bensusán and Cook 2003). In manag-
ing labor disputes, the government representative on the arbitration board could
cast the tie-breaking, controlling vote. Moreover, very few cases went to trial after
mediation provided by these government-controlled arbitration boards, which, it
could be argued, reduced the possibility of widespread labor reforms. While dis-
sident labor groups periodically threatened the hegemony of the Confederación
de Trabajadores de México (as explained in chapter 5), the purchasing power of
the working class plummeted after Mexico’s tripartite mechanism began exerting
unmitigated market-based control over wage levels during the 1980s and 1990s.
In the 1980s, Mexico entered the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade in
order to compete in the global economy by attracting international investment
with low-priced natural resources and low-priced labor. Throughout that decade,
Mexican workers had lost purchasing power because of a strict austerity policy
designed by international banking institutions to reduce the country’s debt bur-
den. Subsequent neoliberal administrations secured Mexico’s place in the global
economy and paved the way to negotiate NAFTA. There were minimal revolts
by peasants and industrial workers because the authoritarian regime quickly
squashed the Zapatista Army for National Liberation in January 1994 (right after
NAFTA was enacted) and disrupted multiple worker strikes demanding union
democratization. By and large, NAFTA created an exodus of Mexican workers,
who left low-wage rural work in search of jobs in maquiladoras in northern Mex-
ico or crossed the border without documents to find low-wage jobs in the United
States (Massey, Durand, and Malone 2002).
In terms of labor regulation, trade agreements signed between Latin Amer-
ican and Caribbean countries with the United States have had largely positive
effects, leading to an average increase of 20 percent in inspectors and a 60 per-
cent increase in actual inspections from 2009 to 2012 (Dewan and Ronconi 2018).
NAFTA, however, did not produce the same measurable labor regulation impacts
in Mexico and the United States, as the NAALC failed to incorporate core Inter-
national Labour Organization (ILO) labor rights in the original agreement
(Russo 2011), despite being designed to facilitate a broad international framework
of labor rights protection within free trade agreements (Perez-Lopez 1996). How-
ever, NAFTA did bring about a few positive developments in the parallel labor
agreements. The system of public petitions established by the NAALC increased
cooperation between independent labor unions such as the Frente Auténtico del
Trabajo / Authentic Workers’ Front, their Canadian and US counterparts, and
transnational immigrant advocacy organizations by allowing union leaders in the
three countries to submit strategic petitions on behalf of industrial workers and
migrant farmworkers.
34    Mapping the Mexican Consular Network as an Advocacy

By 2018, almost twenty-five years after NAFTA went into effect, the Mexican
Senate recognized the ILO convention on collective bargaining by unanimously
ratifying ILO Convention Number 98, which guarantees workers the right to orga-
nize, as well as the right to voluntary and authentic collective bargaining in Mexico
(Gacek 2019). The ratification of this convention is expected to invalidate much of
the protection provided to state-allied charro unions. It is the culmination of doz-
ens of petitions accumulated in the National Administrative Offices of the United
States, Mexico, and Canada denouncing protection contracts in Mexico,9 labor
violations of temporary migrant workers, and abuses in international recruitment
practices, among other labor issues.
Such human rights frames based on international jurisdictions are increasingly
significant in transnational labor advocacy (Gest, Kysel, and Wong 2019). How-
ever, domestic laws (in both origin and destination states) still remain the most
relevant vehicles for securing rights, especially in the United States. By taking steps
to eliminate the protection contracts regime and allow free and democratic elec-
tions in Mexican labor unions, Mexico, experts agree, is currently well aligned
with an international human rights framework and should proceed to enact neces-
sary enabling legislation, regulation, and judicial action. And having ratified both
ILO Conventions 87 (1950) and 98 (2018), Mexico is now required by international
law to ensure a genuinely democratic labor relations system.
Since the Great Recession hit low-wage workers in the United States in 2007,
many migrants returned voluntarily to Mexico or were deported, pressuring the
Mexican government to offer relocation assistance and access to employment
opportunities to workers who returned home. More recently, the pandemic has
pushed Mexico to function as a reluctant buffer zone to slow down or deter the
surge of migrants from Central America, the Caribbean, and Venezuela. This posi-
tion presents enormous challenges for Mexico in offering asylum protection to
vulnerable migrants fleeing violence, poverty, and climate change and in continu-
ing to advocate for the rights of Mexican workers living in the United States.

How Migrant Work Became a Central Focus for Mexico

Mexico’s investment in immigrant workers’ rights is rooted in several traditions,
according to embassy staff we interviewed in Washington, D.C.10 First and fore-
most, Mexico has long played a central role in interviewing and selecting the guest
workers to travel abroad. In Canada, this process requires engaging national lead-
ers, as well as provincial governments and employer groups. However, this formal
role in labor brokerage is largely absent in the United States, where there are rela-
tively few guest workers. In 2016, the United States hosted 438,190 H-2A (seasonal
agricultural), H-2B (nonagricultural), and J-1 (exchange visitor) guest workers
(Costa 2017). During fiscal year 2018, 93 percent of H-2A workers admitted to
the United States hailed from Mexico. Compared to the approximately five mil-
lion Mexican undocumented citizens who now average fifteen years of continuous
 Mapping the Mexican Consular Network as an Advocacy     35

residence in the United States (Passel and Cohn 2019), temporary legal workers are
a comparatively small population in need of consular protection.
In Canada, labor unions and other advocates have been some of the most vocal
critics of the temporary foreign worker program and key stakeholders in the co-
enforcement of immigrant workers’ rights (Dias-Abey 2018; Preibisch and Enca-
lada Grez 2010). Traditionally in these Canadian consular jurisdictions, there is a
staff member dedicated exclusively to guest worker issues who intervenes during
disputes. However, as Leah Vosko (2016, 2018) has shown, the Mexican consular
network in Canada has not necessarily been an unwavering advocate for immi-
grant workers, and the same has been true historically in the United States, par-
ticularly during the Bracero Programs (1942–64), which brought in guest workers
from Mexico during the Second World War (García y Griego 1988). In terms of
consular support, Tanya Basok and documentary filmmaker Min Sook Lee have
shown how the Mexican consulate intervened on behalf of tomato pickers in Can-
ada, whose government has mostly privileged continuing the labor agreement at
the expense of improving the labor rights of low-wage, largely unprotected Mexi-
can tomato pickers (Basok 2000, 1999; M. Lee 2003). Historically, the Mexican
federal government has been largely ineffective in protecting the rights of its citi-
zens in migration programs in Mexico and Canada, and abuses have been legion.
The Mexican government has even been sued alongside the US government for its
failure to accurately account for millions of dollars withheld by authorities from
braceros’ paychecks and, in theory, sent to Mexican banks to be distributed to the
workers once they returned home. As explained in chapter 5, recovering these lost
funds has been a unifying force among transnational advocates as they demand
bilateral frameworks to defend worker rights.
In an important shift for Mexican labor relations with its northern neighbors,
an STPS labor attaché was moved from Ottawa to Washington, DC, in 2013 to
help address public petitions under the NAALC. This realignment strengthened
the SRE’s agenda on Mexican migrant labor issues and responded to changing
demographic realities and resource constraints, as well as the edicts laid out under
the 2004 and 2008 ministerial agreements, which identified labor issues as a clear
priority for bilateral cooperation with the United States.11 Embassy staff we inter-
viewed about this move indicated that the transferred STPS could one day play
a larger role in implementing the binational labor rights MOUs.12 By and large,
however, the STPS’s role seems to be limited mostly to addressing petitions filed
against the labor side accords.
According to the staff of the SRE’s Dirección General de Protección a Mexica-
nos en el Exterior / General Directorate for the Protection of Mexicans Abroad
(DGPME), Mexico’s role in brokering worker claims is critical given immigrant
workers’ fear of losing their job or provoking employer retaliation against their
family members in response to filing claims: “Part of our efforts go towards
empowering our citizens, so that they know their rights, and can then be ­motivated
36    Mapping the Mexican Consular Network as an Advocacy

to mobilize them,” one staff member said.13 Such efforts face difficulties, because
along with immigrant fears are practical hurdles: not having a car, driver’s license,
or other method of transportation to attend a consular event, much less the
spare time.
One way consular staff address this reluctance and overcome these barriers is
by conducting outreach throughout the year and by taking advantage of “captive
audiences” gathered for educational programming (including the Plazas Comu-
nitarias), which are more likely to take place in community settings far from the
actual consular office. The goal is that these community collaborators (in conjunc-
tion also with the Instituto de los Mexicanos en el Exterior / Institute of Mexicans
Abroad [IME]) become the “eyes and ears” of consulates, learning about cases of
workplace abuse that consular officials might not otherwise encounter directly.14
Consular networks also reach out to the community through ethnic media,
such as Univision, as well as local Spanish-language radio. As one official noted:
“Our consulate in Boise, which covers some of our most remote communities
in the jurisdiction, offers a good example of the significance of outreach networks.
There may not even be Spanish-language radio, or it is stock Univision program-
ming that doesn’t permit local content. . . . In those places, the work of community
events, in churches, community centers, and other organizations, is key.”15
Furthermore, the consul general and the heads of the Departamento de Protec-
ción y Asistencia Consular / Department of Legal Protection and Consular Assis-
tance, the Departamento de Asuntos Comunitarios / Department of Community
Affairs, and even the Departamento de Documentación / Department of Docu-
mentation may join to advertise the range of resources available through local
consulates. As a staff member from the IME in Mexico City explained: “One of
the messages that we’ve asked our staff, and especially those in the Department
of Protection, [to promote] is that regardless of immigration status, people should
be confident in approaching the consulate to get help in their case and to promote
their rights.”16

I N ST I T U T IO NA L I Z I N G T H E J O I N T C OM M I T M E N T
O F M E X IC O A N D T H E U N I T E D S TAT E S
T O M IG R A N T WO R K E R R IG H T S

Historical accounts have confirmed how consulates have shaped the lives of
migrant workers as long as the border has existed between the United States and
Mexico (Balderrama 1982; García y Griego 1988; Weise 2015). Consular involve-
ment has often occurred without formal issue-specific agreements between the
two countries and almost always has included interfacing with local civil society.
Yet Mexico’s recently heightened role in labor standards enforcement rests espe-
cially on a series of formal agreements struck over the last twenty years.
 Mapping the Mexican Consular Network as an Advocacy     37

2002 to 2014: Instituto de los Mexicanos en el Exterior

The IME and the Consejo Consultivo. The election of Mexican president Salinas
de Gortari in 1988, widely seen as fraudulent, sparked a long series of demon-
strations across Mexican consulates in the United States. Salinas immediately set
out to address this migrant discontent in an attempt to legitimize his presidency
among members of the organized diaspora who had sided with Cárdenas Solór-
zano, the iconic opposition candidate. In 1989, his administration instituted the
Programa Paisano, which was housed in the Secretaría de Gobernación / Ministry
of the Interior. To increase communication with Mexican migrant civil society,
Salinas sought to reform and expand Mexico’s consular network by gradually add-
ing new consulates, upgrading personnel, expanding roles for the consuls, and
requiring them to increase engagement with migrants, Mexican Americans, other
Latinos, and a broad range of US leaders and organizations. To accomplish these
reforms, in 1990 foreign minister Fernando Solana created the Programa para las
Comunidades Mexicanas en el Extranjero / Program for the Mexican Communi-
ties Abroad (PCME) within the SRE. This program operated in the United States
through the consular network (Ayón 2010).
The PCME staff conducted outreach across existing hometown clubs in the
United States, with the ultimate objective that these clubs might eventually orga-
nize into state federations. The network of hometown associations grew in the
1990s and became more vocal in demanding restitution of their members’ politi-
cal rights and increased funding for community development programs in com-
munities of origin (Bada 2014). During this period, Mexican leaders increasingly
called for the right to vote from abroad and for direct congressional representation
from abroad for migrants. After coming to power in 2000, President Vicente Fox
promised migrants that he would restructure the government’s relationship with
migrants by creating a Presidential Office for Mexicans Abroad. This presidential
office gave Fox a direct channel to the diaspora, but it was abolished in mid-2002.
Its collapse, however, paved the way for the IME, created in late 2002, which was
housed in the SRE (Ross Pineda and Mora 2003).
One major component of the IME’s work was a program of professional and
leadership networking known as jornadas informativas. Here the IME staff identi-
fied a particular sector of mainly Mexican immigrant professionals or community
leaders in the United States and devised a two- to three-day program of activities
for them in Mexico City (Ayón 2010). However, the IME’s most significant innova-
tion was the formation of a large advisory council made up of migrants represent-
ing Mexico’s forty-five US consular jurisdictions at that time. The body came to be
known as the Consejo Consultivo /Advisory Board of the IME, or the CCIME. The
IME had an executive director frequently selected from the consular corps, and it
absorbed all the functions and personnel of the PCME.17 The CCIME called for
one hundred consejeros to be chosen for three-year terms by migrant communities
38    Mapping the Mexican Consular Network as an Advocacy

in a selection process initiated by consulates, with several seats reserved for con-
sejeros appointed by professional merit. Depending on consular jurisdiction and
the level of organization of the migrant civil society, the mode of selection varied
considerably from one location to another. In Los Angeles, the meetings convened
by the Consulate General agreed to reserve the majority of that consular jurisdic-
tion’s seats for the presidents of hometown association federations. In Chicago,
an open election with printed ballots was organized by immigrant organizations
and activists at a public high school in Pilsen, a Mexican neighborhood, and in
similar public locations in Chicago and its metropolitan area in subsequent elec-
tions (Bayes and Gonzalez 2011; Ayón 2010; Ross Pineda and Mora 2003). Elected
consejeros consisted of leaders throughout Mexican immigrant civil society in the
United States, including health advocates, social service providers, hometown
association leaders, business owners, artistic directors, educators, journalists, civil
rights advocates, sports league coordinators, local elected officials, union mem-
bers, and philanthropists, among others (Godoy Padilla 2018).
In its first term, the CCIME was internally divided into six committees dedi-
cated to different policy areas. These committees met twice yearly, issued policy
recommendations to the Mexican government, and monitored the action taken
in response. The second CCIME term (2006–8) was highly successful. It created
a subcommittee on human and labor rights within the political affairs commit-
tee that included key consejeros who held organizing positions in labor unions
in Canada and the United States, namely with United Food and Commercial
Workers International Union (UFCW) and the Service Employees International
Union (SEIU). This cohort was instrumental in inviting key figures of the labor
movement such as Eliseo Medina (SEIU) and Esther López (UFCW) to serve as
appointed members to the CCIME. In May of 2008 in Mexico City, this cohort
leveraged the IME’s fifty-fifth jornada informativa, devoted to the topic “State of
Labor in Mexico,” to raise awareness about labor rights abuses in Mexico and the
United States. It provided a forum for US and Mexican union leaders to brainstorm
how best to institutionalize Labor Rights Week in the United States. Subsequently,
CCIME secured the commitment and support of the SEIU and UFCW to partner
with several consulates in implementing Labor Rights Week pilot programs across
fifteen consulates.18 This cohort had observed the successful implementation of a
binational health week and sought to host a similar event focused on labor issues.
Ultimately, the CCIME structure lasted for only four three-year terms (2002–14)
before being dissolved by the IME.

The IME’s Impact on Semana/Labor Outreach. While accounts vary as to the

extent of the IME’s influence in initiating the Semana, many sources confirmed
that CCIME-connected labor leaders in particular were crucial to the coordinated
effort. However, IME consejeros represented all walks of life. Many were business
leaders and represented their own interests, which were frequently at odds with
those of a minority of labor leaders. This naturally led to some o ­ rganizational
 Mapping the Mexican Consular Network as an Advocacy     39

t­ ensions. For example, after the dissolution of the CCIME, pioneering labor lead-
ers who participated in creating Labor Rights Week confirmed that the SRE was
no longer interested in allowing unions to take ownership of the Semana and
expand their geographical outreach.19
Nonetheless, the IME still cultivated union participation. In May 2008, it held
its fifty-fifth jornada informativa focused on union leaders with three key objec-
tives: (1) to develop a strategy for collaborating with US union leaders to inform
Mexican immigrant workers about their rights, (2) to foster a better understanding
of the organizing dynamics in both countries, and (3) to forge networks between
Mexican and US union leaders to improve Mexico’s international cooperation. Key
themes included “Unions and Labor Rights in Mexico,” “Consular Protection and
Initiatives to Protect Immigrant Worker Rights,” “Free Trade in the US, Mexico
and Canada,” and others related to remittances and financial access (SRE 2008).20

The 2004 Joint Declaration and the 2008 Memoranda

of Understanding
The SRE’s role in regulating immigrant workers’ rights was inaugurated in 2004
with an MOU signed by US labor secretary Elaine Chao and Mexican minister
of foreign affairs Ernesto Derbez. It established cooperative models between the
US DOL Wage and Hour Division, OSHA, and the Mexican consular network via
two separate LOAs. This landmark accord emerged during an era when P ­ resident
Vicente Fox had doubled down on outreach to civil society via the consular n
­ etwork.
The 2004 formal bilateral agreements were also the culmination of efforts
already under way in regions such as Houston, Dallas, Las Vegas, and Los Ange-
les, as well as in many other community organizations. OSHA had also been
cooperating with national industry groups such as the Hispanic Contractors of
America and the National Safety Council (US DOL 2004). The discussions around
the MOUs took place alongside significant negotiations around border security
(its buildup, militarization, and resulting deaths) and the humane repatriation of
Mexican nationals (Storrs 2006). This agreement also increased the role of the
DOL’s Consular Partnership Program, which solidified migrant worker outreach
cooperation (ILAB 2021).
The 2004 MOUs paved the way for establishing formal relationships
between the staffs of the DOL, OSHA, and Mexico’s consular network. How-
ever, the MOUs that established the Semana resulted less from interagency plan-
ning than from successful pilot programs supported by labor unions (SEIU and
UFCW) and rolled out by consulates in California and Chicago in 2006 and 2007,
immediately following the massive immigrant rights mobilizations organized by
migrant civil society across the United States (Pallares and Flores González 2010;
Voss and Bloemraad 2011). In 2008, the CCIME—with support from key conseje-
ros representing labor union leadership (Eliseo Medina for the SEIU and Esther
López for UFCW)—recommended to the SRE that the Labor Rights Weeks of
Chicago and California be expanded. The Mexican embassy realized that it had
40    Mapping the Mexican Consular Network as an Advocacy

sufficient ­strategic partnerships to make Labor Rights Week a success, and DOL
leadership was also interested in expanding services to Mexican immigrants. The
public engagement office of the DOL thus entered into frequent conversations
with the Mexican embassy, and the 2008 (and subsequent) MOUs established a
cooperative framework between the DOL and a greater number of consulates.
In addition to formalizing long-standing cooperation on the ground, these
national agreements formed part of a larger diplomatic strategy. Behind the scenes,
the US DOL’s Bureau of International Labor Affairs and the Office of the Secretary
were working on similar agreements with a dozen other Latin American coun-
tries and the Philippines.21 Beyond the Bureau of International Labor Affairs, the
Wage and Hour Division and OSHA played key roles in worker outreach and
consular partnerships. In 2002, OSHA created its Alliance Program (OSHA n.d.),
which worked closely with the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health
at the Centers for Disease Control, the consular network’s Ventanilla de Salud /
Health Access Window Program, and the Departamento de Asuntos Comunitar-
ios. Of the 232 OSHA Alliance signatories, consular agreements (32) represent a
significant portion, second only to trade associations (89) (OSHA 2021).
Consular relationships with local civil society and government agencies can
be traced back to the 1990s in some jurisdictions, especially around the issues of
wage theft and workplace safety. Yet this model did not gain formal buy-in from
national authorities until the signing of a bilateral MOU in 2008, which estab-
lished the framework for the Semana de Derechos Laborales / Labor Rights Week.
Following the DOL’s MOU, other labor agencies followed suit with their own
formal agreements, including the EEOC, the NLRB, and, to a lesser extent, the
Department of Justice’s Office of Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair
Employment Practices (which focuses on national-origin discrimination). Each
national agency head now signs a stock LOA with its consular counterpart, fol-
lowed by two- or three-year local arrangements establishing understanding (arre-
glos de entendimiento, AEUs).22
As we describe further in chapter 3, signing ceremonies for these agency part-
nerships are highly publicized displays of renewed commitment between partner
stakeholders. They are also a practical opportunity to come together and ensure
continuity between constantly rotating consular staff. Further, the partnerships
commit US agencies to providing a modicum of outreach to the local consulate.
Together, these agencies come up with a theme, a logo, dates, and outreach material
for the week’s activities. Indeed, the uniformity of the local agreements is meant
to serve as a general “floor,” a baseline that will ensure a minimum commitment
from consular and agency staff, who are very likely to have competing interests
and priorities. The agreements also prevent the long bureaucratic delays that con-
stantly amending a diplomatic accord between representatives of two c­ ountries
would require.23 Key leadership described these instruments as an “everyday stra-
tegic collaboration” helping to defend the rights of Mexican w­ orkers, r­ egardless of
 Mapping the Mexican Consular Network as an Advocacy     41

their immigration status,24 and they are consequential, especially in jurisdictions

where preexisting relationships with enforcement agencies and labor advocates
don’t exist, or where there are insufficient resources to invest significantly in these
goals.
Apart from these mechanisms, very few US labor agency staff do intra-agency
work, and in some cases, consular officials themselves report being a key liaison
between US agencies on the ground. Differing agency cultures (even between the
Wage and Hour Division and OSHA, both at the DOL) can create confusion, as
each set of regulators juggle varying inspection and claims processes and industry
priorities. Indeed, coordination is not the default, and even domestic labor agen-
cies can operate as a series of siloed departments. This complicated enforcement
bureaucracy can be near impossible for immigrants to navigate alone, as workers
try to parse which aspects of their workplace experiences are relevant to which
agency (as described at the beginning of this chapter).
While state and local labor agencies have become increasingly important actors
in the labyrinth of US labor regulation (Fine and Round 2021), formal labor agree-
ments with consulates are far more difficult to establish given the unique bilateral
relationship between diplomats and national leaders in their host country. There-
fore, embassy officials repeatedly confirmed that LOAs followed a preapproved
template, largely out of deference to national protocol and to ensure consistency.25
Yet in many places LOAs were introduced long after coordination had become
the norm, to address rampant wage theft and health/safety violations but also a
broader set of issues specific to immigrant workers, such as protections under
the Violence Against Women Act, concerns around human trafficking, and other
immigrant integration goals. Moreover, hot-button issues such as organized crime
in labor recruitment require bilateral cooperation to ensure prosecution, since
foreign governments cannot mandate contractor practices in migrant-sending
regions. All this demonstrates the ultimate importance of formalized bilateral
agreements, difficult as they are to forge.
After a period of stagnation toward the end of the George W. Bush
­adminis­tration, the initial 2004 Chao-Derbez MOU was renewed and updated
in May 2010 by Ambassador Arturo Sarukhán and longtime labor advocate and
California political leader Hilda Solis when she began her appointment as ­secretary
of labor during the first Obama administration (from 2009 to 2013).26 It increased
the number of ­participating consular offices to twenty-six, in conjunction with 291
community organizations. By 2011, the entire Mexican consular network had been
­commissioned to participate, along with ten other members of the Latin American
consular corps (Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Sal-
vador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Peru), and by 2014, Argentina, Bolivia,
Guatemala, Uruguay, and the Philippines were collaborating as well.27 These multina-
tional agreements vary significantly depending on the location and capacity of other
countries’ consular offices and their respective demographic concentrations.
42    Mapping the Mexican Consular Network as an Advocacy

On the Mexican side, this coordination is in part spearheaded by Mexico’s

undersecretaries for Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as the undersec-
retary for North America. By many accounts, the annual MOUs stemming from
the initial 2008 agreements are largely symbolic. However, the annual signing cer-
emonies that renew them mark the kickoff of Labor Rights Week and send an
important signal that both countries are responsible for the well-being of Mexican
immigrant workers.
As noted earlier, this formal partnership began in the early period of the
Obama administration, an essential era for immigrant outreach at the DOL. By
2012, toward the end of President Obama’s first term, DOL staff had hired addi-
tional inspectors, the vast majority of whom were bilingual.28 An early adminis-
tration goal to create an office of Migrant Workforce Partnerships (to address the
challenge of coordinating the dozens of agency field offices) never came to frui-
tion,29 but several federal pilot projects for community engagement did emerge in
key cities.30
In terms of the wider collaborative landscape, our review of consular partner-
ships found that as of 2020, only eight of the fifty-two consulates had MOUs with
all four major federal labor standards enforcement agencies (the Wage and Hour
Division, OSHA, the EEOC, and the NLRB). Fifteen consulates had three agency
MOUs, eleven had two agency MOUs, and sixteen worked with only one. Out of
the 115 collective agreements, the largest plurality (38) were with the Wage and
Hour Division, 30 were with the EEOC, 29 with OSHA, and only 18 with the NLRB.
This variation stems from the locations and capacities of regional US labor agency
offices and the nearby consulate. As table 2 reveals, MOU renewals fluctuate every
year and do not necessarily correlate with the number of legal cases consulates see
or with how many agencies participate. All told, the MOUs significantly increased
bilateral collaboration and improved the labor rights environment for Mexican
workers. According to one key agency leader, consular partnership agencies com-
piled a series of high-visibility reports archiving these successes with Mexico and
a number of other (mostly Latin American) countries: for example, collabora-
tions between the consul general of Belize and the Wage and Hour Division in
Los Angeles, and between the NLRB and the Philippines embassy in Washing-
ton, DC (ILAB 2014a, 2014b, 2014c, 2014d). But detailed updates eventually faded
after congressional scrutiny highlighted concerns over potential undue influence
from foreign governments.31 Finally, aside from the national MOUs, local consul-
ates also enter into formal agreements with local offices of federal labor standards
enforcement agencies under embassy-approved stock language.

2014: Renewed MOU and National Administrative

Office Responses to Petitions
In 2014, the Semana MOU was renewed. At the same time, the respective labor
agencies in Mexico and the United States entered into a formal agreement
 Table 2 Labor Rights Week outreach summary
Participating Central American
Agencies Media Outreach and Other MOUs with
Pop. Legal Protec- (Federal, State, (Interviews, Countries’ Wage & Hour
Served tion Identi- Unions, PSAs, Special Participating Division, OSHA,
# Events (#) fied Cases Others) Programs, Etc.) Consulates EEOC, NLRB

2009 199 18,788 829 255 137 N/A N/A

2010 432 39,192 1,534 245 151 N/A N/A
2011 809 35,745 1,462 625 432 10 11
2012 745 37,048 1,286 610 661 8 15
2013 793 60,284 719 698 326 13 49
2014 793 40,886 826 663 399 13 20
2015 840 59,490 1,045 852 464 16 62
2016 947 59,547 803 699 368 18 59
2017 741 72,156 797 649 338 18 19
2018 895 42,683 340 655 295 14 45

Source: SRE (2019).

44    Mapping the Mexican Consular Network as an Advocacy

e­stablishing a concrete outreach plan to address migrant workplace protec-

tions. This accord came on the heels of three public petitions (submitted in 2003,
2005, and 2011) by advocacy organizations demanding accountability under the
NAALC mechanisms. From the perspective of embassy staff, these public petitions
prompted a long-planned, coordinated bilateral outreach, though as chapter 5
expounds, one could also view Mexico’s response as prompted exclusively by the
decade-long transnational campaigns launched by grassroots advocates. Embassy
staff explained that while the NAALC effectively covered the high-level bilateral
economic policies and technical cooperation that shaped migrant work, the agree-
ment had “stagnated” over time. Missing was the formalization of community-
level mechanisms, fulfilled by the subsequent work plan, which officially included
twenty-five workshops in the United States and eleven workshops (the first of their
kind) in Mexico, some of them coinciding conveniently with Labor Rights Week.
In response to the “recommendations” offered by NGO petitions, predepar-
ture workshops aimed at workers with H-2 temporary visas were eventually con-
ducted in Mexico, as well as postdeparture ones in reception areas in the United
States. The workshops were held between August of 2014 and February of 2015
and focused on “pre- and postdeparture” issues for H-2A and H-2B guest workers
in the top eleven sending states (Estado de México, Guanajuato, Hidalgo, Jalisco,
Michoacán, Oaxaca, Querétaro, San Luis Potosí, Sinaloa, Veracruz, and Zacatecas)
and in twenty-nine high-impact areas identified by the US DOL across fourteen
American states. This was the first time that Mexico had engaged in these prede-
parture workshops, which sought to inform migrants of their rights before they
traveled north and which were run in conjunction with state governments and
NGOs (such as Centro de los Derechos del Migrante and other petitioners), and at
times even with the US embassy.
These “pilot phase” workshops in communities of origin were folded into the
Semana rubric and operated with support from the STPS, which signed a separate
joint declaration with the DOL, as well as from the SRE’s General Directorate of
Delegations and various NGOs. Key topics pertaining to guest workers, dubbed
actividades espejo (mirror activities),32 were also simultaneously folded into US
consular activities. The theme for the 2015 Semana was “Yo tengo derechos en mi
lugar de trabajo” (I have rights in the workplace), and all told, the week boasted
more than eight hundred organized events across the fifty-office consular network,
US labor agencies, and various unions and community organizations (SRE 2015).
With regard to actually managing the flow of Mexican workers, the STPS’s
Coordinación General del Servicio Nacional de Empleo, in coordination with
the Mexican embassy, helps direct guest worker recruitment and contracting
in the United States and Canada. However, only one staff member from the STPS
is dedicated to fulfilling the mission’s agency (i.e., protecting the rights of Mexican
workers), and budgetary support from the SRE for outreach in the United States
is limited largely to the mostly one-off events outlined in the Mexican work plan.
 Mapping the Mexican Consular Network as an Advocacy     45

On the US governmental side, the DOL has conducted successful outreach

activities in conjunction with the consular network in the United States. Accord-
ing to Mexican embassy staff, the activities coordinated through the Consular
Partnership Program at the US DOL are uniquely ambitious in their magnitude
and unrivaled by other countries, which typically relegate “labor issues” to their
offices of commercial and economic affairs. These innovations are appropriate to
the hegemonic presence of Mexico in the US immigration and consular structures,
but it is unclear how far they take us on the path to securing workers’ rights.
For example, the work plans under the labor side accords left a great deal of
uncertainty about future initiatives. As one STPS official put it: “Both governments
want to wrap up what is established by the declaration and work plan, publish
results . . . and until then, it is hard to say for certain what comes next. But trust
me, there is a lot of interest on both sides to continue this effort.”33 However, they
stressed the need for continued attention to and advocacy for migrant labor rights,
especially given the lack of any legal instrument that would compel new actions
with the United States or with Canada’s Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program.
Mexican officials we spoke with indicated that long-term plans for permanent out-
reach remained uncertain, whether under the NAALC mandate or other ministe-
rial priorities.
In effect, the partnership between Mexico and the United States can be
characterized as a supply-side effort (reflecting the shifting positionality of
the Mexican government vis-à-vis its emigrants). Yet it is also apparent that
government accountability resulted from the demands of persistent migrant labor
advocates on both sides of the border (which we discuss in more depth in chapter
5). For example, when a notorious visa fraud case unfolded in Mexico against
Chambamex/ChambaMéxico—the largest of its kind on behalf of guest workers
in the United States (EstanciaGyM 2014)—it was transnational groups such as the
Centro de los Derechos del Migrante / Migrant Rights Center, the Global Workers
Justice Alliance – Jornaleros SAFE project, the Instituto de Estudios y Divulgación
sobre Migraciones / Institute for Studies and Disclosure on Migration, and the
Proyecto de Derechos Económicos, Sociales y Culturales / Economic, Social,
and Cultural Rights Project (ProDESC)34 that pushed the Mexican government
to conduct predeparture programs in Mexico to prepare departing guest workers
and to advise them after they experienced abuses in the United States.35 These
organizational leaders have been described repeatedly as NGO collaborators,
but (as discussed in more detail in chapter 5), our work shows that they are also
claimants who seek to hold US agencies, employers who operate with impunity,
and the Mexican government accountable.
Even in cities where advocates work closely with the Mexican consulate around
immigrant advocacy, transnational labor solidarity efforts often target the local
consulate as well (Shafer 2011). For an example of such transnational solidarity,
consider the 2017 trinational conference on worker solidarity in action hosted
46    Mapping the Mexican Consular Network as an Advocacy

in Chicago by the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America

to ­discuss the organized labor response to NAFTA negotiations. There, union
­members representing the Sindicato Independiente de Trabajadores de La Jornada /
Independent Trade Union of Workers of “La Jornada” (SITRAJOR), a Mexico City
union, requested support from conference attendees to protest the decision made
by a Mexico-based labor arbitration and conciliation board on the illegality of
their summer strike over management’s cutting of worker benefits by around 50
percent at the left-leaning Mexican newspaper. With support from UFCW, a small
group of participants managed to secure a meeting with the Mexican consul to
hand-deliver a letter with SITRAJOR’s position while the rest of the conference
participants organized a lively protest outside of the Mexican consulate in solidar-
ity with SITRAJOR workers.36 This action demonstrates the power of cross-border
labor solidarity networks at both the national and transnational levels, garnering
support from Mexican workers in Chicago and elsewhere for labor struggles in
Mexico City by bringing attention to Mexico’s labor violations to the public in the
United States.

T H E M E X IC A N C O N SU L AT E A S A K EY I N S T I T U T IO N
F O R L A B O R A DVO C AC Y

Who Are SRE and Consular Staff?

The consular network is mostly staffed by civil service officials (Servicio Exterior
Mexicano, also known as SEM) who are selected and trained as diplomats through
a rigorous process. The diplomatic corps includes various college-educated profes-
sionals such as scientists, engineers, economists, administrators, and international
relations experts, among others. Its members represents different social classes
but are mostly mestizos. They are not formally trained in the cultural sensitivities
around precarious Mexican workers who have low levels of formal education and
who often speak Spanish as a second language and identify as indigenous.
The consular network also includes non-SEM political appointees, who serve
for specific terms and do not belong to the diplomatic civil service, and person-
nel usually hired from the community. However, these so-called local positions
are sometimes staffed by people on loan from the central offices in Mexico City
with special A-2 temporary labor visas. Consular personnel with A-2 visas and
local personnel earn comparatively low wages and enjoy fewer benefits than the
diplomatic corps, as a college degree is not always required to serve in various
administrative positions.37
The diplomatic corps affiliated with the civil service has high turnover, with
appointments lasting a maximum of six years at the same consular jurisdiction. The
rotation of highly trained diplomatic staff makes it difficult to create long-term rela-
tionships with civil society organizations and local labor standards organizations.
 Mapping the Mexican Consular Network as an Advocacy     47

The Consular Network, Its Functions and Resources

The Consular Partnership Program at the DOL (which includes the Wage and
Hour Division and OSHA), has a formal staff dedicated to immigrant worker
outreach and is coordinated through the DOL’s Bureau of International Labor
Affairs. In most places, this program primarily deals with the Mexican consulate,
but in other hyperdiverse cities, partnerships with over a dozen other countries
are involved as well.
The Mexican consular corps has grown over time and now includes fifty-seven
offices in North America (SRE 2021b). These are located in traditional Mexican
immigrant destinations such as Los Angeles, Houston, and Chicago but also in
newer destinations in the South and Midwest. The consular network’s primary
function is processing documentation such as birth certificates, marriage cer-
tificates, passports, and the famed matrícula consular (consular ID), which has
become increasingly important for those immigrants unable to access US-based
documentation. While citizens may process a passport at any office, since 2001
matrículas can be requested only in the relevant jurisdiction. Consular staff rely
on the information gathered from these transactions to track the size and profile
of their local Mexican population, especially the undocumented, who principally
rely on matrículas as a means to show proof of residence at banks, car dealerships,
real estate offices, and so on.38
Consular offices vary widely in terms of the size of their physical space, their
personnel, and the US jurisdictions with which they overlap. For example, the
now-defunct consulate in Anchorage covers the entirety of the state of Alaska,
while the consulate in Atlanta covers all of Georgia and Alabama, as well as sev-
enty-four counties in Tennessee. By contrast, the states of Arizona and California
are currently divided across several consular offices. As a result, consular advo-
cates must help their citizens navigate a labyrinth of local laws, which are compiled
in a classified master profile, the Carpeta Informativa Básica Consular (CIBAC;
Basic Consular Information Binder), handed to each new consular leadership
team. From the publicly available portions of the most recent CIBAC we were
able to acquire (dated October 2012), the jurisdictional assignments can be thor-
oughly confusing and inconvenient. Office locations may also change, as was the
case with the short-lived Alaska office, which opened in 2009 but then closed in
2015 because of budgetary constraints. The growing but relatively small Mexican
population there must again rely on Seattle’s office for support (Hillman 2015).
In addition to the fixed consular office, each jurisdiction deploys a mobile
consulate, which is crucial for extending services beyond the cities in which con-
sular staff are regularly located. This mobility is more consequential for some
­wide-ranging jurisdictions, such as the San Francisco office of the Mexican con-
sulate, which also covers Hawaii. But the mobile consulate is also critical for those
vulnerable populations for whom a trip to the local consulate office is unsafe
48    Mapping the Mexican Consular Network as an Advocacy

(as is the case in regions riddled with border patrol checkpoints) or unfeasible
because of costs and transportation constraints. Like the permanent office, mobile
­consulates issue key documents such as matrículas consulares, passports, voter
identification cards, and birth/death/marriage certificates and conduct commu-
nity outreach related to various health and social service efforts (Castañeda and
Arango 2014; Dudley 2014). Mobile consulates rely on community organizations
to host daylong outreach efforts and to get the word out to Mexican migrants in
the area. Though they fill an important need, these outreach events (which typi-
cally occur no more than a few times a year in a given location) fall far short of the
need in any given region.39 Attendees must still reserve an appointment through
the difficult-to-navigate MEXITEL system for consular appointments, and mobile
consulates rely on the availability of Departamento de Documentación staff, who
are in charge of verifying the authenticity of identification documents and of issu-
ing passports and matrículas. While an office may also deploy a consulado sobre
ruedas / consulate on wheels (which contracts out additional staff), this model is
far more expensive and less common (SRE n.d.-c).
Over time, the budget for the SRE (and thus for consular offices and diplo-
macy in North America) has also decreased, first during the Calderón administra-
tion and then again under López Obrador, who emphasized national security as
opposed to foreign relations. Yet it is also clear that the vast majority of these dip-
lomatic funds are predictably concentrated in North America, despite the growing
importance of Europe and Asia as receiving areas of Mexican migrants (Farfán
Mares and Velázquez Flores 2012).
Aside from consular offices, the central SRE office in Mexico City staffs “del-
egations” throughout the interior of Mexico, which process passports and pro-
vide other key service functions in a devolution framework (SRE n.d.-d). These
offices are also unevenly staffed, with the largest concentration of personnel in
various sites across the country’s capital cities as well as Monterrey, Nuevo León
(at the border), and Guadalajara, Jalisco (also a major migrant-sending region).
Central states with large populations of migrants in the United States, such as
Michoacán and Guanajuato, have several satellite offices scattered throughout
their regions to save their citizens unnecessary trips to the delegation to get a
passport (a task that can be accomplished only in person, even for renewals).
In states with a long tradition of transnational relations, migrant organizations
have successfully advocated for more satellite offices. For example, the state of
Michoacán has twelve satellite offices in addition to the central delegation in the
capital city of Morelia.
Consular offices also vary substantially in their funding and personnel capac-
ity. Allocations are based on revenues (typically from documentation requests),
yet these resources are recouped by the central Secretaría de Hacienda y Crédito
Público / Finance Ministry, then redistributed to individual offices—via a formula
contested by many constituencies, who charge that it underfunds large ­jurisdictions
 Mapping the Mexican Consular Network as an Advocacy     49

with high demand. According to budget analysis by Farfán and Velázquez (2012),
most of the allocations for the SRE are for salaries and operating expenses, and the
authors characterize Mexico’s approach as largely “incremental and discretionary,”
reflecting a strategy that is “reactive, improvised, and at times a low priority” (91).
For instance, offices receive only 15 percent back from document fees,40 and the cost
of passports is typically US$165 for ten years (SRE 2021c); this seldom leaves offices
with sufficient financial resources. Congressional leaders have long been lobbying
for the Secretaría de Hacienda y Crédito Público to double this return (Comis-
ión de Relaciones Exteriores 2021, 8). In 2020, in the shadow of the COVID-19
pandemic, the IME, the Departamento de Protección, and the Consular Services
network suffered sizable budget cuts around 10–15 percent, though in a formal
opinion issued to Congress a commission made clear the need to increase support
for legal protection and body repatriation services despite the reigning austerity
measures (Comisión de Relaciones Exteriores 2021, 7). Funding models also vary
significantly within consular offices. For example, the famed Ventanilla de Salud,
typically housed within the Department of Community Affairs, had a very modest
budget under the Ministry of Health to cover coordination, support year-round
activities, and put on the annual Binational Health Week event hosted by the con-
sular network (SRE 2018). In the Departamento de Protección, however, no such
resources are earmarked for labor protection. On the basis of public information
requests to the Instituto Nacional de Transparencia, Acceso a la Información y
Protección de Datos Personales / National Institute of Transparency, Information
Access and Private Data Protection (SHCP 2021), as well as conversations with
several embassy staff members, funding for the annual Semana / Labor Rights
Week appears to be discretionary.41 Again, our queries revealed no analogous spe-
cific appropriation for labor protection.
This is not to say that Mexico’s commitment to helping workers mobilize their
workplace protection is entirely symbolic. Indeed, as some officials argued, the
allocation of Mexican government staff in Washington, DC, represents a financial
commitment to realizing the assurances set forth in the 2004 and 2008 declara-
tions. Furthermore, in 2017 the SRE began an initiative to increase services to Mex-
ican migrants (Fortalecimiento para la Atención a Mexicanos en Estados Unidos).
This one-time infusion of funds allocated a total of roughly $1.07 billion MX pesos
by executive discretion to five key priority areas: (1) human resources (320 service
contracts) (17 percent), (2) legal protection programs for Mexicans in the exterior
(67 percent), (3) consular services (5 percent), (4) alimony and other family sup-
port (“Protección al Patrimonio”) (5 percent), and (5) support for migrants via
delegation offices (6 percent) (SRE n.d.-c). This largest allocation—for legal pro-
tection, administered by the DGPME—included resources for a referral h ­ otline,
outreach and representation, coordination with local authorities and community
advocates, rapid response mechanisms, “Know Your Rights” workshops, help with
collective demands, and prison visits. It is important to note, though, that labor
50    Mapping the Mexican Consular Network as an Advocacy

protection is only one of several priorities for the consular network’s Departa-
mento de Protección (as we outline later in this chapter).
Despite these various supports, many popular and journalistic accounts have
highlighted the frustration that the general public feels when seeking help from the
underresourced and crowded consular offices (Avilés 2020), a situation only made
worse by the COVID-19 pandemic (Conexión Migrante 2021; F. Martínez 2021).
The vast majority of individuals approach the local consulate for vital records and
travel documents, which must adhere to a strict and unforgiving set of rules sub-
ject to audit, much as the local DMV, county coroner, or Social Security office
would. For decades, the Mexican government has sought to streamline the process
for returnees attempting to prove their nationality (presunción de nacionalidad)
(Gómez Arnaud 1990) while avoiding presumably fraudulent attempts by the ris-
ing number of Central Americans fleeing north (Suárez et al. 2017). Nonetheless,
errors related to compound surnames and other misunderstandings abound.
Consular offices, especially in cities with large Mexican communities, almost
always have a line winding around the building. The public must then pass through
a gate manned by a (contracted) security guard into a waiting room before pro-
ceeding to an appointment with a frontline street bureaucrat who has little job
security or power to exercise discretion. Even if the handling of a disagreement
is passed up to a consul, the bureaucracy’s rigidity and internal divisions can still
stall a case depending on socioeconomic or nationalistic factors (Lomnitz 2001).
Yet consulates are important lifelines for migrant communities, who could oth-
erwise end up effectively stateless, without their country’s recognition or access
to documentation (CMS n.d.; UNHCR 2021). Consulates also have the ability to
provide rapid-response documentation when US policies create openings, as they
did during the 2012 and 2014 deferred-action programs (SRE 2021a).

Consular Labor Protection Services

The Mexican consulate’s Departamento de Protección is the key entity for deploy-
ing labor rights resources and outreach (often in conjunction with the Depar-
tamento de Asuntos Comunitarios). Drawing on data from three consulates (El
Paso, Raleigh, and San Francisco), Martínez-Schuldt, Hagan, and Weissman
(2021) found that consulates help workers throughout the labor claims process,
provide a wide range of services (from general information to legal referrals to in-
house counsel), help broker interactions with various actors (including between
migrants, with lawyers, and with other Mexican institutions), and can even be
resources in the wake of an unsuccessful claim.
According to the 2013 Guía de procedimientos de protección consular (SRE 2013),
the department encompasses a wide array of legal arenas, including human rights,
immigration, criminal, administrative, civil, other special interest, and labor
issues. Yet it is important to note that despite the binational agreements described
above, there is no set budget for labor outreach. Rather, there are only norms for
 Mapping the Mexican Consular Network as an Advocacy     51

expenditures, laid out by case and expense type (SRE 2011c). For example, there is
a maximum $1,000 allowance for contracted services (direct payments to a service
provider), to be allocated if and only if a PALE resource (the Programa de Asis-
tencia Jurídica a Personas Mexicanas a través de Asesorías Legales Externas en los
Estados Unidos de América / Legal Assistance Program to Mexicans by Attorneys
in the United States) has been pursued. (We discuss PALE further in the next sec-
tion.) Any greater expenditure requires authorization from the DGPME. Criminal
and immigration issues are overseen separately from civil and labor issues (SRE
2011a), and there is evidence that the consular network has shifted more of its
resources toward penal cases after the interior enforcement program Secure Com-
munities was reactivated during the Obama administration (Martínez-Schuldt
2020). This funding structure creates enormous pressures to stretch meager legal
protection resources, as criminal cases can quickly consume the budget of any
consulate because of the excessive cost of defense counsel in the US justice system.
Various mechanisms have been put in place over the years to facilitate consular
legal advocacy. In some jurisdictions (including in California and Florida), the
Programa de Asistencia Jurídica Telefónica Gratuita (JURIMEX) ran a 24/7 free
hotline for legal advice. This program was eventually replaced by the network-
wide Centro de Información y Asistencia a Mexicanos / Center for Assistance and
Information to Mexicans (CIAM) hotline (SRE n.d.-a). The hotline was started in
part in response to Arizona’s infamous 2010 law, Senate Bill 1070, known as the
“show me your papers law.” Embassy staff emphasized that CIAM was available to
anyone, and the hotline was an important resource during the “migration surge” of
Central American migrants (among them unaccompanied minors.)42 CIAM was
envisioned as a more comprehensive resource than the locally based labor hotlines
in places like Los Angeles (EMPLEO [Employment, Education and Outreach]),
New York (LABORAL), and Houston (Justice and Equality in the Workplace).
Most of these hotlines rely on volunteers to answer calls, often in conjunction with
both consular and labor agency staff.
Today, CIAM runs a massive hotline out of Tucson offering global legal refer-
rals of all sorts, including in Mexico. Public information requests reveal that the
largest proportion of calls to CIAM originate in the United States (from 2013 to
2020, 1,186,543 out of 1,546,67) and that the largest proportion are information
queries to the Departamento de Protección (593,847 out of 1,546,672).43 Specifically
within the category of labor cases, from 2010 to 2018, 37,021 calls came in, with the
most frequent type of query involving what are known as “wage theft cases” (see
table 3). In general, consular personnel are available to give general information
(often in conjunction with community advocates), but as the Guía de Procedimien-
tos de Protección Consular emphasizes, consular staff cannot represent workers in
hearings or at trial.
In some cases, consular staff may contract with lawyers through the PALE pro-
gram. From 2018 to 2021, PALE issued 310 total contracts. The number and types
 Table 3 Labor cases intake at the Mexican consular network in the United States

2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 Total
Labor 94 60 77 89 91 92 95 66 51 1,336
discrimination
Workers’ 499 376 309 305 322 318 310 227 205 5,239
compensation
General info/ 778 831 690 1,066 494 2,453 1,737 1,512 552 19,445
various
783 768 493 481 325 749 439 258 243 8,292
Wage theft
Labor rights 119 107 21 83 185 280 151 139 70 2,234
violations
Labor 25 39 18 16 21 31 20 41 39 475
trafficking
2,298 2,181 1,608 2,040 1,438 3,923 2,752 2,243 1,160 37,021

Source: SRE (2020).

 Mapping the Mexican Consular Network as an Advocacy     53

of legal contracts (obtained through public records request) vary by city, and even
within a state, patterns are not consistent. For example, Los Angeles saw the larg-
est number of legal contracts (sixteen), seven of whose providers were classified as
NGOs, while the border town of Eagle Pass, Texas, had only one contracted lawyer
listed (based out of San Antonio, over two hours away) (SRE 2021d).
Each consulate’s team of abogados consultores is a mix of pro bono volunteers
and eligible paid contractors consulted when consular officials deem a case worthy
of further investment and support. These services, however, are very limited, and
not all affiliated attorneys are interested in taking cases that are either ­complex or
difficult to win, or for which the demand for services is simply too w ­ idespread—
as is the case with wage theft. Many of these cases thus go unprosecuted, and
claimants have little recourse if the fundamental information for establishing a
case is missing, as often occurs. As the Trump administration got under way and
anti-immigrant public sentiment and state-sanctioned practices increased (CNN
Español 2017; Cárdenas Suárez, Morayta, and Mabire 2019), President Peña Nieto
responded to calls to add more resources to the Departamento de Protección.
However, our review of these allocations concluded that they were extremely
modest given the enormous need.

Consular Labor Outreach and Diplomatic Neutrality

The negotiations and agreements that have emerged over the last few decades are
not the Mexican government’s first foray into the migrant labor protection arena.
Indeed, the eminent historian of the Bracero Program Gilbert González (1999) has
revealed evidence of similar consular support of (government-sponsored) work-
ers’ unions. However, other scholars have documented government meddling
that has undercut workers’ rights, sometimes even resulting in their blacklisting
(Vosko 2016). Therefore, the common refrain that we heard—that consulates are a
neutral diplomatic entity that must follow the diplomatic protocol of noninterven-
tion—is not entirely borne out by the historical record.
Some consular officials cited bylaws that prohibited them from commenting on
US practices to avoid being construed as meddling in their host country’s affairs.
While a certain amount of commentary is allowed and does occur (González
Gutiérrez 2019), diplomats must walk a fine line. In practice, this often means that
voicing direct criticism, joining picket lines, and advocating labor strikes are pro-
hibited. However, there are many examples where consular officials seem to tac-
itly support labor struggles, as when the consul general in California stressed the
need to ensure that all building construction took place with union labor in order
to maintain good relationships with Democratic leaders. Similarly, the Chicago
consulate has allowed unions to use its space during organizing drives. Moreover,
during the Trump administration, many consular officials and other diplomats
went on record to criticize efforts to dismantle Deferred Action for Childhood
54    Mapping the Mexican Consular Network as an Advocacy

Arrivals (DACA) (Verel 2017), prolong family separation (Murray 2018), and build
the border wall (Lara 2017).
At the local level, consular officials appeared to speak out more freely on issues,
including capital punishment cases, which were often seen as human rights abuses
in Mexico, where the death penalty does not exist (Navarro 2017). The politics of
the southern border have increasingly become another sensitive topic for Mex-
ico, especially as almost no Mexicans are granted asylum in the United States and
­Mexico has been increasingly roped into carrying out the US government’s immi-
gration directives through policies such as “Remain in Mexico,” which have pro-
duced the sprawling camps for asylum seekers in untenable conditions in border
cities such as Tijuana and Cd. Juárez (Kanno-Youngs 2020). This program was offi-
cially ended by President Biden in June of 2021, but a federal court compelled the
Biden administration to restart the program in December of the same year while
promising improved mechanisms to solve most asylum cases within six months
(Human Rights Watch 2022). President López Obrador has defended the program,
claiming that Mexico is now registering migrants to protect them and prevent
migrant assassinations (López Obrador 2020). However, migrants continue to be
frequent victims of crime while waiting in Mexico, regardless of being registered
in the program. Moreover, Mexico has been roundly criticized for doing the US’s
dirty work by using heavy-handed tactics to “manage” northward migration from
Central America (Correa-Cabrera 2020). This heated issue is complicated by the
inconvenient fact that the greatest number of immigrants in Mexico are white
Americans living in resort towns like Sayulita (M. Smith and Guarnizo 2009;
Noriega and Gómez 2017). More than half (64.3 percent) of Mexico’s foreign-born
population were born in the United States, and almost a third arrived between
2015 and 2020. In Mexico, the number of Guatemalan, Salvadoran, and Honduran
migrants represent less than 11 percent of the total foreign-born population. To
be sure, Mexico still has an insignificant foreign-born population (1.2 million in
2020), less than 1 percent of the total population (Masferrer and Pedroza 2021).
The consular apparatus may espouse generally cautious diplomatic tendencies
vis-à-vis Mexican-US bilateral affairs and other sensitive issues—opting instead to
work toward feasible goals in a compartmentalized agenda (Ramírez García and
Castillo 2012)—but at the local level, most consular officials strive to get their mes-
sage out forcefully. As consular staff were quick to explain, all consular offices have
a “community outreach mandate.” In some cases, a consular official may reach
out to a community organization, and in others, the community organization
may seek out a relationship with consular staff. Local businesses with a significant
Mexican clientele can also play a role in distributing worker education, though
in some communities those local businesses have a track record of labor abuses
(Mangaliman 2007).
And apart from the litany of centralized formal accords administered from the
Mexican Embassy in Washington, there is a second track for consular c­ ollaboration.
 Mapping the Mexican Consular Network as an Advocacy     55

Embassy staff recognize the importance of the rich history of local coordination,
as in the pioneering office in Chicago (which benefits from a tight-knit base of
labor unions that were key to consular coordination, such as UFCW), and those
in Houston (which created the Justice and Employment in the Workplace Part-
nership), Los Angeles (which operates the EMPLEO hotline), and Sacramento
(which collaborates with a university-based law clinic). Some of these relation-
ships emerged “organically,” without the centralized coordination of the SRE.
Furthermore, prior to the existence of the bilateral agreement, many local con-
sular officials were already seeking out relationships with labor standards enforce-
ment agencies, often brokered by community advocates working on behalf of
immigrant workers. This was the case, for example, in the late 1990s in Mississippi,
where a relatively recent flow of Mexican migrants were working in the fisher-
ies. These immigrants relied on local churches and groups such as the Mississippi
Immigrants Rights Alliance, which also worked hand in hand with the local con-
sulate, OSHA, and the Wage and Hour Division.44 Frontline federal inspectors
played an important role in building these relationships, even if agency leadership
turned over. In this context, the Semana was an attempt to join and brand these
disparate efforts under a uniform protocol for cooperation with an annual theme.

L A B O R R IG H T S W E E K

Origins of the Semana

Chicago was considered one of the pioneers, having carried out the first Semana
in 2008. This event laid the foundation of the wider Semana, which was launched
formally in 2009 with a pilot group of fifteen consular offices, under the direction
of then secretary of labor (and former Los Angeles labor advocate) Hilda Solis.
Embassy staff reported that in 2010, 291 organizations were registered as partici-
pants in the Semana. These included federal/federated groups such as the League
of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) and the National Council of La Raza
(now UnidosUS), among others.
The first Semana was held around Labor Day as a way to highlight the various
events that were already happening throughout the year. It was the first time the
consular network coordinated these efforts around a central theme, based in large
part on Chicago’s model. The pilot cohort of Semana participants were selected on
the basis of three criteria, according to embassy staff: (1) local consular capacity,
(2) previous experience collaborating with key actors, and (3) the availability of
resources and allies who could roll out the initiative. Once the various events were
grouped under the Semana framework, the Mexican government coordinated
outreach activities and a menu of collaborative strategies, such as talks hosted
by mobile consulates, school-based workshops, or visits to local worker centers.
Some locations also hosted film or theater presentations. However, as staff empha-
sized, each locality was free to follow “local norms” with “local allies.”45 More
56    Mapping the Mexican Consular Network as an Advocacy

broadly, proactive consuls helped spread the program by instituting their unique
models across offices, as did Joanna Navarrete, a former consul in Chicago who
later moved to Boston and seeded similar collaborations.
In sum, the Semana de Derechos Laborales is a key civil society destination
along the long arc bending toward greater US and Mexican accountability on
immigrant workers’ rights. Logistically, staging the event has required ­coordination
between different units of the SRE, including the Consultoría Jurídica, the Direc-
ción General de Comunicación Social, the Dirección General de Delegaciones,
and the DGPME (and specifically the Dirección de Protección para Estados
Unidos de América).46 While the Mexican embassy in the United States and the
US DOL signed a joint accord laying out general principles for the Semana,
the Dirección de Protección para Estados Unidos de América coordinates a menu
of ­on-the-ground activities and tracks attendance, caseload, participating agen-
cies, press coverage, partner consulates, and local agreement renewals.
Initially a direct collaboration with the DOL, Labor Rights Week aimed to
improve the Latino community’s understanding of workplace rights and the
resources available to them in the event they experienced a workplace violation.
These goals built off the existing “preventative protection and follow-up” work
that the Mexican government was already undertaking. In addition to circulating
outreach material published by US regulatory agencies and advocates, the SRE
produced guides outlining key themes such as workplace safety, wage and hour
rules, guidelines governing guest work, discrimination protections, leave policies,
and collective bargaining rights. These comprehensive guides also focus on the
dynamics of “independent contractors”—many of whom are misclassified—and
the rights of domestic workers (who are often excluded from key protections)
(SRE and Consulado General de México en Chicago 2020).

Key Themes and Actors

Semana activities are centrally approved but are supported on the ground by local
labor agencies and civil society collaborators. Nevertheless, national MOUs and
local AEUs play an important role in the planning. Following the signing cere-
mony, the embassy circulates a memo to consular staff noting the importance of
the week and providing a menu of events and workshops, as well as a list of “best
practices” to make the week a success. One embassy official described the content
of the memo matter-of-factly: “The Semana de Derechos Laborales is this week,
this is the theme, these are the important uniform themes we want to communi-
cate.”47 Then, in conjunction with local partners—and according to their respective
capacities and priorities—“Each consulate plans a local program.”48 This central-
ized messaging ensures some continuity from place to place and from year to year.
Starting in 2011 (the third year of the annual week), Semana themes covered spe-
cific topics such as women (2011) and education (2013); other themes have included
the universality of worker rights, the importance of dignity, and the essential nature
of labor protections, especially in the midst of the COVID pandemic (table 4).
 Mapping the Mexican Consular Network as an Advocacy     57

Table 4 Yearly themes for the Semana de Derechos Laborales (2009–20)

Order Year Theme

1st 2009 (inaugural Semana de Derechos Laborales)

2nd 2010 (no theme)
3rd 2011 Women in the Workplace
4th 2012 Promoting Labor Rights Is Everyone’s Responsibility
5th 2013 New Century Worker: Your Education and Work Count!
6th 2014 We All Have Workplace Rights
7th 2015 I Have Rights in the Workplace
8th 2016 Your Work Has Dignity! Know Your Rights
9th 2017 Know Your Rights at Work: The Well-Informed Worker
10th 2018 All Workers Have Rights
11th 2019 The Value of Your Work
12th 2020 Your Rights, Like You, Are Essential
Source: Personal communication, Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, March 17, 2021.

Labor Rights Week activities are only a small part of the programming held
throughout the year in many jurisdictions. Yet focusing on the frenzy of this week
is useful, as it reveals the messaging and intentionality of consular efforts around
labor advocacy. To this end, our research team assessed the last decade of con-
sular labor rights outreach through a combination of mainstream and ethnic news
media archives, social media searches (Facebook, Twitter), and advanced Google
searches of Labor Rights Week events (including individual consulate websites,
which in general are not frequently updated).
While the yearly themes set by the SRE are fairly generic, specific programming
topics vary depending on the priorities of local civil society partners. Depending
on capacity, Labor Rights Week outreach may focus specifically on a particular
labor issue or more broadly on a menu of legal concerns. Information session top-
ics have included DACA, U- and T-visas, the rights of H-2A and H-2B guest work-
ers, wage theft, workplace safety and health, discrimination and sexual harassment
protections, and even community leadership training. For one office, the focus
may be on high rates of injury and fatalities on construction sites, for another, heat
safety in agriculture. The Chicago consulate’s Ventanilla Laboral / Labor Affairs
Window Program advertises, for example, free informational consultations on
“labor issues,” but it also offers sessions related to immigration, criminal, civil/
family, and other administrative issues. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic,
this outreach material was paired with flyers from the Farmworker and Land-
scaper Advocacy Project encouraging individuals to get vaccinated and informing
them about where to seek emergency funds (Consulado General de México en
Chicago 2022). Outreach activities happened both within and beyond the consular
58    Mapping the Mexican Consular Network as an Advocacy

office. For example, the Chicago consulate hosted events at local churches in the
communities of Cicero, Bensenville, South Chicago, and Waukegan (Consulado
General de México en Chicago 2011).
Local stakeholders are by far the most significant actors in these consular coali-
tions, many staff confirmed. To be sure, the landscape of local industries and
civil society shaped outreach efforts. For example, in California’s Central Valley
­agricultural region, field safety and collaboration with the United Farmwork-
ers predominated. In Chicago, local chapters of national unions such as UFCW,
United Electrical Workers, the SEIU, and United Auto Workers, alongside s­ everal
­prominent worker centers, kicked off the week’s events. Consular activities in
Washington, DC, included the pan-Latino advocacy group VACOLAO (Virginia
Coalition of Latino Organizations) and legal aid groups such as Maryland Legal
Aid and the Legal Aid Justice Center. In Atlanta, partners included not only the
local Georgia Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition but also a business group—
the Hispanic Construction Association. And in “new destination” communities
such as Omaha, Labor Rights Week relied on a tight community of nonprofit and
faith partners such as Catholic Charities, the Heartland Workers Center, Justice
for Our Neighbors, the Latino Center of the Midlands, Nebraska Appleseed, One
World, and the University of Nebraska.
As one Mexican embassy staff member explained, some offices may rely almost
exclusively on information sent by Mexico City offices, which they then trans-
late into public service announcements distributed locally, while others utilize far
more autonomy and tap into local resources.49 A consulate’s collaboration with
local decision makers is, however, dependent on the extent to which they have
developed relationships with and educated local officials about their role, as one
official noted. From this perspective, embassy staff stressed the need to be nimble
rather than to apply strategies uniformly at the local level: “It’s important that each
consulate has the space to develop strategies and methods in their annual pro-
gramming . . . and to work with the most pertinent agencies.”50 As such, local
civil society (e.g., churches, day labor centers, hometown associations, civil rights
advocates, legal service providers) provides “natural communication channels,”
which consular officials use to disseminate information and to dialogue with local
­communities. These groups are critical logistically as well for everything from
organizing mobile consulate days to conducting outreach to agricultural camps to
visiting prisons: “They multiply our capacity to see and hear what is happening in
our communities across the country,” this staff member explained.51
In places where the Mexican consulate is part of a much larger consular corps
(as in New York, Washington, DC, and Los Angeles), it also plays an important
role as a convener for other Latin American consulates. In many cases, MOU
signing ceremonies were jointly held with the US labor secretary and a collec-
tion of ambassadors from other countries, in conjunction with the agency’s Con-
sular Partnership Program. For example, at the tenth anniversary of the EMPLEO
 Mapping the Mexican Consular Network as an Advocacy     59

­ rogram in Los Angeles, the Mexican consul general was joined by counterparts
p
from several Central American consulates. And that same year, DOL represen-
tatives in Los Angeles met with consular officials from the People’s Republic of
China (ILAB 2014b). During Labor Rights Week, agencies also coordinate out-
reach efforts across consular partners, either to cosign material to be distributed
or to rotate workshops throughout the various consular offices.
While the diplomatic standing of consular officials permits them to sign offi-
cial bilateral MOUs only with national counterparts, several consulates have also
coordinated with state and sometimes local agencies. For example, Chicago’s 2009
Semana kicked off with remarks by an official from Illinois’s DOL and Depart-
ment of Human Rights, who spoke alongside the US DOL (Consulado Gen-
eral de México en Chicago 2009). In Fresno, California, consular officials have
worked with California’s Agricultural Labor Relations Board, the sole state-level
agency in the country focused on implementing the collective bargaining rights
of ­farmworkers, who are excluded from federal protections. Across that state,
the California Board of Workers Compensation, the Division of Labor S­ tandards
Enforcement, the Department of Fair Employment and Housing, and Cal-
OSHA all enforce ­protections that surpass federal minimums, highlighting the
importance of consular-state collaboration. In Orlando, Florida’s Department of
­Economic Opportunity, Division of Workforce Services, and the Department
of Agriculture and Consumer Services have provided consular outreach, as have
Arizona’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health in Phoenix and the New
York State DOL human trafficking initiative in New York City. Finally, even
though it was not an official signatory to the Justice and Equality in the Workplace
Partnership in Houston, the Texas Workforce Commission has been a key option
for immigrants pursuing wage theft claims. All of these cases demonstrate why
consulates must work with state and local agencies as well as federal ones.

C O N SU L A R L A B O R I N TA K E STAT I S T IC S

Like any bureaucratic institution, consulates are required to report how many
events were held, the type of event, how many people attended, and how many cases
were referred to enforcement agencies. According to SRE records, from 2010 to
2018, labor case intake fluctuated, decreasing in some years and then rebounding.
Beyond general inquiries, the largest segment of case intake was classified under
“wage theft,” followed by workers’ compensation. Far fewer cases involved dis-
crimination or labor trafficking (see table 3).
Case statistics over the last two years reveal a predictably disproportionate
number of cases (three-quarters) brought by men. In some regions, this dispar-
ity is even greater: for example, in Milwaukee 271 of 278 cases in 2020 were filed
by men. Furthermore, while some consulates are registering dozens of cases each
year, other large cities (such as Boston, Miami, and San Jose) have only a handful,
60    Mapping the Mexican Consular Network as an Advocacy

though caseloads vary substantially from year to year. It is likely that these gener-
ally low numbers reflect a robust system of referring cases to community-based
resources. All told, there were 1,154 total cases in 2019 and 1,121 in 2020, reflecting
the general reality that the Mexican consulate plays a very small role as a direct
service provider to its diaspora of 10.9 million people living in the United States in
2019 (Israel and Batalova 2020).
According to its internal reporting for its recorded highs, consulates collec-
tively hosted 947 events in 2016, served 72,156 individuals (2017), worked with 852
“participating agencies” in government and civil society (2015), and conducted 661
media outreach spots (2012). The number of participating consulates (including
and beyond Latin America) had risen to eighteen in 2017.52 But as SRE staff admit,
the growth and success of the annual Labor Rights Week have not translated into
enough tangible actions:
The main challenge for Labor Rights Week is to get the Mexican community to make
it to the events held at the consulate and beyond—take advantage of labor agencies
who are present and the organizations and lawyers who could take a look at their
cases. It’s not uncommon for attendees to show up to the consulate . . . this week
to deal with their matrícula or passport but not necessarily bring with them all the
necessary documentation [for their labor case] such as pay stubs and other evidence
that would facilitate a more effective consultation. . . . We haven’t managed to trans-
form a purely informational event into one that addresses cases. While the number
of participants [of the Semana] goes up every year, the number of cases attended [to]
does not reflect this.53

This problem persists despite the week’s success in striking up collaborations

with federal and state agencies and labor lawyers.54 Furthermore, there is a clear
imbalance in the types of cases processed by consulates. Consular reports reveal
an overwhelming focus on workplace injuries and wage theft. These are certainly
two of the most difficult arenas in which to enforce protection, but there are other
complex legal arenas such as discrimination and collective bargaining that are not
represented in the consular caseload.55

C O N SU L AT E S T H R OU G H T H E L E N S O F C O O P E R AT IO N
A N D C O N F L IC T

In sum, the US labor standards enforcement system is a maze that leaves potential
claimants searching for allies who will help them navigate it to secure resources.
For Mexican immigrant workers, the local consulate has become one of these key
brokers, helping to coordinate the confusing and siloed enforcement arenas. It
uses its diplomatic standing to connect with federal counterparts—leveraging this
influence to access state and local bureaucracies where possible—in order to help
workers identify the best way to file a viable claim and (when relevant) manage the
anxieties created by the ever-looming immigration enforcement regime.
 Mapping the Mexican Consular Network as an Advocacy     61

Consular staff seek to foster community goodwill but, more important, to

build on supranational and bilateral obligations, commitments espoused by recent
labor reforms in Mexico and the country’s relatively recent turn toward “diaspora
diplomacy.” Yet Mexico’s role in advancing the rights of its export labor is not
simply a response to top-down mandates; rather, it stems from demands initi-
ated by domestic and transnational civil society groups. Indeed, labor unions and
immigrant rights activists planted the seeds for the Ventanilla Laboral, the yearly
Semana, and dozens of partnerships that have become firmly rooted in everyday
consular practice today. To be sure, these modestly successful state-society part-
nerships build on the successes of an increasingly visible transnational-oriented
migrant civil society. These advocates managed to institutionalize a now-defunct
collective remittance-matching fund to address rural development needs (the
famed Tres por Uno program, 2002–20)56 and achieve the significant restitution
of electoral voting rights for all Mexicans living abroad (Pintor-Sandoval 2021).
The annual Labor Rights Week has become a defining consular function and a
major coordination feat, as it requires signing LOAs with many federal agencies,
maintaining relationships with state and local agencies that are fighting for ­stronger
protections (despite the lack of diplomatic relations), and creating referral net-
works and working partnerships across the variety of civil society groups in each
consular jurisdiction. These events and the accompanying signing ceremonies are
critical to ensuring consistent participation, as consular staff inevitably turn over
and must juggle various competing federal and state mandates. However, the exact
ways in which these partnerships materialize depend on the demographic makeup
of the diaspora in a community, the economic and industrial landscape, and the
conglomeration of immigrant worker advocates. Moreover, while such elaborate
annual public campaigns have become part and parcel of consular protection—
and have been formalized through a series of federal memoranda—the realities of
these agreements differ radically on the ground.
The institutionalization of Mexico’s migrant labor protection program is a
major accomplishment and reflects a telling shift from (or ongoing contradiction
with) state efforts to interfere with and sometimes actively stifle advocates work-
ing to build worker power. Official programming also faces a series of logistical
challenges, including the rigidity of diplomatic institutions and personnel. These
obstacles call into question the ultimate sustainability of a tripartite enforcement
regime in which the sending state is a key actor. Nevertheless, Mexico’s shift has
paved the way for a long list of other diplomatic actors (from Latin America and
beyond) to similarly provide other immigrant communities with a framework for
demanding commensurate protections and resources.
The question remains, however, how much practical impact these investments
will have, despite the symbolic importance they hold for managing bilateral rela-
tions and the demands of a transnational civil society. It is still too early to pre-
dict if the two main actors, Mexico’s SRE and the US DOL, faced with limited
62    Mapping the Mexican Consular Network as an Advocacy

requests from civil society advocates for offering transparency and accountability
to direct service government programs, will have the capacity to measure and
evaluate the real impact of Labor Rights Week in preventing and/or addressing
labor standards violations of Mexican migrant workers in the short, medium, and
long term.
 3

The Sending State and Co-enforcement

Mexico’s Role in Brokering Immigrant Worker
Claims Making

Mexico is an emblematic case of the increasingly active role of origin countries

in managing the rights of their diaspora. Yet as described in chapter 2, Mexico’s
diplomatic presence across North America is in many ways unique. With fifty-
seven consular offices across Canada and the United States, it is by far the most
imposing actor in the diplomatic corps. And while reports have shown increasing
activity of other migrant groups (Indian and Chinese in particular), Mexico is still
the top origin country of immigrants in the United States, and almost 97 percent
of all emigrants from Mexico reside in the United States (Israel and Batalova 2020;
Budiman 2020). Reflecting this demographic strength is the robust bureaucratic
apparatus that serves the estimated 10.9 million Mexican migrants living in the
United States and the US-born descendants of Mexican citizens who have been eli-
gible to also naturalize since 1997 (Mendoza 2021). This bureaucracy has become
an important political actor and resource in cities across the United States. While
other countries have an important presence in the United States as well, no other
diaspora has the same combination of population size and distribution, relatively
amenable bilateral relations, institutional capacity, and a pressing need for insti-
tutional support. (Figures 2, 3, and 4 provide an overview of the dispersion of the
Mexican population in the United States.)
Mexico’s consular offices—the prime instantiation of a foreign country’s dip-
lomatic presence—have thus become key actors in labor regulation, at least in
places where they have developed relationships with US agencies and civil society
partners. Many of these same community partners pushed for greater account-
ability, an effort that eventually led to the working relationships and legal instru-
ments (national and bilateral) seeking to ensure that Mexico respects migrant
worker rights. (Refer to chapters 2 and 5 for the full history of civil society’s role
63
64    The Sending State and Co-enforcement

in demanding these mandates.) While the 2008 memorandum of understanding

on worker rights was struck between Mexico’s Secretaría de Relaciones Exteri-
ores / Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE) and the US Department of Labor (DOL)
­(primarily responsible for enforcing protections such as minimum wage and
health/safety), other key agencies such as the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission (which sets antidiscrimination standards) and in some cases even
the National Labor Relations Board have followed suit with their own agreements.
Yet despite its outsized role, the Mexican consular network is far from the
only organization with which these agencies must engage. In fact, in jurisdictions
across the United States, states and localities add another layer of enforcement
complexity. For example, as of 2021, twenty-nine states and Washington, DC, have
more robust minimum-wage laws than federal law mandates, and forty-one locali-
ties have set a minimum wage higher than their state minimum wage (Economic
Policy Institute 2019). Other jurisdictions have gone even further to institute liv-
ing-wage laws (Luce 2004) and have instituted their own enforcement bureaucra-
cies that work openly with community partners (Fine and Bartley 2019). While
many researchers have highlighted the simultaneous necessity and inadequacy of
an individual workplace rights approach in the face of declining collective bar-
gaining and rampant neoliberal policies (Lichtenstein 2002), workplace regulation
remains one of the few tools available for checking employer power and defending
worker well-being. Local Mexican officials looking to address the workplace rights
of their emigrant workforce in those communities must become knowledgeable
about every layer of this complicated regulatory apparatus.
The Mexican consulate performs a varied set of functions in the labor stan-
dards enforcement process year-round, though it is especially active during the
long-running Labor Rights Week. In this annual fall event, many consular offices
transform into hubs for disseminating information to local communities about
their rights in the United States or in their particular states and localities. They
host “Know Your Rights” workshops (on- or off-site) and disseminate pamphlets
and flyers to attendees who pass through the office. These efforts are by no means
a uniform corrective to the structural imbalances in the low-wage labor market.
However, such worker outreach is an ostensible action to boost the efforts of gov-
ernment agencies (which often struggle to reach immigrant communities) and of
labor advocates (whose resources are also limited).
In addition to in-person programming, many savvy consular offices have devel-
oped a significant media presence, releasing information on their Facebook feeds
or through local public service announcements on ethnic media; some even host
telethons. (Official websites for consular offices tend to be maintained with vary-
ing regularity, and social media have been increasingly used as information por-
tals.) Beyond the week dedicated to labor rights—which many argue is a largely
symbolic affair—the most proactive consulates cultivate relationships with other
co-enforcement actors. These include not only federal and state agency officials
 The Sending State and Co-enforcement     65

but also community advocates who are attuned to community needs and whose
experience often far eclipses that of consular officials, who tend to serve short-
term assignments in a given city.
A handful of consular offices have gone so far as to host hotlines and contract
with private attorneys to provide assistance “in house” to workers seeking help,
but most consular offices refer out the vast majority of cases. Nonconsular advo-
cates often guide workers to a US agency or refer them back to a consular office
to obtain documentation or additional help in pressuring employers or making
inquiries to regulatory agencies. This merry-go-round process frustrates workers,
who are spun around to various agencies and organizations before hopefully find-
ing a viable way forward to file a claim. Rare is the consular office that is able to
fully and singlehandedly meet the goals laid out in the 2004 memoranda of under-
standing. Interestingly, a stronger civil society apparatus might actually decrease
direct consular involvement. In their assessment of Mexican consular network
administrative data (the Sistema Integral de Protección Consular / Comprehen-
sive Consular Protection System), Martínez-Schuldt (2020) finds that in places
where the density of local organizations is higher, the consulate directly takes on
significantly fewer cases; that is, the burden falls on civil society. While this finding
is not robust for labor cases specifically, the association remains negative, suggest-
ing a differential role for consulates depending on the presence of other partners
in their respective jurisdictions.1
Given these deep community entanglements, this chapter offers a more refined
organizational lens for understanding how the Mexican government has collabo-
rated with worker advocates across a range of regulatory arenas and jurisdictions
in co-enforcement arrangements. In line with other critiques of “responsive regu-
lation” efforts to keep state and market forces in check (Parker 2013) and protect
worker rights, we reject approaches that either disparage or celebrate consular sup-
port; instead, we are interested in what does or does not work, and why. We thus
offer a bottom-up organizational analysis of sending-state co-enforcement efforts.
While this approach implicates a wide range of civil society actors, we focus here
on those most engaged with labor education and organizing (labor unions and
some worker centers) and access to justice (legal service providers). In chapters 4
and 5, we discuss the wide range of other outreach and rights mobilization efforts
advanced by advocates working across national borders to contest state power.
We begin by examining the co-enforcement process and how labor unions and
other worker-led organizations have engaged the Mexican government in it. In
doing so, we do not aim to glorify this process: indeed, despite its clear benefits,
it is not a panacea, given the various challenges we discuss below. However, the
co-enforcement of immigrant worker rights provides a useful lens through which
to view attempts to increase state accountability across borders, as well as the
various ways migrant-serving organizations are leveraging consular obligations to
improve labor standards regulation in the United States. For the labor movement,
66    The Sending State and Co-enforcement

we identify at least three benefits to collaborating with the Mexican government:

(1) it gives them access to a broader set of power brokers; (2) it provides them with
a captive audience (i.e., consular visitors) for labor education; and (3) it facilitates
organized labor’s shift to a regional strategy. Our aim is not to conduct a policy
evaluation but to understand how these processes get to be implemented and
by whom.
In the second half of the chapter, we examine the collaborations between pub-
lic interest law organizations and Mexico’s consular network. We argue that the
impact of these coalitions depends on the local civic and political context. While
we document many benefits, we also reveal persistent challenges across the con-
sular network. We conclude by reconsidering the sending state’s potential within
the co-enforcement framework, both as a lateral collaborator and, more typically,
as a bureaucracy that must act forcefully, but with diplomatic restraint, to defend
the limited rights of Mexican citizens.

R EV I SI T I N G L A B O R C O - E N F O R C E M E N T T H R OU G H
A CROSS-BORDER LENS

The Mexican government’s shift to begin advocating on behalf of its emigrant

workforce can be tied to both homeland politics (i.e., efforts to regain migrant
loyalty and attract family remittances) and bilateral relationships that Mexico
has cultivated (chiefly with the United States). Yet we know that these migrant
rights advocacy efforts have remained largely aspirational (Gordon 2006), in large
part because of the complexity and costs required. Not only does such advocacy
require expending tremendous resources above and beyond everyday consular
staff functions, but delicate homeland politics can frame investments in the dias-
pora as directly competing with the needs of those workers who remain in Mexico.
Moreover, Mexico’s more proactive stance emerged after a long history of direct
antagonism to emigration, and despite years of failing to pay restitution to Bracero
guest workers, whose wages were garnished by the Mexican state, supposedly to
fund savings accounts to be accessed upon their return (González 1999). Given
this history, Mexico’s claim of renewed devotion to its diaspora has been viewed
with suspicion, and its recent efforts could rightly be written off as “junket affairs”
of politicians making empty promises while wasting taxpayer dollars (FitzGerald
2008). Nonetheless, understanding the Mexican government’s attempts to engage
in the co-enforcement of migrant worker rights is analytically useful. Domestic
labor agencies in the United States—federal, state, and sometimes local—pro-
vide a regulatory framework for the sending state’s immigrant worker advocacy,
as US agencies are also engaged in co-enforcement efforts with a wide variety of
other civil society stakeholders. By focusing on two key organizational fields—
the labor movement and access-to-justice advocates—we consider how sending
states’ promigrant narratives become institutionalized in local communities and
 The Sending State and Co-enforcement     67

are interpreted by existing civil society. To this end, we revisit traditional theories
of co-enforcement, which focus largely on the state’s relationship to worker orga-
nizations, through the lens of the sending state.
In the classical model of tripartite enforcement, Ayres and Braithwaite (1992)
explain, the firm, the state, and worker organizations should all have equal stand-
ing under a “responsive” regulatory framework (Amengual and Fine 2017). The
core argument of “responsive regulation” is that the third leg of tripartism—
worker organizations—is necessary to keep state and market forces in check. Sev-
eral analysts have critiqued the feasibility and efficacy of the responsive regulation
approach to labor co-enforcement in the United States and beyond (Weil 2016;
Marsden, Tucker, and Vosko 2021; Parker 2013; Berg 2016). Criticisms aside, this
institutional model has been adopted (with varying degrees of success) across
many migrant destinations and with increasing sending-state involvement. While
other grassroots worker-led models have emerged to advance worker rights
(sometimes even outside formally sanctioned processes) (Fine et al. 2018), our
focus here is on efforts to shore up formal, worker-driven claims-making channels
in the United States.2
In one study of these formal channels, Amengual and Fine (2017) examine the
case of Argentina and the United States to highlight the unique collaborations that
can emerge between regulatory agencies and worker organizations, each of which
must also navigate context-specific political realities. As they argue, tripartism is
not merely concerned with “guarding the guardians” in labor regulation. It also
serves to feed claims to regulators and inform their proactive strategies. How-
ever, for a functional partnership to emerge, there has to be a give-and-take. State
agencies have to be willing to share information, collaborate in decision-making,
and risk being viewed by the business community as biased in the workers’ favor.
Worker organizations must collaborate with entities with whom they have often
had an adversarial relationship and be willing to follow the logic and time lines of
a frustrating, slow-moving bureaucracy (132).
Tripartite models of co-enforcement have increasingly incorporated the send-
ing state as origin countries expand their notions of migrant governance, often
in response to the explicit demands of their diaspora (Margheritis 2016). How-
ever, the relationships between host country governments (who seek outreach
partners) and origin country governments (who seek legitimacy) vary substan-
tially from place to place. Oswalt and Rosado Marzán (2018) distinguish between
­“side-to-side” ­co-enforcement partnerships that rely largely on “agency-agency”
collaboration (e.g., between federal and state departments of labor) and “up-and-
down” or “agency-to-advocate” collaborative models with civil society, such as
those where union officials are deputized to assist in regulation (Fine and Gordon
2010). The consular network’s participation introduces a hybrid model to this typol-
ogy. Purely bilateral cooperation between two government entities is uncommon;
more typically, these partnerships also incorporate an ­outward-facing c­ omponent
68    The Sending State and Co-enforcement

of collaboration with civil society, as with the “Chicago-Area Interagency Workers’

Rights Roundtable” that Oswalt and Rosado Marzán profile in their study.
As this overview shows, consular bureaucracies do not exist in a vacuum. They
operate in an established system of enforcement actors, where they can help fill
enforcement gaps. Thus the utility of consular advocacy in the co-enforcement
process depends on jurisdiction and the characteristics of the local immigrant
community. Furthermore, NGOs constitute a heterogeneous sector with different
aims and tactics (as we describe in chapter 4). Focusing on the co-enforcement
of labor standards, we examine the nature of consular collaborations with labor
organizations and legal service providers. In doing so, we highlight the importance
of meso-level differences for analyzing relations among state actors and between
Mexico and its emigrants settled across the United States. Finally, we assess the
critical role of consular leaders and the relationships that emerge with their bilat-
eral government counterparts and with community actors.

MAPPING CIVIL SOCIET Y ONTO

THE CO-ENFORCEMENT PROCESS

In a claims-driven regime where those most vulnerable to labor violations are also
the least likely to bring forth a claim, the fraught process of brokering immigrant
worker rights becomes essential. These claims are the core mechanism for trigger-
ing regulatory responses, but they can be incredibly costly for workers, in terms
of both time and opportunity costs and the psychic burden that these confronta-
tions can entail (Lesniewski and Gleeson 2022). But of course many workers and
their advocates do come forward, adopting an array of strategies. Moreover, new
­alt-labor advocates have cultivated impressive models for participatory enforce-
ment to compel employer compliance (McCartin 2009; Fine 2011; Vosko 2020;
Kader 2020).
However, government regulation remains the most widespread mechanism for
overseeing the low-wage labor market. This regulation can include, for example,
filing a claim with the DOL for nonpayment of wages or breaks violations, submit-
ting a complaint to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration regard-
ing unsafe work conditions, filing for workers’ compensation after an injury, or
approaching the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for ongoing sexual
harassment. In each of these arenas, co-enforcement models (buttressed by com-
munity partnerships) have emerged. Here we focus on these attempts to navigate
official US labor standards enforcement processes, attempts often brokered by
key advocates such as labor organizations, legal service providers, and sometimes
a consulate.
The benefits of this supported claims-making approach are many. For workers
themselves, securing the help of an advocate can greatly increase their ability to file
a claim and ultimately win restitution (Gleeson 2009). For enforcement ­agencies
 The Sending State and Co-enforcement     69

(or any government entity), collaborating with civil society groups can be an effec-
tive way to multiply their reach to immigrant communities (de Graauw 2016).
In this regard, the consular network functions as an ancillary both to US labor
agencies and to civil society groups advocating on behalf of immigrant workers. In
this crowded landscape of labor standards enforcement, the costs and benefits of
collaborating with the consulate network will vary substantially depending on the
type of organization in question (whether a labor union, a legal aid organization, a
worker center, or an immigrant rights organization) and its location.
These demand issues aside, many factors have compelled the Mexican govern-
ment to aid in the enforcement of immigrant worker rights. To be sure, the bilat-
eral agreements between Mexico’s SRE and various US agencies have provided a
workable framework for intervention. However, these very instruments are (as
we described in chapter 2 and discuss at length in chapter 5) the result of long-
fought transnational advocacy efforts for broader accountability. Moreover—and
in part responding to demands from US labor advocates—US labor agencies have
increasingly invested in community liaisons in order to more effectively inform
workers about their rights and gain the trust of marginalized communities (Glee-
son and Bada 2019). The DOL’s Wage and Hour Division, for example, initiated a
Community Outreach and Resource Planning Specialist (CORPS) position, which
has now been staffed in many offices across the country (Wage and Hour Divi-
sion 2021). CORPS staff make it a point to connect with a wide array of commu-
nity groups and often work in conjunction with the International Bureau of Labor
Affairs’ Consular Partnership Program. Meanwhile, Mexico’s recent outward
shift is part of a growing trend of “diaspora diplomacy,” in which sending states
address key issues related to their export labor, including trafficking and fraud-
ulent international labor contracting. Labor standards enforcement is premised
almost entirely on worker-driven claims (especially those of the most vulnerable
workforce, including low-wage migrant workers). Thus both origin and destina-
tion countries clearly have an incentive to collaborate, and in the Mexican case the
wide geographic dispersion of their consular network places them in the unique
position to establish co-enforcement partnerships across states that no other ori-
gin country with a large population of emigrants has been able to replicate.
Yet these collaborations are only as successful as the parallel partnerships
they can create with community organizations with a proven track record of
working with immigrant communities. As many of these community groups work
directly with immigrant workers, they must consider the potential value added (or
the burden) of collaborating with the consular network. Consular staff can offer
key assets such as language access, legitimacy with local Mexican immigrant com-
munities, diplomatic access to local regulatory agencies, and the organizational
capacity to host programs and conduct outreach. For some community groups,
these are coveted advantages; for others, they are simply duplicative functions
given their existing community partners and their own organizational capacity.
70    The Sending State and Co-enforcement

While the Mexican government has rhetorically staked a claim in the work-
ers’ rights enforcement arena nationally, in practice its ability and willingness to
collaborate depend on its local capacities and civil society’s willingness to engage.
This potential for partnership often hinges on local organizations’ central mis-
sion and service focus. Some mobilizing organizations are primarily involved in
providing initial outreach and referrals to workers, others in direct service and
claims processing, and still others in pushing for workers’ rights reforms through
policy advocacy. Consulates are differently useful in each of these arenas. While
consular offices can indeed become a one-stop shop for distributing information
about workers’ rights, they are more limited as long-term service providers and
are useful only in very select policy advocacy endeavors because of their severely
curtailed ability to intervene in domestic affairs. Materially, consulates can provide
space and personnel, but symbolically they can also offer advocates leverage and
legitimacy. This unique influence—exerted through a phone call, a letter, or even a
rare visit from consular officials—can be wielded strategically in dealings with US
counterpart agencies and sometimes even employers. Yet this same formalism and
symbolic heft can be counterproductive in outreach to vulnerable communities
that feel disenfranchised by or distrust their own home government.
Indeed, consular collaboration poses challenges. It requires time and resources,
and it is variably practical and effective, depending on the issue at hand. Labor and
employment law is divided into siloed statutes and agencies (wage theft, occu-
pational safety, discrimination, gender equity, etc.), and community groups dif-
fer in their capacity and in the strategies they deploy to address each. Some have
full-time staff dedicated to casework (occasionally even lawyers), while others see
legal claims as merely a stepping-stone to a loftier organizing or policy advocacy
goal (Fine 2006). Thus depending on claim types, industries, and the categories of
workers involved, a consulate is more valuable in some co-enforcement arenas and
contexts than others.
Civil society is also not a monolith, and many complex organizations must
juggle a number of mandates. We build on Bloemraad, de Graauw, and Gleeson’s
(2020, 292) characterization of immigrant organizations as the “civic infrastruc-
tures of immigrant communities, that is, the set of somewhat formalized and orga-
nized groups that are neither public institutions nor for-profit businesses and that
serve or advocate for these communities.”3 Here we focus especially on two groups
that frequently engage with workers’ rights co-enforcement and the claims-mak-
ing process: labor organizations and legal service providers.
We begin with labor unions, which in the United States are a waning institu-
tion but remain the best predictor of job quality and immigrant worker power
in many jurisdictions (Thomason and Bernhardt 2018). Unions played a primary
role in establishing Labor Rights Week. They steward their existing members’ col-
lective bargaining contracts and have increasingly engaged in organizing immi-
grant workers and advocating for policies to benefit all working people across the
 The Sending State and Co-enforcement     71

globe (Adler, Tapia, and Turner 2014). We also pay attention to the role of alt-
labor groups, which are nonprofits that lack the power to collectively bargain but
are assuming an increasingly important role in the co-enforcement process and
migrant worker advocacy efforts writ large (Fine et al. 2018).
We then turn to legal service providers, another key partner in consular efforts
to advance migrant worker rights. The Mexican consular network is an important
resource for helping workers lodge a claim, and the consulate staff turn to lawyers
for training and for referrals when workers come to them seeking legal assistance.
While many types of organizations provide some form of rights training and “low-
touch” legal orientation, here we focus especially on organizations pushing for
access to justice via formal legal service regarding labor and employment issues
(Rhode 2004).

O R G A N I Z E D L A B O R A N D I M M IG R A N T WO R K E R S

The Labor Movement’s Legacy with Immigrants

Labor unions have long played a critical (and often complicated) role in advo-
cating for immigrant workers. In 1986, the AFL-CIO argued in favor of punitive
employer sanctions for hiring undocumented workers, which have since proved to
be a major detriment to immigrant workers seeking work and a boon to immigra-
tion enforcement efforts. However, since 2000, the AFL-CIO has vocally thrown
its support toward an amnesty for undocumented workers, alongside other
interim quasi-legalization efforts. For the biggest “immigrant unions,” this stance
is a key survival strategy. Private-sector union membership in the United States is
at its lowest point in decades, at 6.4 percent nationwide in 2018, compared to 24.2
percent in 1973 (Hirsch and Macpherson 2020). Among immigrant workers mem-
bership is even lower, and on average over the last decade Mexican immigrants
have the lowest unionization rates, partly because of their disproportionate repre-
sentation in low-wage, nonunion jobs (Milkman and Luce 2020). In this context,
supporting immigrant worker rights and strengthening immigrant worker unions
go hand in hand.
The Mexican state assumed a more “active” role in the well-being of its diaspora
in large part thanks to the demands of immigrant civil society, many of whose
leaders had deep roots in the US labor movement. These leaders were the key
architects of strategic organizing campaigns in high-immigrant industries such as
UNITE-HERE!’s “Hotel Workers Rising” (UNITE-HERE! 2006), the iconic Jus-
tice for Janitors campaign of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU)
(SEIU n.d.), and various campaigns by United Food and Commercial Workers
International Union (UFCW) for sectors ranging from meatpacking (UFCW n.d.)
to ethnic grocers/mercados (Bend the Arc and UFCW Local 5, 2013). Each of these
efforts included community alliances, for instance UFCW’s work with the Frente
Indígena de Organizaciones Binacionales in central California’s agricultural
­­
72    The Sending State and Co-enforcement

industry and the Federación de Clubes Michoacanos en Illinois, located in Chi-

cago. Furthermore, well-organized migrant leaders across the United States (as
we describe in chapter 5) were actively involved in transnational labor solidarity
campaigns with Mexican unions.
To be sure, unions have diverse memberships and aims, and despite the decla-
rations of national leadership in favor of immigrant worker rights, local affiliates
are often less receptive. Moreover, even in some places where immigration is sig-
nificant, union leadership remains largely white and native born and is sometimes
opposed to proimmigrant policies (T. Lee and Tapia 2021). There is no doubt,
though, that the labor movement has been a critical proponent of immigrant
worker rights, from outreach to collective bargaining to policy advocacy (Delgado
1993; Milkman 2020).
The labor movement’s advocacy around immigration reform has been undeni-
able at the national level (Wong 2017; Nicholls 2019), but it has also played out in
state legislatures and local government chambers. For example, Chicago unions
worked in conjunction with the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee
Rights to back a bill that now allows undocumented immigrants to secure a driv-
er’s license.4 In San Jose, the SEIU worked with a broad coalition (brought together
by the AFL-CIO–affiliated Working Partnership USA) to back a ten-dollar mini-
mum wage (Partnership for Working Families n.d.).5 And in Houston, the Harris
County AFL-CIO incubated and partnered with the Fe y Justicia Worker Cen-
ter (originally incubated by the Interfaith Worker Justice network) to spearhead
the ultimately successful “Down with Wage Theft” campaign (Houston Interfaith
Worker Justice Center 2012).6
Throughout these campaigns, unions partnered with various community
­coalitions (Turner and Cornfield 2007; Milkman, Bloom, and Narro 2010; de
Graauw, Gleeson, and Bada 2019) but also strategically courted the Mexican con-
sular network to boost their own efforts to improve the conditions of immigrant
workers (many of whom hail from Mexico). Though consular staff must remain
formally neutral, they can provide the political legitimacy that many unions lack
in an environment increasingly hostile for organized labor. Further, especially in
jurisdictions where unions are resource-strapped, a consulate can offer unions the
help of an established staff as well as a physical space from which to broadcast their
labor education outreach. For example, during an organizing campaign in a local
grocery chain, the Mexican consulate in Chicago offered their space to UFCW to
meet with workers on weekends.7
Building on the many long-standing, ad hoc collaborations that arose in pop-
ular Mexican immigrant destinations, labor leaders were key players in found-
ing the annual Labor Rights Week. In fact, several union leaders we spoke with
argued that their local efforts provided a template for what would later become
the national weeklong model. What began as daylong, one-off workshops culmi-
nated in a regular collaboration with the San Jose consulate, explained one UFCW
 The Sending State and Co-enforcement     73

leader. This and many other success stories—in Houston, Los Angeles, Chicago,
and beyond—became part of the pitch for greater investment in labor rights out-
reach that labor leaders made to officials at the Mexican embassy in June 2009.8
Unions have not always been willing to work with consular staff, given the
Mexican government’s sordid history of union busting and still-rampant classism
(González 1999). Yet several unions were key architects of the 2004 labor agree-
ment between Mexico and the United States and have played an important role in
Mexico’s Instituto de los Mexicanos en el Exterior / Institute of Mexicans Abroad,
which aimed to provide the Mexican diaspora with a political voice. For example,
as we describe in chapter 2, Esther Lopez, a former UFCW vice president, and
Eliseo Medina, a former SEIU vice president, were appointed by the institute to
serve as organizational delegates advising Mexico’s government on migrant affairs,
and Moises Zavala, a UFCW organizer from Chicago, was elected to serve on
the institute’s advisory board.9 These leaders pushed to center worker rights in the
Mexican government’s platform.
Once Labor Rights Week was institutionalized, several immigrant unions such
as the SEIU, UNITE-HERE!, UFCW, and United Farmworkers continued to team
up with the consular network on everyday outreach. The annual Labor Rights
Week was eventually rolled out to twelve pioneer cities in the first year, then to
almost thirty cities in the following year, and eventually nationwide. These col-
laborations have been especially productive in jurisdictions where there are few
other available resources for workers seeking to make claims to defend their rights
(as we describe in chapter 4). For any organization interested in proactive worker
education, a consular office provides a “captive audience” for labor outreach, given
the throngs of individuals who must pass through its massive bureaucratic institu-
tion for identification documents or consular services. To offer an estimate calcu-
lated by UFCW, during the first five years of Labor Rights Week, union outreach
trainings offered at the Mexican consulates of Los Angeles and Dallas benefited
one hundred thousand workers. In Houston, it is estimated that three thousand
workers were served during such Labor Rights Week trainings.10
However, the reach of labor unions themselves should not be overstated, as alt-
labor groups, for whom formal unionization was not a key goal, also played a major
role in connecting workers to labor agencies and other forms of restitution. Many
worked closely with labor unions, while other took notably different approaches.
Not bound to the same national policy battles and binational c­ampaigns for
worker justice, these worker centers were often more nimble and opportunistic in
evaluating the value added by consular collaboration (as described in chapter 4).

What the Consular Network Offers Organized Labor

Partnerships between labor organizations and consulates can take many forms,
but we identified at least three modes of collaboration—sometimes operating in
combination—across the country.
74    The Sending State and Co-enforcement

Consuls as Influential Conveners. In the first mode, unions look to consular

staff primarily as conveners who head a respected institution that wields influ-
ence in ways that labor unions cannot. That is, in addition to opening their doors
to unions to conduct outreach, consuls help bring together a range of US agency
counterparts to shape the annual Labor Rights Week. For unions, most of these
labor agencies (the DOL’s Wage and Hour Division, the DOL’s Occupational
Safety and Health Administration, the Equal Employment Opportunity Com-
mission, and sister state agencies) provide limited direct protections for their
represented workers, who have a collective bargaining contract to fall back on.
However, these agencies are key actors in terms of regulating industry conditions
that put nonunion workers especially at risk. In several places, the National Labor
Relations Board—the agency that directly regulates unions—has been part of
these convenings: in Houston, for example, where the Justice and Equality in the
Workplace Partnership brought all these stakeholders together through a com-
munity hotline (though we should note that this was a unique strategy not easily
replicable in other cities).11
Central labor councils—the local bodies of the AFL-CIO federation that
­incorporate various affiliate unions—are a primary vehicle for convening labor
leaders. However, consular convenings have also allowed worker advocates to
explicitly focus on the issues facing Mexican immigrant workers, which has often
also meant highlighting immigration challenges. Even after the historic 2006 split
between the AFL-CIO and the newly formed Change to Win coalition—for which
organizing immigrant workers was a central sticking point (Cornfield 2006)—the
Mexican consulate’s Labor Rights Week relied on collaborations with union affili-
ates in both factions.12
Finally, in big cities with large and diverse Latino immigrant populations,
these union-consulate partnerships have also involved the entire Latin American
consular corps. In Chicago, for example, the consulates of Brazil, Colombia,
Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, among others, are all active.13
By far, the Mexican government has always been considered the “elder brother”
among these diplomatic bureaucracies. In 2017, shortly after the inauguration of
Donald Trump, the Chicago Association of Latin American Consulates, led by
the Mexican government, sponsored a massive labor and immigrant rights train-
ing at a large-capacity auditorium at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Every
Latin American consulate invited its constituents from its jurisdictions (including
neighboring states such as Indiana and Wisconsin) to listen to labor rights educa-
tors from UFCW and staff lawyers from local immigrant rights organizations.

Consular Offices as Captive Audience Outreach. In practice, labor unions most

often play the role of on-site educator, offering information sessions to the cap-
tive audience of individuals waiting to receive services at consulates. As a Harris
County AFL-CIO staff member described the immense “foot traffic” in Houston’s
 The Sending State and Co-enforcement     75

consulate every day: “Every time I go there, that place is packed. I mean it’s in
a big enough area where there’s two hundred to three hundred people in there
on any given day at any time.” The consular office also provided unions with a
high-profile setting for broadcasting their outreach to the wider community, espe-
cially in Spanish-language media.14 To be sure, a core aspect of union outreach
includes encouraging workers to organize. However, as one UFCW leader in
Phoenix explained, this particular know-your-rights training ran the gamut from
­“information regarding labor rights [to] human rights [to] civil rights.” For UFCW,
holistic training for workers was crucial, and their typical outreach included infor-
mation about occupational health, disease prevention, and health care access.15
These union presentations served to build community trust.
Perhaps the biggest issue facing immigrant workers, though, involves federal
immigration enforcement efforts. Our interviews with consular partners took
place during the height of the Obama administration’s policy of carrying out “silent
raids” (Griffith and Gleeson 2019). During this period, workplace audits were ram-
pant, which caused problems for nonunion and union worksites alike. “No-match
letters”—delivered when there was a mismatch between an employee’s name and
the Social Security number provided by the employer—that often followed audits
were a key impetus driving unions to foster a relationship with consulates. When
we spoke to a representative from the Teamsters Local 743 in 2013, they highlighted
the problems caused by no-match letters, which were thwarting many organiz-
ing campaigns and fueling deportations under the Obama administration.16 In
Chicago, as in other cities across the United States, these letters became one of
the main foci of the emerging partnership between unions, service providers, and
consular staff.
Workers’ rights outreach was particularly important for UFCW 99 in Phoenix,
its leaders explained, because they operated in a “right to work” state (i.e., a state
where organizing efforts were hampered by state rules limiting member dues).
Getting consular staff on board for this work was important symbolically. “In the
last event we held, consular representatives were there to give out information
to people, chatting with co-nationals about their labor rights,” one union leader
explained. “I saw in that last event a much more direct participation than I had in
times past.”17 Consular staff were not always directly involved in these efforts,18 but
establishing the consular office as a welcoming hub for labor rights outreach was
consequential, especially in settings where unions held less power.

Consulates as Regional Actors. Third, consular activities, as inherently regional,

can target very large jurisdictions. The federated structure of the consular network
in many ways mirrors that of labor unions. Moreover, just as unions make strategic
decisions around where to concentrate their resources, the Mexican consulate can
become an anchor point for much of their regional outreach. Although consular
offices are often located in central cities, their vast reach (potentially across d
­ ozens
76    The Sending State and Co-enforcement

of counties and states) makes local consulates important partners in unions’

regional organizing. As explained in chapter 2, UFCW had significant leverage
when the Mexican embassy was selecting the cities in which to launch the pilot
of Labor Rights Week, suggesting sites where they had significant local resources
to mobilize for this collaboration. One national UFCW leader explained how the
union’s outreach around labor and immigrant worker rights was concentrated in
“eight or ten cities across the country. . . . Very specifically, we go and we set up sta-
tions at the Mexican consulate. We provide information on a range of issues, health
and safety for workers, information around verification employment, rights in par-
ticular that workers have.”19 Like unions, who often cover vast jurisdictions them-
selves, local consular offices have significant discretion over where to c­onduct their
programming. “Each consulate makes their own programming. Some venture out
beyond the consulate,” another UFCW leader told us.20 As such, the mobile con-
sulate provides unions a reach they wouldn’t otherwise enjoy, and some consulates
have partnered with churches and elementary schools in the metropolitan area
of Chicago to increase visibility and foot traffic during Labor Rights Week.
To be clear, the mobile consulate program is on the whole a woefully inad-
equate attempt to reach isolated migrants in the far reaches of the given region,
and its impact should not be overstated. Outreach is infrequent, staffing is limited,
appointments (which must be scheduled through the infamous and overstretched
MEXITEL system—now rebranded as Mi Consulado) run out quickly, and given
time pressures, consulates must often prioritize the most pressing matters (mostly
processing bureaucratic documents for citizens who cannot safely or practically
travel to the central consulate repeatedly). Yet these challenges are not a unique
feature of the Mexican bureaucracy. Indeed, many of the bureaucratic limitations
facing consulates (and their mobile functions) also plague US federal and state
labor agencies. And despite their flaws, the mobile consulates have allowed advo-
cates to leverage bureaucracy in service of their aims.
Because of their regional jurisdictions, unions help inform consulates on where
to dispatch resources outside of central cities. As one union leader explained: “We
work with [consular officials] to bring the Mexican consulate to communities like
Dodge City, Kansas, those kinds of things where services are a little bit more lim-
ited and far away. . . . And certainly on the immigrant rights front—to be able to
provide timely information to the immigrant communities—we worked closely
with the Mexican consulate.”21 In western Kansas, the leader went on, the union
had eight thousand members, yet the closest big city was Wichita (three hours
away), and the closest consular office was in Denver, Colorado. Thus, in a place
where “there’s not a whole lot of support . . . maybe the Catholic Church and the
union,”22 a collaboration between labor leaders and consular officials can be par-
ticularly fruitful. This collaboration might include, for example, events that pro-
vide health and safety or I-9 employment verification training, followed by the
offering of consular services. The benefit is mutual, as unions can extend the reach
 The Sending State and Co-enforcement     77

of a consular office in rural communities in particular. For example, the Dallas

consulate often relied on union halls as a base when providing services in more
rural areas like Lubbock and Plano.
Depending on union density and reach, consular collaborations are most useful
for unions in places with scarce resources serving local immigrant communities.
These partnerships are often the only opportunities isolated communities have
to access not only legal assistance across many arenas but also worker ­training,
immigration law consultations, and recently even COVID testing. In contrast, in
places with an already robust infrastructure of civic organizations, union-consular
partnerships offer a good opportunity to make new alliances or solidify exist-
ing ones with diverse community organizations such as elementary schools or
churches serving immigrant neighborhoods.

Benefits to Labor Organization–Consulate Collaboration

All told, labor unions benefit from working with a consulate in several concrete
ways. For one, they provide a means of reaching the broader, especially nonunion
workforce with whom unions do not have a direct line of communication. Such
collaborations allow unions to surmount certain geographical barriers and build
relationships and trust with immigrant workers who may not otherwise encoun-
ter unions in their daily lives. This is true especially with more recently arrived
immigrant communities, such as Oaxacan indigenous immigrants. Union leaders
described needing to gain their trust, often by working with community groups
such as the Frente Indígena de Organizaciones Binacionales. The end goal was for
these workers to “also feel confident in coming to the unions for help when they
find themselves in a bad situation at work.”23
In advocate-dense places like the Bay Area, a consulate is only one of many
community actors, each of which has cultivated its own relationships with vulner-
able communities. Yet as one building trades leader explained of this region, the
Mexican consulate was also an unavoidable bureaucratic reality that everyone had
to contend with at some point, given its political significance and broad reach.
When doing outreach, he often brought literature from the Mexican consulate to
lend weight to his message: “When you hear from your . . . native government,
that these are your rights in the United States, that makes it very official to say,
‘Okay, the Mexican consulate is telling me that I need to have these rights in the
United States.”24 During the COVID crisis, union-consular collaborations kicked
into high gear. The Mexican consulate in Chicago quickly joined forces with the
Chicago and Midwest Regional Joint Board of Workers United, United Electri-
cal, Radio and Machine Workers of America, the SEIU, UFCW, and the Occupa-
tional Safety and Health Administration to create a special digital guide for Illinois
essential workers in Spanish and to disseminate information about occupational
health rights and other basic protections during Labor Rights Week in 2020 (SRE
and Consulado General de México en Chicago 2020).
78    The Sending State and Co-enforcement

Consulates—and specifically the consul in charge of the Departamento de Pro-

tección—can also grease the wheels of arcane regulatory bureaucracies to which
unions are not always granted access. As one Bay Area UFCW leader noted, “You
know, we [union leaders and consular officials] feel very comfortable being able
to call one another if we are in need of some assistance.”25 She admitted that her
experience might be unique given the centrality of the Bay Area (home to three
Mexican consulates), but regardless, the reciprocal relationship she had built with
the various consulates helped make some of her advocacy work more effective.
Consulates are also important in places where few civic partners exist and the
political climate is markedly more hostile. For example, a Harris County AFL-CIO
leader frankly described the vacuum left by underresourced and understaffed US
labor agencies in the Houston area: “It’s really important that those governmental
agencies figure out a way to have a much broader enforcement program. It’s abso-
lutely essential . . . because they’re understaffed now, [and] when you’re under-
staffed, you’re kind of leaving it to the goodwill of employers. . . . You just can’t bet
on that goodwill.”26
While unions do seek to make connections with workers passing through
the consulate, this is not necessarily the most important strategic goal of
­union-consulate partnership. As one UFCW leader in Phoenix described, “Our
most important success is the relationship with the consulate. . . . It is very impor-
tant for us to know that we can pick up the phone and talk with someone at the
consulate and that they know someone here at the union. . . . I think that the direct
relationship with the consulate and this working relationship that we have is very
important because we have a place to which we can return and know that they are
going to help people.”27 Unions have worked hard to cultivate these positive rela-
tionships, which they have also been able to leverage at the national level.
This direct line of influence with consulates is also important because the union
itself is often seen as a one-stop shop for its members, who come seeking help
with a variety of issues far beyond work grievances. For example, in California,
Assembly Bill 6 made driver’s licenses available to undocumented individuals,
though it required them to present official identifying documents to obtain them.
If these documents were lost or had expired, undocumented applicants had to
rely on the Mexican government to reissue them. Having a consular official come
to their unions’ AB6 workshops was therefore a crucial benefit, one SEIU leader
explained,28 allowing their members to resolve documentation problems along
with other issues.
While both unions and consulates seek to develop ties with the community,
both often struggle to surmount perceptions that they are complex, hierarchical
organizations that cannot necessarily be trusted. Yet this liability can also be a
­benefit, as precisely this shared, top-down organizational nature facilitates their
collaborative work and allows all actors to rally around a common goal. (By con-
trast, grassroots organizations typically lack such rigid leadership structures and
 The Sending State and Co-enforcement     79

in some cases lack even the physical space to legitimize their presence.) For exam-
ple—and without discounting the efforts of local community leaders—the bina-
tional accord between the US DOL and Mexico’s SRE set the tone for the work of
consulates on the ground. This centrally managed but locally implemented orga-
nizational front created a sense of continuity that worked in unions’ favor, as one
South Bay building trades leader was amazed to find over the years: “To my sur-
prise, every single one of them has been very supportive.”29
Finally, much of the labor union organizing in immigrant-dense cities such
as Chicago is decidedly transnational (Galvez, Godoy, and Meneima 2019; de
Graauw, Gleeson, and Bada 2019). Working with the consulate not only unlocks
much-needed resources but opens up another avenue for holding the Mexican
government accountable. These labor advocacy efforts have extended far beyond
organizing passive educational outreach one week out of the year; rather, unions
like the UFCW consistently work with and against the Mexican government on
both sides of the border and across North America. Even benign outreach pro-
gramming has often been leveraged to demand or offer accountability, as in 2014
when the Chicago Regional Council of Carpenters called on the Mexican con-
sulate to facilitate a joint professional training program with a group of carpen-
ters from a Mexico-based sister union that had also been pressuring Mexico for
reform. The consul obliged, and the cross-border training program thus became a
demonstration—even if largely symbolic—of the Mexican government’s commit-
ment to advancing labor rights in Mexico.30
In sum, union-consulate collaborations ideally allow labor leaders unfettered,
yearlong access to large groups of captive, Spanish-speaking immigrant work-
ers who can benefit from informational workshops while they wait for consular
documents. These collaborations give unions a strategic partner and an ally to
support organizing campaigns and provide direct services frequently needed by
many union members. Making alliances with consulates has also allowed unions
to deliver more holistic services to marginalized immigrant constituents, while
simultaneously leveraging transnational union networks to push the Mexican gov-
ernment to be accountable for the labor rights of its workers back home.

Challenges to Labor Organization–Consulate Collaboration

All told, unions described many benefits to working with local consulates.
Yet many were also quite candid about the challenges they encountered while
­cultivating these relationships. For one, like all collaborations, they required a con-
tinual investment of time and energy, resources that were not always readily avail-
able. For example, a national leader for the UFCW recalled how difficult it was to
make “the Mexican consulate recognize the need for labor rights education and
access to labor rights information.” Speaking candidly, she admitted that “some-
times those relationships get kind of dicey” and could come with “some hesitation
and some tension and some nervousness.” Over time, these tensions were eased,
80    The Sending State and Co-enforcement

and ­subsequently there was a “real growth in understanding and a real apprecia-
tion of the need to provide labor rights education to Mexican immigrants.”31
These relationships also had to be cultivated and maintained, according to one
labor leader with the Roofers Union in San Jose who had a long-standing relation-
ship with the Mexican consulate there and had seen many consuls come and go.
Each official had to be dealt with differently: “Some consuls are very approachable,
some other ones are not.” Referring especially to the class (and often political) dif-
ferences between consular staff and union leaders and members, he admitted that
not all of his members had had great experiences at the consulate office. The qual-
ity of the relationships depended largely on the particular interests of the assigned
diplomat and on labor leaders’ ability to facilitate them. Sometimes leaders simply
didn’t have time: “They [consular officials] do a good outreach. . . . [But] I don’t
have time to go around to all the meetings they have and all the community events
they have. I just don’t have time for that.”32 In this case, limited resources led to a
less than optimal collaborative environment.
Another San Francisco Bay Area UFCW leader similarly confirmed the need
to quickly “develop a relationship with the consulate” so that their concerns would
not take a backseat to the consulates’ many other campaigns and initiatives that
“have nothing to do with the issue of labor.” Indeed, labor unions had to not only
maintain communication with consular officials but also convince them to inte-
grate labor issues into the other services they offered, such as women’s rights and
children’s needs. The onus, he explained, then fell on unions to bring labor rights
into focus while stressing that the worker was also a “father, mother, son, daugh-
ter”—that is, the union had to make a broader case for labor rights as affecting
every aspect of immigrant lives: “We need more understanding about what the
labor movement [is],” the UFCW leader explained.33
This relationship building involved training the consular staff to be effective
advocates. While many leaders noted that working with a Mexican consulate (as
opposed to US labor agencies, for example) offered more opportunities for estab-
lishing cultural ties and trust with the community, not everyone was convinced
that this made consulates uniformly better advocates for workers. One SEIU
leader in San Jose explained her ambivalence over consular collaboration: “I don’t
think it differs much. It has its bureaucracy and [red] tape that it has to go through.
It maybe has more credibility with people. And it’s seen as . . . an extension of the
government or the country, which could go either way in terms of trust. Yeah, so
I think that could be good sometimes and sometimes not.”34 A Teamsters leader
in Chicago similarly noted that the majority of consuls were “very bureaucratic,”
a quality that explained the “terrible impression that people had of the Mexican
consulate,” despite their utility to the community.35 Unions reported struggling to
convince consulates that they needed to take actions to reverse this reputation.
Indeed, not only immigrant communities but also many labor leaders them-
selves were skeptical of consulates. For example, a leader with SEIU 1877 in San Jose
 The Sending State and Co-enforcement     81

reflected on the irony of working alongside other labor colleagues with local con-
sulates when they had just a short time prior worked in solidarity with the Union
of Mexican Electrical Workers in their strike in Mexico City, even organizing a
demonstration at the consular office: “They [the consulate] got a lot of bad press.
We had organized a march at the consulate, things like that, just last year. And so,
when I heard that they were doing Labor Week, I was really shocked. . . . It felt
like a PR thing to me.”36 While many union leaders were similarly leery of big-
government bureaucrats, some, like this SEIU 1877 leader, had a more optimistic
view of future consular interactions: “The government of Mexico right now, the
way it’s so conservative and business oriented, and has been for what, eighty years,
one hundred years, you would [expect to] see that in the way they treated people. I
think now that they’re becoming more service oriented and more focused on rights,
whether they be legal or laboral or what have you, I think it’s a good thing. And it’s
very shocking, in a good way.”37 But this shift, the leader conceded, would take time.
For many labor leaders, working with a consulate was largely symbolic and
confined to Labor Rights Week in September. As a Teamsters leader in Chicago
explained, “Unfortunately, we can’t really say that the impact on the people has
been worth much because a lot of times people go as if it were a book fair, rather
[than] a labor fair. They come but they don’t stay.” Moreover, making the com-
munity view a consulate office as a place where they could “go and learn about
your worker rights . . . about the community services available to you” was an
inherently difficult task given how consulates are structured.38 With the exception
of the Chicago office, Mexican consulates do not have a specific division dedicated
to worker issues, and thus most consular outreach remains limited and dependent
on the specific priorities of the General Consulate and the Consulate of Protection
(legal protection section), which often have little to do with labor issues. During
Labor Rights Week, labor leaders often pleaded with consular officials to publicly
leverage their influence: “I’d like them to spread the word using their media con-
nections. Because they do speak out on the radio. . . . Everybody’s listening to
the radio at work.”39 Yet these media campaigns typically waned soon after Labor
Rights Week ended, rarely persisting year-round.
Finally, in addition to pushing for year-round programming, many labor lead-
ers stressed that promoting worker rights was not the same as advocating for work-
ers’ rights to organize. A UFCW leader surmised that this disconnect ultimately
had to do with the politicization of worker rights in the United States and the US
government’s initial fear that Mexico would “promote unionization.” Over time,
these anxieties pushed unions out of the central planning of Labor Rights Week,
he explained. “The consulate will not talk openly about the issue of unionization,”
opting instead to focus on ensuring wage payments, even if they are poverty wages
with no benefits. Ultimately, then, consulates could never be advocates for labor
reform, he admitted. “Because of their diplomatic nature, the consulate won’t do
it. They can’t do it.”40
82    The Sending State and Co-enforcement

In sum, the Mexican consular network can be a valuable though imperfect

partner for pursuing the core agenda of labor unions. Difficulty arises from the
sovereignty constraints of the diplomatic corps and the directives binding staff to
be neutral actors in advocating for the labor rights of Mexican immigrants under
US labor laws. Moreover, Mexican consulates have a long history of engaging in
discriminatory practices and have not always acted in the best interest of immi-
grant workers in need of protection (González 1999; Goodman 2020). This has
eroded community trust and hampered collaboration. Labor union leaders are
well aware that consuls must navigate the complex bureaucratic layers in the Mexi-
can government before advocating on behalf of their emigrants in any meaningful
way. Furthermore, consulates typically have no department dedicated exclusively
to worker advocacy. The protection of labor rights is assigned to the legal protec-
tion section, a department in charge of multiple issues including family law, crimi-
nal defense, and corpse repatriation.
Ultimately, consulates have limited resources to provide legal services to work-
ers with labor grievances because a significant part of their budget for legal ser-
vices is devoted to other obligations such as advocating for incarcerated citizens or
supporting family repatriations. Consequently, union leaders have to compete for
consuls’ attention and convince them to increase awareness about the importance
of workers’ rights.

I N C R E A SI N G AC C E S S T O J U ST IC E
F O R I M M IG R A N T WO R K E R S

In addition to labor education and outreach, consular involvement in co-enforce-

ment involves broadening access to legal services. Access to a legal advocate is
a critical aspect for individual claims making, the engine of labor regulation in
the United States. Legal services providers in this arena include private attorneys,
many of whom also work with nonprofits. They may work on a contingency or
volunteer basis, and on rare occasions may formally contract with a consulate, as
described in chapter 2. Below we outline this aspect of consular collaboration and
how legal advocates worked with consuls to advance worker claims.

The Critical Role of Legal Services for Worker Rights

Beyond general outreach and education, Labor Rights Week aims to help aggrieved
migrant workers file claims. Key partners in this regard are public interest law
organizations, who provide critical services while facing a number of resource
constraints. An attorney at the Community Justice Project in Reading, Pennsyl-
vania, for example, explained how funding limitations meant that their caseload
was limited to those involving “survivors of domestic violence, victims of crime,
and . . . people who are eligible for renewing Deferred Action for Childhood
­Arrivals.”41 They simply did not have the resources to handle labor and employ-
ment cases as well.
 The Sending State and Co-enforcement     83

Funding in large part determines the type of clients that legal service provid-
ers can serve. According to a survey of a random sample of public interest law
organizations, about a quarter of these organizations rely on federal funding from
the Legal Services Corporation (Albiston, Li, and Nielsen 2017), which precludes
grantees from serving undocumented immigrants (Legal Services Corporation
2020). Consequently this population is in dire need of services, even in regions
with long-standing Mexican and undocumented communities. For example,
outside of Sacramento, California, in Solano County, “there are no legal service
organizations that support undocumented workers. . . . There never have been,”
explained the lead attorney for the newly created Center for Workers’ Rights.
While in fact several regional groups serve undocumented workers, this percep-
tion nonetheless reflects a very real service gap. Furthermore, many of the area
agencies that do serve undocumented clients do not wade into labor standards
enforcement territory, “even for legal permanent residents and others who are able
to legally work in the United States.”42 Some legal aid organizations will create sis-
ter organizations with separate funding streams that can serve undocumented cli-
ents, but these often have far less capacity.43 This inequity is especially pronounced
in places with a thin civil society presence and with state and local governments
that do not support labor standards enforcement efforts (Fine and Bartley 2019).
Legal service providers are also often constrained by their specific organiza-
tional mission, as not all of them have the same mandate when it comes to worker
rights. For instance, some of these legal groups, such as the Southern Poverty Law
Center in Atlanta, focus on impact litigation around “wage and hour abuses . . .
harassment, discrimination, racial profiling . . . and anti-immigrant laws,” rather
than on processing individual claims throughout the Southeast.44 In some of these
cases, the Mexican government has issued formal rebukes of US policy or has even
collaborated on legal challenges as a friend of the court, as in the October 2019
amicus curiae brief filed by the Mexican government to the US Supreme Court
of the United States in a case regarding the rescission of the Deferred Action for
Childhood Arrivals (DACA). This brief stressed how terminating the program
would return its beneficiaries to a state of vulnerability (SRE 2011b; SCOTUS 2012;
Associated Press 2019).
Regional differences and funding priorities each shape the services available to
workers. In the Southeast region, for example, the Southern Poverty Law Center’s
Esperanza Project focuses especially on workplace sexual abuse and harassment
targeting immigrant women in fieldwork (SPLC 2006). The office of the Equal Jus-
tice Center in Dallas concentrates primarily on “litigation in state and federal court
on behalf of low wage employees.” It has “a special interest in representing immi-
grant workers,” who largely hail from Mexico and Central and South ­America.
And the “migrant offices” of the California Rural Legal Assistance network have
an even more focused aim: they can only help agricultural workers such as “farm
workers, dairy workers, packing house workers.”45 Moreover, driven by support
from the Department of State (US Department of State 2021) and ­philanthropic
84    The Sending State and Co-enforcement

interest (NEO Philanthropy 2017), legal service provision has increasingly focused
on “human trafficking” (one of the few exceptions to serving undocumented cli-
ents).46 These complex cases involving U or T visas require labor and employment
attorneys to work in conjunction with immigration lawyers, who must then coop-
erate with law enforcement to establish a basis for the case.47
We found that legal service providers seldom focused solely on workplace issues;
they could, however, use their resources and programs dedicated to other issues to
perform some worker outreach as well. Catholic Migration Services in Queens, for
instance, was contracted to run the labor hotline for the Mexican consulate in New
York City. As one of its employee noted: “We have a very strong immigration and
housing program . . . so people sometimes come for . . . consultations. Then they
find out about the workers’ rights programs and later they might come back and
just walk into the office and ask to talk to a lawyer. We’re pretty flexible about that.”
Many of the worker cases they received came in through this línea laboral (labor
hotline), as well as via referrals from other legal clinics. An estimated one-third
of these calls were from Mexican immigrants, with the rest of the callers being
immigrants from the long list of countries of origin of New York City’s diverse
Latino population.48
Legal services are often provided by complex organizations engaged in a wide
array of organizing and advocacy projects, such as the Services Immigrant Rights
and Education Network (SIREN) in San Jose, California. Arguably the most
­prominent immigrant rights advocacy organization in Silicon Valley, SIREN pro-
vides immigration legal assistance, including in some trafficking cases.49 Other
organizations such as the Wage Justice Center in Los Angeles—known for its Day
Labor Hotline—are specialized legal service providers focusing on wage theft.50
The collaboration networks among these organizations are diverse, varying sig-
nificantly from place to place. For example, in cities with law schools, law students
supply a crucial volunteer base for legal aid clinics. In other places where there are
few law schools and attorneys are hard to attract, paralegal staff are the primary
service providers.
The range of services that public interest law organizations offer vary. Many
legal advocates lead “Know Your Rights” workshops or health and safety trainings.
Some legal service providers primarily provide representation for clients filing a
formal claim. In California, relevant agencies may include, for example, the Labor
Commission or the Department of Fair Employment and Housing,51 or their fed-
eral counterparts in places with no state regulatory apparatus. Legal service pro-
viders may even provide technical advice or translation assistance in small-claims
court (a popular, though some argue fraught, site for demanding ­small-scale resti-
tution) (Thomas 2020).52 Some groups work with other larger volunteer firms for
more specialized cases, such as those involving workers’ compensation, to provide
direct representation to injured workers.53 Still others are engaged in policy advo-
cacy and capacity building with community organizations, including the local
consulate.54
 The Sending State and Co-enforcement     85

Clients who work with nonprofit legal service providers often have to meet low-
income guidelines. These groups are especially important for immigrant workers,
who tend to lack the language and bureaucratic know-how to navigate the laby-
rinth of regulatory agencies (Gleeson 2016). They are typically the only option for
undocumented workers in particular. According to the Farmworker and Land-
scaper Advocacy Project in Chicago, “Of the cases that we get following Labor
Rights Week, I can tell you that about 95 percent are from people who are neither
US residents nor citizens.”55
While most organizations affirmed that they did not formally collect data on
their clients’ immigration status, many anecdotally reported that undocumented
immigrants made up a large proportion (in some cases nearly all) of their client
base. Yet even in immigrant-friendly jurisdictions it was not always easy for these
organizations to reach out to the undocumented, which was why events like the
Semana de Derechos Laborales were so important. A staff member from the Legal
Aid Society’s Employment Law Center (one of the largest networks of legal advo-
cates in California, now known as Legal Aid at Work) explained the necessity, and
challenges, of helping undocumented workers claim their rights:
In California, your status . . . actually has little relevance as to your rights except
when it comes to the area of unemployment. You can’t get unemployment benefits
if you’re undocumented, but everything else you’re entitled [to]. You’re entitled to
workers’ comp. You’re entitled to be paid the minimum wage. You’re entitled to over-
time. You’re entitled to time-and-a-half or . . . lunch and meal breaks and health,
everything. . . . Low-wage workers who are undocumented have that extra fear factor
of “Oh my God, if I complain they’re gonna call ICE on me, and then I’m gonna be
deported and my whole family’s gonna be in trouble.”56

Another paralegal explained that beyond this pervasive fear, many of the undocu-
mented clients her center saw doubted whether they were actually entitled to com-
pensation: “Because of their legal status, they feel they don’t have any rights, first
of all. . . . They’re threatened [by employers] that because of their legal status they
don’t deserve these rights. . . . They basically live under feeling threatened [sic]
that . . . their wages are not gonna be given to them, or that they’ll be reported to
the immigration office or to the feds.” These challenges, she added, were further
compounded by language barriers, educational limitations, lack of access to tech-
nology, and the inability to get time off work to pursue a claim.57 Each of these
outreach considerations shapes how legal service providers consider the costs and
benefits of collaborating with a consulate.

What a Consulate Offers Labor and Employment Lawyers

The relationship between an area consulate and legal service providers varies
widely. Much like labor unions, legal advocates are often called upon to facilitate
“Know Your Rights” trainings for consular audiences during Labor Rights Week
and beyond. They may also host a table inside the consular offices where they dis-
tribute informational flyers and brochures. On some occasions, a consulate may
86    The Sending State and Co-enforcement

even physically host an organization’s legal aid clinic. While some pioneer consul-
ates regularly contract with lawyers who provide on-site consultations (for exam-
ple, in Chicago) or sometimes even long-term representation, the vast majority of
consulates rely on outside referrals. A group like the Farmworker and Landscaper
Advocacy Project in Chicago, which focuses on a particular subset of workers, is
able to tap into a consulate’s lawyer network to refer out cases it receives. As one
of its advocates explained, “For example, a construction or restaurant worker—we
can’t take those cases directly, but we can refer out to one of these [other] organiza-
tions or lawyers who can help.”58 In exchange, such organizations help expand the
consulate’s reach as well.
Consulates have a limited budget with which to retain a small group of lawyers
to support the most vulnerable cases that come before the desk of the Consul de
Protección (the consul heading the Legal Protection Section). Staff here keep a
directory of reputable lawyers that community members can use to obtain a refer-
ral to a specialized practitioner with a solid track record. However, there is not
much transparency around how a local lawyer gets added to this directory or is
chosen to serve as a consulate lawyer. Sometimes, the SRE hires a specific law firm
to produce a report on how to improve the delivery of legal services, but there is
no formal bidding process. Rather, the perception among many is that personal
networks determine which lawyers eventually secure contracts, which has sown
significant distrust among community groups critical of consular dealings.
As part of its legal representation function, the consulate works with legal advo-
cates in the community. The SRE sponsors the national Programa de Asistencia
Jurídica a Personas Mexicanas a través de Asesorías Legales Externas en los Esta-
dos Unidos de América / Legal Assistance Program to Mexicans by Attorneys in
the United States, an initiative that has been deployed to the fifty-two consulates
throughout the United States to provide basic legal services in multiple legal are-
nas including administrative, human rights, criminal, civil, labor, and immigra-
tion law. This program is complemented by JURIMEX, a hotline organized in col-
laboration with several groups of US lawyers that offers free and confidential legal
advice in Spanish on issues related to certain areas of US law across several con-
sulates in Florida and California. This hotline is staffed twenty-four hours, seven
days a week, and typically handles cases involving car and work-related accidents.
Within this structure of legal advocacy, only a small portion of the cases received
concern worker rights.
The Equal Justice Center of Dallas, an organization selected to receive funding
from the local consulate for legal services, described the extent of consular sup-
port: “Yes, it’s not a lot of funding. At the moment, it’s pretty limited. As I under-
stand it, when they get approval from Mexico City to add a legal organization to
the group that they utilize, they . . . want to sort of wade into it and sort of get a
little bit of experience with that organization first and see what they’re able to help
with. . . . I don’t know if that’s a funding source that . . . can be expanded.”59
 The Sending State and Co-enforcement     87

In sum, consular resources for legal services are typically very limited, and
Mexico doesn’t usually increase them except during crises. For example, when the
threat of massive deportations to Mexico became apparent shortly after President
Trump’s inauguration, Mexico’s then-president Enrique Peña Nieto announced
the creation of a $50 million defense fund to be distributed across the consular
network to pay for lawyers and to post bail for undocumented workers. Upon
closer inspection, however, this initiative was met with significant cynicism from
longtime immigration advocates. A quick back-of-the-envelope calculation about
how many immigrants were at risk—and how many lawyers would be required to
work all the cases—revealed that $50 million across the fifty-two office consular
network was in fact a paltry sum.
Beyond this in-house assistance funded by the Mexican government, each
­consul of legal affairs maintains the previously discussed list of attorneys for
referrals. In some jurisdictions, legal service providers have negotiated dis-
counted rates for consular referrals.60 Furthermore, there are instances in which
the consulate invests in hotlines, like the Linea Laboral run in New York City by
Catholic Migration Services, to buttress legal support. This program receives a
modest $10,000 a year that can go only toward the salary of a Mexican national
and the maintenance of the phone line and outreach materials.61 But we found
that this was a unique paid collaboration that did not exist uniformly across the
consular network.
The direct relationship between a consulate and legal advocates goes both ways:
that is, consulates refer clients to legal advocacy groups, and these groups supply
information and provide other resources to consulates. A worker at the Women’s
Employment Rights Clinic, a small university-based organization in San Fran-
cisco, recalled: “Periodically I’ll get an email . . . from someone within the San
Francisco [consulate] office asking if I can talk to someone. . . . If I have a question
. . . I know I can call them for the same.” Similarly, Catholic Migration Services in
New York City described how their organization provided information to consular
officials across a range of issues: “I think it’s really been good for the staff at the
Mexican consulate. When they have a problem that they can’t handle in house that
they need to be able to speak to an attorney [about], they’re able to put that person
in contact with us.”62
In jurisdictions where the Labor Rights Week has expanded to a year-round
partnership, the communication between legal service providers and consular offi-
cials is more formalized. In New York City, Catholic Migration Services sent the
local consulate regular reports: “We keep them notified about our litigation when
we’re representing workers in federal court . . . mostly just to let them know that we
appreciate the support that we’ve gotten and that we want to keep them in the loop.
And we want them to know that we’re working very diligently on these issues.”63 In
Houston, the Justice and Equality in the Workplace Partnership allowed the local
consulate to cross-file claims across the disparate claims ­bureaucracies that seldom
88    The Sending State and Co-enforcement

communicated otherwise (Gleeson 2012). In all these cases, more communication

increases the odds of better outcomes.
Some consular relationships with legal service providers are more formal than
others. Yet formalizing these relationships requires negotiation, a well-resourced
legal services community, and the political will of the local consul. Only certain
areas meet these conditions. For example, in Philadelphia, one provider explained,
“There are some other organizations that have more formalized agreements
where they have a contract to accept a certain amount of referrals from the Mexi-
can consulate. . . . We have gotten referrals from them over the years, more or
less r­ egularly, and then when there was some staff turnover . . . the referrals went
down. So we recently met with them again to figure out how to work more closely
together again, and we are now sending a paralegal there once a month to do
presentations and have gotten a few recent referrals.”64 As this provider’s account
indicates, establishing and maintaining these relationships can be a dynamic,
­time-consuming process.
Ultimately, consulates play varied roles in dealing with legal service provid-
ers. For some, the local consulate is part of a “co-counseling relationship” that
“bring[s] resources that the client might need.”65A lawyer with the California Rural
Legal Assistance in San Francisco described the consulates as a kind of “micro-
phone amplifying the voices [of providers]” that offered “outreach and [lets] every-
body know about the resources that are available.” In other cases, legal service
­providers viewed the consulate as a competitor for cases or as just another bureau-
cratic barrier.

Benefits of Legal Service Provider–Consulate Collaboration

All told, there are many benefits of collaborating with a consulate. Principal among
them is gaining access to staff who can help translate for their Spanish-speaking
clientele, an absolute requirement in legal proceedings (and a resource that is fre-
quently in short supply, even in heavily Latino regions). Whereas labor unions
and other community organizations almost always have Spanish-speaking orga-
nizers, the staff attorneys at legal aid organizations or government agencies are
very frequently not bilingual.66 This was the case in California’s Central Valley, for
example. One legal service provider staff member in that region—a bustling farm-
worker community—said that because an estimated 90 percent of her clients were
monolingual Spanish speakers, the local consulate was a vital resource: “So that’s
why the partnership with [the consulate] . . . is so important, because . . . for every
clinic, they send out two to three translators. . . . They’re not lawyers—or some of
them are actually lawyers in Mexico—but it’s irrelevant for [these cases]. They go
in, and they sit with an attorney who doesn’t speak Spanish, and they translate for
them.”67 Moreover, when holding workers’ rights clinics in this region, consular
staff provided additional help with intake: “They really help to speed e­ verything
 The Sending State and Co-enforcement     89

up because people aren’t waiting because there’s no one to translate.”68 In this

­context, consular staff became, in essence, a force multiplier.
Furthermore, especially in places without an extensive support structure for
vulnerable workers, a consulate can help legal aid organizations to disseminate
workers’ rights information. In Raleigh, North Carolina, for example, the local
legal aid organization credited the consulate with helping them gain access to
guest workers fearful of being blacklisted for coming forward: “They [the consul-
ate] lent us a little bit of their credibility, because . . . they don’t want to be black-
listed and not be able to come back. . . . We’ve really cut down on that in North
Carolina because we were able to get enough clients to complain about it, and we
actually got a copy of the blacklist.”69 This collaboration was particularly striking
given the consular network’s discouragement of union membership in California’s
early agricultural unions in the 1930s (García y Griego 1988; González 1999) and
its recent history of facilitating the deportation of its citizens in North America
(Vosko 2016, 2018; Goodman 2020). (Some would argue that even today consul-
ates abet such practices through benign neglect veiled as diplomatic neutrality.)
Lingering mistrust notwithstanding, the credibility that consulates provide
is especially important for new providers looking to build their base in a com-
munity. As the founder of the Center for Workers’ Rights in Sacramento noted
about consulates:
The sheer volume of contacts that they get from workers reaching out for assistance
is more substantial than any individual organization. So they are able to kind of di-
rect individuals to our services . . . since the workers are already contacting them. It
also is a comfortable place for the workers to contact, because they feel like we dealt
with the consulate already and are familiar with who they are and what they do. So
since we’re a new organization, we want them to know that we have kind of the stamp
of approval of an organization they already have worked with before.70

Even in arguably the most progressive jurisdiction in the country, San Francisco,
the consulate played an important role in reaching out to the still-vulnerable
undocumented community. This made sense given the consulate’s centrality to
the daily life of Mexican immigrants, who had to navigate its bureaucracy in order
to access key services and documents. Because of these necessary and repeated
interactions, however, some immigrants had accumulated deep resentments
­
toward this mega-bureaucracy, which had a reputation for being classist and rac-
ist. In this sense, the Semana de Derechos Laborales (with its related media blitz
and outreach push) served to break down perceptions of the consular network as
rigid and to revamp its community reputation. According to one San Francisco
advocate, “I think that this Labor Rights Week—the media attention and coverage
and outreach that they’ve done—has built a sense in the community that they can
go there for other things. And those things may not be directly something that
they can help them with, but . . . they have developed ties and collaboration with
90    The Sending State and Co-enforcement

community groups to ensure that when something comes their way, they know
where to send people and they will try to help. I think that’s significant.”71
Widespread exposure to the consulate also means that some migrants are
­comfortable and familiar with the institution in a way that they are not with other
US-based organizations. “There are always complaints,” one service provider in
Chicago explained. “But you also find people who speak well of the c­ onsulate, [say-
ing] that it has supported and helped them . . . that they had a case and it helped
them find free legal assistance. Or, for example, say a family member died and the
consulate helped then send the body back to Mexico.”72 In the most extreme cases,
community members relied on the consulate “to try to find their loved ones or
family members when they can’t find them, when they are either crossing or have
been detained.”73
As we will see in chapter 4, many grassroots and worker centers can vouch for
a consulate’s efficacy in solving emergencies for precarious workers. We should
remember, though, the clientelist nature of the Mexican government in relation to
its offering of bureaucratic services. Only those who have leverage (palanca) or the
support of certain advocates tend to benefit from this efficient help. For the masses
who show up every day at consular doorsteps facing an emergency without an
advocate referral, services may not be delivered as swiftly as needed.
On the whole, legal providers reported varied experiences working with con-
sulates. Some, like the following provider in San Francisco, were very pleased:
“They’re a lot like all the other partners . . . They’re just like, ‘Roll up your sleeves.
What do we need to do to get to work here?’ . . . I love that about them. . . . It works
perfectly because they’re ready to do whatever it takes, just like all of our other
collaborating organizations that host our clinics.”74 Legal advocates also under-
stood that—like them—the consulate was bound by bureaucratic procedure. As
one Washington, DC, lawyer explained, the local consulate’s formal role was not
to help work out “a labor dispute between a private employer and an employee.”75
Many providers thus had limited expectations of the consulate when it came to
aiding with legal advocacy.
Consulates can be especially useful to legal service providers in gathering the
required documents for the claims process. Especially during the era of REAL
ID, which prohibited migrants from accessing government-issued IDs, migrants
needed Mexican identity documents if they were to seek restitution in their
workers’ rights cases.76 Most commonly, workers visited a consulate to procure
their Mexican passports and the matrícula consular. These documents were also
important for obtaining local forms of identification (like municipal IDs) that had
emerged in proimmigrant jurisdictions like San Francisco and Chicago. They were
especially critical for negotiating encounters with local law enforcement and for
gaining entry into, for example, a labor standards government agency building or
for collecting restitution. From 2003 to 2019, the Mexican government issued an
average of 910,000 matrículas throughout the world, with a notable pandemic-era
 The Sending State and Co-enforcement     91

dip to only 502,635 in 2020. At its height, over 1,100,000 such documents were
issued in 2015 (SRE 2021e), coinciding with the massive push to prepare for the
landmark Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Resi-
dents (NILC 2015),77 which placed enormous pressure on consular documentation
services as hopeful immigrants rushed to get the required paperwork in order.78
Certain categories of immigrants also relied on the consulate to obtain the
necessary documents for seeking immigration relief. These consular documents
were essential for basic survival, as they were needed to obtain housing, turn on
utilities, or access immigration resources. For example, DACA applicants seeking
a work permit often had to visit the consulate to obtain a birth certificate, as did
parents returning to Mexico with a child who needed similar identity documents
to “reintegrate” into Mexican institutions.79 These consular services were especially
important for adults. As a lawyer with the Community Justice Project in Reading,
Pennsylvania, explained, “Usually, children in Reading will have a school ID, so
they’ll have some sort of photo ID, but [for] adults it’s often a huge problem.”80
As with unions and worker centers, many regional and statewide legal aid
organizations are able to piggyback on the outreach infrastructure of mobile con-
sulates. Legal service providers in particular are typically concentrated in dense
urban centers like New York City, with limited reach to underserved immigrant
regions like upstate New York and Long Island where there is tremendous need.
These imbalances are compounded by the lack of significant and dedicated fund-
ing, which hampers the outreach capacity for rural communities in particular.81
Such outreach also requires building a knowledge base about the resources in
those communities, which are often very different from those of the city where a
consulate is based.82 Rural (and sometimes suburban) workers are doubly vulner-
able given their geographic location (de Graauw and Gleeson 2020) and their con-
centration in high-violation informal jobs like domestic work and construction.83
Not only are organizations few and far between in these more remote places,
but the organizations that do exist tend to be younger and have fewer resources.
Consulates often serve as incubators and anchors for these newer organiza-
tions. For example, the Employment Law Center, based in the San Francisco Bay
Area, ­established itself in Fresno, California, as well with the support of the Mexi-
can consulate (Legal Aid at Work 2012).
A consulate can also extend legal service providers’ reach across borders.
Under US law, workers are often still eligible to receive restitution even if they
have returned (or been deported) to their country of origin. This is typically the
case with guest workers who travel seasonally,84 but it is also true for immigrants
who for whatever reason are no longer able to stay in the United States (because of
deportation or voluntary return, for example). In these cases, government agen-
cies and legal service providers often struggle to reach workers who have either
initiated or won a claim, a reality that employers often bank on in order to avoid
having to pay restitution. A consulate can assist in bridging that gap by helping
92    The Sending State and Co-enforcement

to locate ­workers across Mexican states and facilitate payment. For example, the
Equal Rights Advocates, a women’s rights legal aid organization in San Francisco
famous for its impact litigation, worked with the local consulate in a class action
suit against supermarket labor brokers to secure restitution for workers who had
returned to Mexico: “The Mexican consulate was very involved. . . . They were very
helpful to us when we were doing outreach in Mexico, trying to find workers.”85
In the best-case scenario, a consulate acts as a convener for legal service pro-
viders (as they also do for labor unions). As one service provider in Chicago
explained, “The consulate has also facilitated communication and made it possible
for us to have a seat at the table. . . . There [are] often many differences [among
organizations].” From her perspective, the local consulate had, through Labor
Rights Week, succeeded in bringing advocates together toward a common goal.86
Similarly, the New York City consulate, one of the largest and best staffed in the
country, has successfully convened and worked with the broader Latin American
consular corps, further expanding collaborative possibilities.87 The sustainability
of this model throughout the entire year—and not just during Labor Rights Week
—remains limited.
In sum, legal service providers play an important role as brokers for victims
of labor law violations seeking restitution, helping workers navigate the complex
bureaucratic layers of labor regulation and co-enforcement. Collaborating with
consulates provides valuable information to legal aid providers in their efforts to
locate returned immigrant workers who are owed restitution in labor violation
cases. For legal aid providers with enough resources to serve clients, the Mexi-
can consulates also offer an excellent opportunity to educate the public about the
­services and solutions they can offer to workers with grievances. Furthermore,
consulates can filter out disreputable providers and support (through collabora-
tion) honest brokers. This has the potential to reduce the incidence of fraud related
to notarios públicos, predatory offices common in communities with limited access
to legal aid organizations. These collaborations are highly synergistic and mutu-
ally beneficial, as consulates have the opportunity to establish formal contracts
with legal aid organizations, expand the range of services offered to constituents,
and transform consulates into one-stop shops for immigrant workers in need of
consular documents and legal services.

Challenges to Legal Service Provider–Consulate Collaboration

Despite these myriad benefits, one of the biggest challenges for legal service pro-
viders is finding the staff, time, and financial resources to collaborate with a con-
sulate. As the head of one of the largest legal aid groups in Chicago explained, “I
think the challenge is that there is no funding for it. . . . The Mexican consulate
doesn’t provide any funding as far as printing out brochures or . . . helping orga-
nizations that might not have the capacity to travel . . . [or] reimburs[ing] them
for mileage and things like that. It’s one of those entirely volunteer operations,
 The Sending State and Co-enforcement     93

and that limits a little bit some of the groups that can participate.”88 This statement
confirms the budgetary analysis we present in chapter 2: while an elite subset of
organizations do receive modest support for outreach and referrals at a handful
of consular offices, this help is insufficient given community need.
The consular ethos of neutrality has proved challenging time and again, even for
legal service providers who are themselves constrained by legal mandates. Under
the rubric of legal protection (a preordained activity for consulates), consular staff
are usually comfortable only in pushing to implement existing law. In some cases,
though, consuls act more boldly and are willing to act outside norms of neutrality.
For example, in the Washington, DC, metro area, the consulate worked with the
Legal Aid Justice Center to limit state and local collaboration with immigration
enforcement. As one advocated noted: “The Mexican consulate here in Virginia
actually got in a bit of a political dispute with some state and local legislatures who
felt that it was entirely inappropriate for the Mexican consul to be sharing opinions
on what they considered to be state and local issues.”89 Typically, as a staff member
at the Legal Assistance Foundation in Chicago described, the overarching problem
with consulates was that their actions were not institutionalized and were instead
dependent on “what the individual who is leading the consulate wants to focus
their energy [on].”90
This variability was compounded by the inconsistency of some consular
­practices. According to one advocate, consular staff would often refuse her ­clients a
passport, only to relent when she intervened. This combination of rigidity (e.g., for-
malized protocols) and inconsistency (e.g., the personal preferences of the ­consul)
could make it difficult to develop a close working relationship with c­ ommunities,
especially vulnerable ones that required flexibility, noted a Raleigh provider: “The
consulate is quite formal and bureaucratic, so it’s harder to schedule things . . .
because we work with farmworkers. . . . [It is] a problem to go out in a suit to solve
a farmworker problem, for example,” adding that “because . . . they are who they
are—it’s harder for [the consulate] to be accessible [than] for other organizations.”91
The inability to pivot in order to meet community needs is unsurprising for
a centralized bureaucracy unaccustomed to community work. Therefore, part-
nerships with community organizations can be uneven and often disappoint-
ing. Describing an inability to reach consular staff, repeated attempts to schedule
mobile consulate outreach to outlying farm labor camps, and a generally uninter-
ested consular leadership, the Raleigh service provider explained: “They [the con-
sulate] keep reminding us to do something in their waiting room, and that’s just
not where the farmworkers are. . . . These farmworkers are severely disadvantaged,
they would like transportation, they’re out in the sticks, they are the most disad-
vantaged, or among the most disadvantaged, of the Mexican immigrants who are
here. But you’re not going to see any of them if you just sit in the consulate.”
This disconnect was compounded by the perennial problem of turnover,
explained one San Francisco provider, who expressed frustration after long efforts
94    The Sending State and Co-enforcement

to build a relationship with consular staff: “Once you lose contact with that person
because they have changes in their staffing, it’s really hard to establish that [con-
nection again].”92 Doing so took tremendous time on the part of local organiza-
tions, who “have to keep in touch to make sure that . . . [we] have someone from
the inside able to answer questions who knows you and who knows of your work
and who wants to help.”93
In sum, legal service providers frequently voiced frustration over the exces-
sive bureaucratic hurdles their clients faced when visiting a consulate to obtain
documentation. While some very dedicated consuls were willing to risk diplo-
matic skirmishes with local US authorities, local aid providers frequently cited a
disconnect between office bureaucrats who seemed apathetic about meeting their
constituents in the community. This disconnect was particularly consequential in
newer immigrant communities, where a civic advocacy infrastructure was lacking
and there were fewer alternatives for migrant workers seeking help.

A S SE S SI N G T R I PA RT I T E C O - E N F O R C E M E N T
A N D C O N SU L A R E N G AG E M E N T: VA LU E A D D E D,
P E R SI ST E N T C O S T S

Seen through the lens of these bureaucratic and technical collaborations, the con-
sulate is a crucial partner in many areas. By leveraging its institutional resources
to reach immigrants where nonprofits are typically more scarce, or by facilitating
technocratic requirements (e.g., procuring documents), tripartite co-enforcement
can be an important corrective to the standard claims-driven approach to holding
employers accountable. Free from the surveillance requirements that often com-
plicate federal agencies’ access to vulnerable immigrant communities, the con-
sular network can leverage homeland allegiance to allay the fears of some reluctant
workers. Though community-based organizations often have tremendous access
to such communities and a wealth of linguistic and cultural capital, they often
lack the resources and legitimacy that consular offices enjoy. This is particularly
the case with the Mexican consulate, whose fifty-two-office network in the United
States represents the largest migrant flow in North America.
Yet as our interviews with both labor organizations and legal service provid-
ers illuminate, tripartite co-enforcement is often largely symbolic, and there are
serious challenges to scaling up and sustaining these partnerships. Like any other
major bureaucracy, consulates are complex organizations that often follow archaic
rules and establish jurisdictional silos between and even within offices. The turn-
over of consular leadership is a constant source of frustration for community
organizers, who may spend years developing working relationships, convincing
consular leaders to step up to the plate, and then training consular staff to be func-
tional partners, only to see them depart. Because of the nature of the consular
system, officials are regularly reassigned after only a few years, career diplomats
 The Sending State and Co-enforcement     95

rarely stay in one place for a long time, and building grassroots trust and capacity
is thus a never-ending challenge.
While the memoranda of understanding signed by US agencies and Mexico’s
SRE laid the groundwork for collaboration, workers’ rights are only one of many
concerns that consulates are asked to address. Equally pressing issues include
­providing legal counsel for incarcerated Mexican nationals, arranging the repatri-
ation of corpses, securing educational access, facilitating the complicated bureau-
cratic dynamics of transnational families, and, recently, testing and vaccinating a
low-wage worker population that is disproportionately vulnerable in the global
COVID-19 pandemic.
Our research calls into question the efficacy and sustainability of relying on
the sending state to act as a co-enforcer. While consulates are uniquely situated to
wield influence and deploy resources, they are not necessarily the best case man-
agers and certainly are not equipped to cultivate worker resistance, as critics we
spoke with argued. From a purely organizational perspective, a consulate is set up
to process at scale, much like a DMV. The consulates we observed rarely had in-
house resources for service provision, relying almost entirely on referrals to other
organizations in their network. Thus, we found that the most important function
of consulates was not necessarily handling everyday cases directly but rather being
sufficiently connected to community partners so that they could effectively guide
individuals seeking redress to other sources of aid. With several exceptions, con-
sular offices were neither equipped to follow up on cases nor adequately funded
to ensure that a claim was submitted and pursued to the end. All of these limita-
tions plagued worker centers and other advocates as well, who were themselves
attempting to fill the gaps left by the paltry national level of union representation
(6 percent) and an underfunded and claims-driven labor standards enforcement
mechanism that focuses on reacting to labor violations as they occur but invests
little in prevention.
Consular outreach was inconsistent and often met with skepticism. Advocates
often felt that consular officials were simply pursuing their own self-interest and
lacked a real vision for year-round programming that would serve the most vul-
nerable Mexican migrant worker populations in outlying areas. Advocate after
advocate bemoaned uncoordinated events that they saw more as PR efforts, an
unreasonable reliance on the volunteer labor of community collaborators, and
even consular nepotism toward preferred legal service providers, a form of orga-
nizational gatekeeping that discounted the efforts of the pioneering community
organizers who had begun demanding accountability decades ago.
For migrant-led labor organizations in particular, the challenges plaguing tri-
partite co-enforcement perhaps had less to do with the unique role of the send-
ing state than with the distinction between promoting regulatory compliance and
building worker power. And on that last metric—building worker power—consul-
ates (and every other labor standards enforcement agency) fell and will continue to
96    The Sending State and Co-enforcement

fall short. As one local organizer charged, the Mexican consulate is a depoliticized
space, one that intentionally skirts around political entanglements and remains
inactive on “issues that matter.” To be sure, the central tension between service
provision and organizing, which Fine (2006) details at length, is ever present in
tripartite co-enforcement as well, with or without consular involvement. And as
the next two chapters examine, demands for accountability far exceed the aspira-
tions outlined in ministerial agreements.
In Mexico’s case, civil society organizations—including the labor and legal
groups mentioned above—have pushed for an agenda that goes beyond merely
propping up a crumbling US labor regulation regime. Civil society organizations
have also argued for a more expansive view of migrant worker needs and of the
receiving and sending state’s mandate to fulfill these social welfare protections.
For groups in the United States, advocates have addressed a litany of demands
to Mexico, which many see as responsible for the lack of economic opportunities
driving nationals from their homeland. Many migrant advocates see their emi-
grant labor as the sole saving grace for transnational families and communities
left behind who rely on remittances. Their concerns go beyond compliance with
minimum-wage and health/safety laws (the primary focus of local co-enforcement
efforts): they are calling for more comprehensive development policies that privi-
lege Mexican workers over multinationals, for states and companies to be held
accountable for deep-seated corruption, and for a greater willingness to confront
the US government’s neocolonial approach to border militarization, exploitative
guest worker regimes, and skyrocketing deportation levels sending people to (and
through) Mexico. Though seemingly unrelated, Mexico’s complicity on all these
fronts further stymies attempts at tripartite co-enforcement efforts, while also cre-
ating innovative openings for the advocacy we describe in the next two chapters.
 4

Advocacy and Accountability

in State–Civil Society Relations

While origin countries and their diasporic bureaucracies have the potential to
control and exploit their emigrant populations, they can also serve as an impor-
tant advocate. Historically, Mexico has a sordid track record of fanning the flames
of antiunionism and fueling a race to the bottom in terms of labor export—failing
to defend the rights of its workers abroad. Indeed, immigrant expectations for the
sending state have been shaped by these histories and past experiences. However,
as many localities in the United States have made a hard-right turn toward anti-
immigrant policies, the consular network remains one of the few organizations
that can meaningfully step in to redress migrant abuses. To be sure, many con-
suls cited the constraints of diplomatic neutrality when asked about the extent of
their advocacy, but many of these diplomats also exercised a great deal of power
when possible, remaining within their jurisdictional capacities but at times going
straight up to the line of interventionism.
Despite its limitations, therefore, the sending state has the clear potential to be
an important actor in facilitating immigrants’ access to rights and resources at the
workplace and beyond. Thus immigrant advocates have called on Mexico to be
accountable and to utilize its power and capacity to address these diverse needs.
Their pressure has led to key provisions in the binational accords and consular
initiatives described in chapter 2. These commitments have been valuable, but
true accountability depends on the extent to which the Mexican government suc-
cessfully fulfills these promises throughout all aspects of immigrant life. Indeed,
despite specific agreements focusing on labor standards enforcement efforts,
immigrant workers themselves do not see their labor concerns as separate from
their issues with the other institutions with which they must interact back home
and in their new destination.

97
98    Advocacy and Accountability in State–Civil Society Relations

The domestic Mexican situation in fact shapes migrant expectations abroad.

In Mexico, as in many other Latin American countries, a protracted history of
colonial rule still restricts equal access to political institutions and basic freedoms.
Rural and peri-urban communities are often overlooked, and class overly deter-
mines social location in a country famous for having some of the highest levels
of income inequality in the region—where 1 percent of the wealthiest individu-
als have 21 percent of the income (Esquivel Hernandez 2015). These geographic
and material disadvantages follow ethnic lines as well, as indigenous poverty rates
are four times higher than those of other groups. Each of these structural factors
has shaped access to education, jobs, and other basic services such as health care,
social welfare supports, and legal protection (Fox 1998).
These factors and life experiences affect the subjective perceptions of Mexican
immigrants living in the United States when they encounter consular institutions
and attempt to access their rights and benefits (Martínez-Schuldt 2020). For exam-
ple, as Mexican immigrant workers consider approaching a local consulate for
help, they may also consider the Mexican policies that influenced their decision to
leave home in the first place, as well as Mexico’s uneven track record in supporting
them abroad. This complicated and tense relationship between Mexicans living
abroad and the institutions that represent them is mediated by diverse civil soci-
ety organizations. Some of these organizations view Mexico as a trusted partner
for immigrant worker rights, others as a government bureaucracy that must be
held accountable.
In this chapter, we examine these diverse relationships that emerge beyond the
well-defined realms of labor co-enforcement. We do so by focusing on alt-labor
groups such as worker centers and the wide array of immigrant rights organiza-
tions that seek to expand the scope of sending-state accountability.

T H E R O C K Y EVO LU T IO N O F M E X IC O’ S
S TAT E - S O C I E T Y R E L AT IO N S

The relationship between consular officials and Mexican immigrants has

­significantly shifted since the early days of direct consular interference in the
unionization efforts of Mexican farmworkers. As historian Gilbert González
(1999) documents, Mexican consulates in the 1930s frequently sided with Califor-
nia growers in opposition to the best interests of the Mexican workforce. In fact,
consuls consistently steered Mexican workers away from radical leftist unions in
favor of a more moderate labor agenda based on the Mexican state model, which
aimed to cultivate loyalty and political dependency among migrants. In sum, the
consuls promoted a paternalistic policy and supported the formation of Mexican
unions instead of encouraging multiethnic organizing.
The Mexican government’s paternalistic attitudes toward the diaspora in
the 1930s were in line with the labor laws that emerged following the Mexican
 Advocacy and Accountability in State–Civil Society Relations     99

­ evolution (1910–20). Progressive federal labor laws enacted in Mexico’s constitu-

R
tion offered crucial legitimacy for a budding social movement looking to challenge
the state’s conservative capitalist aspirations (Bensusán and Cook 2003). However,
a democratic and independent labor movement never materialized (Bensusán
2000). While organized labor did benefit from tripartite labor conciliation systems
and publicly financed social welfare programs under postrevolutionary authori-
tarianism, few independent unions flourished prior to 1985,1 a date considered by
many scholars to be the beginning of Mexico’s long democratic transition.
The Partido Revolucionario Institucional / Institutional Revolutionary Party
(PRI), the long-standing authoritarian party that inherited the ideals of the Mexi-
can Revolution, all but abandoned its democratic impulses when it exerted control
over Mexican labor unions. Every member of the Confederación de Trabajadores
de México / Confederation of Mexican Workers was automatically enrolled in
the PRI, and the party and the unions formed a natural alliance throughout the
twentieth century (Roberts 2014). Even in the 1930s, Mexican presidential candi-
dates would periodically visit Mexican expatriates in hopes of winning the hearts
and minds of their relatives left behind. In subsequent decades, Mexican migrants
would organize from California to Kansas City and Chicago to demand absen-
tee voting rights without any success (Santamaría Gómez 2001). It was not until
1989 that migrant political rights took center stage, when Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas
Solórzano of the Frente Democrático Nacional / National Democratic Front made
a series of visits to the United States after narrowly losing his first bid for the Mexi-
can presidency. In a speech in Chicago, Cárdenas Solórzano famously called for
migrants to be included in the political arena, urging them to mobilize to demand
the right to vote absentee (Cárdenas Solórzano 1989).
In the 1990s, many Mexican immigrant organizations demanded the passage of
a constitutional amendment that would allow Mexicans abroad to participate in
presidential elections. Key proponents included hometown associations and polit-
ical committees such as the Coalición por los Derechos Políticos de los Mexicanos
en el Exterior / Coalition for the Political Rights of Mexicans Abroad. In 1996,
Mexico reformed Article 36 of its constitution to eliminate the territorial restric-
tion to vote in an electoral district. Between 1996 and 2005, eighteen electoral
reform initiatives were submitted with the support of activists, migrant organiza-
tions, political parties, and academics. This advocacy paved the way to amending
the federal electoral law—the Código Federal de Instituciones y Procedimientos
Electorales—in 2005 to grant absentee ballots for Mexicans living abroad. The
first Consejo Consultivo del Instituto de los Mexicanos en el Exterior / Advisory
Board of the Institute of Mexicans Abroad (CCIME) led the final push to pass this
amendment, whose approval spurred multiple migrant-led organizations to lodge
new demands, including improving the quality of consular services. The immi-
grant rights marches of 2006 in cities across the United States in fact coincided
with “Get Out the Vote” mobilizations of Mexican expatriates to be included in
100    Advocacy and Accountability in State–Civil Society Relations

Mexico’s electoral register. This ultimately contributed to the increase in absentee

ballots in Mexico’s 2006 presidential election. These organizations also united to
leverage collective remittances to aid development in rural communities of ori-
gin via the now-defunct Tres por Uno (3 x 1) program, a federal matching-funds
program aimed at leveraging family remittances to finance infrastructure, scholar-
ships, and productive projects in rural Mexico (Bada 2010, 2011, 2014; Félix 2019;
Pintor-Sandoval 2021).
Switching focus from the political to the labor arena, we should note that for
all the conversations about how US labor and employment laws apply to immi-
grant workers, scholars often overlook the significance of Mexico’s own tradi-
tion of ­relatively progressive formal labor regulation. In Mexico (as described in
chapter 1), a tripartite system of labor enforcement was established in the 1930s
to guarantee the labor protections offered by Article 123 of Mexico’s constitu-
tion, which formally promised: “All persons have the right to socially useful and
dignified work; to that end job creation and social organization for work will be
promoted.” The regulatory framework relies on labor conciliation and arbitration
boards ­comprising labor, business, and government representatives at the federal,
state, and local levels (Middlebrook 1995). This constitutional protection laid the
groundwork for the emerging social movement rallying cry proclaiming the “right
to stay home” (Bartra 2008) rather than be forced to migrate because of structural
economic precarity.
These formal protections, however, are highly politicized. Mexican labor law
grants the state unprecedented enforcement powers, with regulators having the
ability to resolve both labor-management and intraunion conflicts. The state
also keeps a tight grip over wages and strikes through its discretionary author-
ity to interpret constitutional protections for labor rights and its ultimate con-
trol of ­tripartite labor boards and tribunals (Bensusán 2000; Bensusán and Cook
2003). These boards are composed in such a way as to prevent the creation of
independent unions (which do not stand a chance at securing representation on
them), and strike certification is rare, as represented unions tend to have fierce
­government loyalties. As a result, union members face an uphill battle to challenge
existing practices or certify new union representation (De la Garza Toledo 2021).
Moreover, the low unionization rate of Mexico’s labor force is compounded by
the scale of its informal sector, which surpasses the size of the formal workforce.
Today, Mexico has fifty-three million wage workers, but only about twenty-four
million are defined as being in formal employment and by extension covered by
one of the government-run social security funds and eligible for federal labor pro-
tection. In 2021, there were twenty-nine million informal workers. Furthermore,
as in the United States, unionization rates in Mexico have fallen since the 1980s,
and only about 4.4 million workers (14.5 percent) were unionized by 2018—with
about half of these workers in the private sector (on par with the US workforce)
(INEGI 2018, 2020, 2021).2 The globalization of capital now guarantees a steady
 Advocacy and Accountability in State–Civil Society Relations     101

supply of precarious workers to multinational corporations, who decide where

and when they should establish operations depending on flexibility, costs, and the
labor regulation frameworks in the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
The significant size of the informal labor force (along with the woefully insuf-
ficient implementation of Mexico’s labor reforms) is one of the leading causes of
migration to the United States. In Hirschman’s (1970) framework, the pattern
of leaving low-wage informal employment in search of a higher-paying job in
the United States is a classic example of an exit made necessary once the people’s
collective voice (e.g., popular protest) no longer has any chance of producing the
desired change. Indeed, efforts to democratize labor unions and challenge labor
law violations have mostly failed. Meanwhile, access to social security funds and
other forms of social protection is severely limited. This is the predeparture c­ ontext
in which Mexican migrants have decided to head north over the last four decades.

C O N F L IC T E D C O N SU L A R R E L AT IO N SH I P S :
BA L A N C I N G T H E G O O D A N D T H E BA D

Across the board, union membership has fallen in the United States, especially
in those industries in which Mexican immigrants are concentrated. While “alt-
labor” groups have a limited capacity to bridge this gap, Mexican migrants have
become a central target for outreach and have become critical leaders in corners
of civil society often overlooked by labor scholars, including immigrant rights
grassroots groups and hometown associations. Yet these organizations have also
raised concerns of Mexican migrants that go far beyond the core issue of labor
standards enforcement. They have urged the Mexican consular network to provide
holistic support to migrant workers, especially those who are undocumented. In
this regard, while alt-labor groups see the Mexican government—and the consular
network as its representative abroad—as a necessary collaborator, they also push
for increased accountability.
Worker centers emerged during the late 1970s and early 1980s in response to
changes in manufacturing processes that increased the precarity of factory work-
ers and drove down wages in service-sector jobs that attracted Latino immigrants.
These organizations, many of which were connected to faith-based groups and
labor unions, were frequently critical of existing organized labor institutions.
Worker centers—many of which catered to immigrant workers—provided an
alternative vehicle for collective action in the absence of an existing organiza-
tional infrastructure that addressed the needs of these low-wage workers (Gordon
2005; Fine 2006). In parallel fashion, the Mexican consular network was com-
pelled to respond to the rapid growth of Mexican immigrant communities in new
destinations. This was in large part a response to the demands of Mexican civil
society organizations for better consular services to serve these new communi-
ties. For example, following more than a decade of advocate demands, a consulate
102    Advocacy and Accountability in State–Civil Society Relations

office was established in Milwaukee (whose community previously had to travel

hours to the nearest office in Chicago).3 However, rural communities have contin-
ued to demand more frequent mobile consulate visits to regions located outside
the metropolitan consulates.
The goals of many of these organizations go far beyond passively educating
workers about their workplace rights and providing legal support for a select few
to bring individual claims against their employers. Apart from basic access to doc-
umentation and other transactions that undocumented migrants need to navigate
daily life, low-wage worker advocates have called for the Mexican government to
offer a wide range of social services, including health services, workforce develop-
ment, educational opportunities, affordable housing, financial counseling, and of
course help navigating labor regulations. As described in chapter 2, Mexico has an
obligation to offer basic legal protection to emigrants, but consuls on the ground
have also stepped—sometimes reluctantly and in response to advocate demands—
into a broader role: catering to a fledgling emigrant constituency (Sherman 1999;
Iskander 2010; Délano 2011; Délano Alonso 2018; Félix 2019).

Unique Benefits of Consular Collaboration

Collaborating with a consulate is a peculiar affair. Part of the reason labor unions
and legal aid organizations (like the ones we describe in chapter 3) work so well
with the consular network is that they too tend to be hierarchically organized and
follow formal rules and protocols; they are thus well set up to help migrants navi-
gate bureaucracies with similar procedures. In turn, consular staff view these types
of organizations as their “preferred partners” and refer community members to
them. Meanwhile, more informal, movement-oriented advocacy organizations are
often left out in the cold.4
Few organizational leaders whom we interviewed were exclusively laudatory or
critical of the consular network. Rather, they tended to see it as a potentially use-
ful but flawed ally. When it comes to supporting potential claimants, grassroots
organizations inhabit a liminal space within the labor rights arena. They accom-
pany workers through often confusing and daunting bureaucracies, but they do
not always have the same direct access to US labor standards enforcement agen-
cies staff that consular officials do. Therefore, many worker center leaders see spe-
cial value in their relationship with local consulate offices, which can help their
members secure necessary documents and help advocates gain access to agency
personnel who could provide key updates throughout the life of a claim, which
can drag on for years.
Community leaders also value consuls’ unique access and connections when
community members are detained or face deportation. Indeed, the ever-present
shadow of immigration enforcement is a central concern for worker centers. Lead-
ers often described how members came for help with a wide array of challenges
and how it was often impossible to differentiate immigration enforcement from
 Advocacy and Accountability in State–Civil Society Relations     103

labor rights efforts. As one leader explained, “There’s a false separation in the idea
of labor and immigration as two discrete issues. Immigration is certainly about
labor, and inherently about labor rights.”5 Thus the consulate was a useful partner.
If a community member could not be located or needed documents quickly after
being detained, consular staff could provide critical assistance.
A consulate office is also a one-stop shop, offering not just access to documen-
tation but outreach more broadly. We have already examined how labor outreach
is necessary for co-enforcement (chapter 3), and the consulate office can attract
various community members who might not otherwise approach a grassroots
group directly for help. Consular staff routinely partner with experts in occupa-
tional health and safety, financial literacy, tax return advice, literacy and educa-
tion (through the Plazas Comunitarias), and basic preventive health care services
(through the Ventanillas de Salud). Many representatives from the CCIME with
whom we spoke had an especially long and productive history of working directly
with consular staff. These representatives often benefited from the Mexican gov-
ernment’s transversal coordination of migrant affairs, which included funds to
send delegations to Mexico to discuss trade and commercial exchange opportuni-
ties with government officials from various ministries such as trade, tourism, and
agriculture, among others.
Perhaps the benefit of the Mexican consular network to worker centers and
other immigrant rights organizations that we found most surprising was the ability,
via Labor Rights Week, to reach non-Mexican Latino immigrants. In this regard,
several worker centers we spoke with singled out the Mexican consulate for praise
in comparison to other Latin American consulates with large immigrant popu-
lations in metropolitan areas. For Mexican diplomats, embracing n ­ on-Mexican
Latino immigrants can be an excellent opportunity to reframe Mexico’s reputa-
tion, which has suffered after the well-documented mistreatment Central Ameri-
cans have endured at the hands of criminals, the Mexican police, and Mexican
immigration authorities while they transit through Mexico (O. Martínez 2013).
A common fear among workers in the community is that the Department of
Labor (DOL) may report them to Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) if
they attempt to access their rights. While organization staff expend considerable
energy assuring workers that DOL will not report them, workers are often more
comfortable approaching consular representatives than DOL staff. One worker
center leader, however, described the consulate office as an option of last resort for
precarious workers who lacked the ability to navigate the social service landscape:
“If people have to choose between the consulate and an NGO like ours, they come
first with us to ask for help. In general, we offer help to people with more educa-
tion, with an ID or with papers.”6 Nonetheless, given their limited opportunities
for seeking help outside of working hours, many co-nationals like the idea of going
to a one-stop shop with a low bar to entry like the consulate office rather than
appealing to the DOL or worker centers.
104    Advocacy and Accountability in State–Civil Society Relations

Yet we found that despite these benefits, many community organizations strug-
gled to work with consular staff, and their leaders relayed to us a multifaceted set
of criticisms from member experiences, which we discuss below.

Typical Complaints about Consular Collaboration

Organizations that focus on educating workers about their workplace rights and/
or helping them file claims have found some concrete ways to collaborate with the
Mexican government. On the whole, though, we found many community organi-
zations to be highly critical of their broader interactions with consular staff. Lead-
ers we spoke with were frustrated by what they viewed as empty promises of legal
protection and the challenges posed by consular bureaucracy, staffing shortages,
and lack of communication. Their members often came to them with complaints
that consular staff were arrogant, bossy, and ill-tempered and exhibited a lack of
compassion for the everyday troubles of low-wage workers. By and large, grass-
roots immigrant organizations had (perhaps outsized) expectations for the con-
sular bureaucracy, hoping it would be an activist, critically reflexive office instead
of merely providing services (Freire 2000). They felt consular bureaucrats should
be more present in the community and should publicly advocate for workers, per-
haps by visiting New York City construction sites to witness the dangerous condi-
tions under which their co-nationals worked.7
One former CCIME member who led a farmworker organization in Orlando
spoke favorably of the IME’s programming, such as thematic jornadas and other
cultural celebrations. Nonetheless, they too were frustrated with the perennially
neutral stance of consuls, who refused to advocate for policies that would improve
farmworker labor protections and who failed to involve farmworkers in their delib-
erations. Such leaders saw the consular network primarily as a service-oriented
institution that maintained the status quo of farmworkers in Florida.8 Indeed, the
lack of earmarked consular funds for labor outreach (reflected in s­ taffing shortages
for community work) severely limits what a consulate office is actually able to do
as a lateral partner. For example, some activists lamented that their local consulate
did not even have the resources to provide chairs and tables for a soccer game at
a public park.
Funding aside, other civil society actors complained of other shortcomings. For
example, one CCIME member who led a group in New York City that had his-
torically organized Mexican workers recounted how community members were
frustrated at the rigidity of the process for obtaining a passport or a matrícula
from the consulate. Members would often travel long distances to Manhattan, only
to be turned away because of what they perceived as a trivial and arbitrary rea-
son, such as their documents having “too many wrinkles.” For some people, being
asked to return with another (unwrinkled) document to prove national identity
would be annoying but doable. But for many—such as those who arrived in the
United States at an early age and quickly joined the labor force instead of ­pursuing
 Advocacy and Accountability in State–Civil Society Relations     105

a high school diploma—it might be impossible. For instance, a Florida worker

center leader complained about the obsolete and inflexible consular bureaucracy
not understanding that DACA youth working in the fields did not usually have
the two pieces of Mexican-government-issued documentation required to access
services, let alone one from the US government.
These daily communication challenges, and a fundamental mismatch
between the urgency of community needs and the glacial pace of bureaucratic pro-
tocol, were the source of much of the rancor we encountered in Mexican immigrant
civil society in the United States. CCIME representatives in New York City tried to
address this service gap by inviting consular staff to explain the rationale behind
their strict documentation procedures,9 somewhat easing members’ criticisms. This
largely fruitful collaboration was followed by several improvements in the digita-
lization of birth certificates, which ultimately sped up the process. Thus the efforts
of transnational grassroots advocates to engage the Mexican consular network
through urban democracy could produce successes (Fung 2004). However, these
close working relationships were rare and rather fleeting, especially because high
turnover at consulate offices made retaining institutional memory challenging.
Through persistence and dedication, some remarkable collaborative relationships
were formed, but on the whole, new consular staff in particular struggled to easily
reallocate resources to crucial emerging priorities, hampering cooperation.
And yet even those critical of the consular network could pinpoint circum-
stances where a consul was uniquely positioned to help. For example, in one high-
profile case, a consul provided a labor leader reliable assistance throughout the
effort to prosecute an employer accused of seven instances of modern slavery.
During this emergency, sympathetic consular staff immediately helped generate
identity documents for the young workers, none of whom had a single piece of
documentation.10 This consul also quickly mobilized local officials in the Mexican
state of origin and obtained new birth certificates in order to issue them pass-
ports. These documents were critical for enabling the abused workers to stay in the
United States and participate in the trial. In turn, the publicity around this case was
a boon to the consular Departamento de Protección’s reputation and legitimacy.
Consular staff could thus prove extremely useful in navigating government
bureaucracies (in the United States or Mexico), but a second order of com-
plaints involved how workers were treated at the consulate. Though consular
staff we spoke with often pointed to cultural differences to explain unsatisfactory
­interactions between bureaucrats and lower-class Mexican workers, civil society
leaders acknowledged the challenges workers faced in effectively navigating the
consular bureaucracy but also blamed the issue squarely on consular staff ’s failure
to effectively communicate with their co-nationals. The problem was thus two-
fold, as one Omaha worker center staff member explained: on the one hand, the
Mexican bureaucracy was famously inflexible; on the other, many workers admit-
tedly struggled to conform to a rigid time frame and were unable to make the
106    Advocacy and Accountability in State–Civil Society Relations

a­ ppropriate preparations (e.g., document gathering) in advance of their visit to the

consulate office. He explained,
All organizations have good and bad apples. Bad apples are the ones that treat people
like . . . they were their domestic workers, and that creates bad publicity for consul-
ates. However, I also think that even though consulates print flyers or do outreach
to disseminate which documents are needed or how many copies they need, people
always prepare things last minute. And when we arrive at the consulate, we want a
photocopy, but we already know that they don’t make photocopies there, so I also
think that we need an education process to change that attitude [of the community].11

The best working relationships emerged in places where “humble” consular staff
were able to build trust with local advocates, such as a day labor center in New
York City that began working with the consulate to provide “Know Your Rights”
and financial literacy workshops in the community. As one of its leaders noted:
We began to establish a relationship when [the consular official], in his first visit,
­proposed an opportunity. He asked us to give him a chance to understand us and
work together, because he had just arrived from Chicago. He had been working
there, and he knew that the relationship between the community and the consulate
here was not good, but they wanted to do something different. After this conversa-
tion, we decided to give them an opportunity to start offering workshops to our
constituents.

Despite its promising start, this relationship, like so many others in this arena, fell
apart when this consular official left: “When [he] left, we lost everything. We don’t
even know the new staff. We don’t know how they work.”12 In many cases, frequent
turnover prevents the establishment of lasting community relationships and lim-
its the potential to provide outreach in communities beyond the consular offices.
Most local efforts lack any permanent funding and are often carried out according
to the whims and discretion of consular staff, leaving community leaders with few
assurances that they will continue when new officials arrive.
This lack of sustained dynamism is most starkly evident in consuls’ typical
refusal to publicly support campaigns or join protests. One high-profile Miami
worker center staff member explained the dilemma as follows: “[The] Mexican
government can’t engage 100 percent in political affairs in this country. They are
here to represent the Mexican government, but they can’t participate in a cam-
paign to improve wages. They can’t lobby the US government, and this perhaps
puts some limits [on] our relationship with them. Our relationship with them is
different than the one we have with grassroots [organizations] that are willing to
join protests outside a grocery store on our behalf.”13 This neutral stance, however,
is not always maintained in places where organized labor has a long history of
consular collaboration. For example, the Chicago consulate regularly attends the
public launches of one worker center’s campaigns. The leader of this center sur-
mised that consular officials did so in part to signal to Mexican American work-
ers that they had the same rights as native-born workers.14 However, a d ­ ifferent
 Advocacy and Accountability in State–Civil Society Relations     107

worker center in Chicago expressed frustration that the centrally controlled con-
sular bureaucracy lacked autonomy to engage locally. Even so, this group also
acknowledged that the local consulate’s Departamento de Protección did display
some flexibility compared to other units that seemed more beholden to Mexico
City authorities.15
Finally, very few advocates we spoke with viewed their relationship with con-
sular staff as helpful in addressing the root causes of migration or in tackling
labor rights violations in Mexico. One major exception was community leaders
who could leverage their connections at the CCIME to engage in Mexican policy
debates. But on the whole, critical efforts to promote, say, cross-border reforms to
address migrant abuse (as we discuss in chapter 5) had not gained traction. In this
regard, a staff member from a worker center in Omaha saw an event like Labor
Rights Week as a missed opportunity to push for a transnational educational pro-
gram that would train workers in occupational health and other important issues:
I believe we are good at bringing people [together] and do presentations all week
offering trainings along with the EEOC [Equal Employment Opportunity Commis-
sion], OSHA [Occupational Safety and Health Administration], and others; how-
ever, [where] is the follow-up we are giving to LRW [Labor Rights Week] or to any
other event? It seems that action is dead from the start, and there’s no process . . .
that will have a bilateral advocacy in the problems that workers have every day. How
is it that we can create a link between the LRW [and] the promotion, defense, and
protection of labor rights in Mexico to push Mexico to respect their labor laws
and promote [the idea] that an occupational health culture begins . . . in Mexico and
not only when workers have arrived here?16

Not all consuls were as supportive of such transnational solidarity projects. And
when they did engage advocates’ demands, it was predominantly in response to
acute emergencies, such as facilitating the return of migrants who were experi-
encing health crises, helping locate returned workers to transfer money owed to
them by employers, or providing limited assistance to indigent workers left with
no choice but to return.17 However, such support often failed to satisfy. One San
Jose advocate noted the irony of the consulate providing more aid to deceased co-
nationals (via corpse repatriation) than to living ones, meager though the former
assistance might be (Félix 2011).

B EYO N D L A B O R R IG H T S : D E C E N T E R I N G I M M IG R A N T
N E E D S F R OM T H E WO R K P L AC E

Beyond just complaints and frustrations around the consular network’s role as a
solidaristic labor partner and as a resource for struggling (and even deceased)
workers, grassroots immigrant rights organizations criticized the sending state for
circumscribing the needs and issues of workers to the workplace. For many advo-
cates, the rights of workers spilled into many other arenas of social life and social
108    Advocacy and Accountability in State–Civil Society Relations

provision, far beyond the confines of labor standards enforcement. Immigrant-

led organizations often felt that the consulate—as Mexico’s representative in the
United States—needed to be held accountable for attending to the full range of
diaspora needs. This attention to the broader needs of immigrants is not unique to
Mexican immigrant organizations and indeed can be traced back to a host of past
immigrant associations.
The arrival of large numbers of new immigrants to the United States in the
mid- to late nineteenth century led these newcomers to create nonprofit associa-
tions that would provide them with a communal identity and mutual aid. Immi-
grant nonprofit organizations formed along ethnic and religious lines to offer vital
mechanisms for newcomers to integrate into their new society and cope with
discriminatory workplace challenges (Bodnar 1985). These organizations were
founded in a spirit of self-help, representation, and mutual support and instilled in
immigrants a sense of pride and self-respect. Their ideals have shaped the scope of
later organizations. For example, the mission statements of many immigrant rights
organizations we interviewed incorporate a framework of economic, social, and
cultural rights reminiscent of the International Covenant on Economic, Social,
and Cultural Rights adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1976.18
Today immigrant rights organizations are key players in an expanding arena
of social provision that depends on the third sector, which is largely privately
funded and managed (Marwell 2010). The government is no longer the primary
provider of state-sponsored social provision services in the United States. Devo-
lution has decreased the total public dollars being spent on social service pro-
vision (Conlan 1998), and privatization has increased the amounts channeled
through government service contracts to community-based groups, including
immigrant service organizations.19 Given this historical and economic context,
the ­organizations included in our study often took a broad approach to the needs
of immigrant workers.
While worker centers often collaborate with consular staff to improve access to
documentation, educational workshops, and claims-making support, immigrant
rights organizations also address multiple crises beyond labor issues: deporta-
tions, naturalization, legal services, domestic violence, lack of health care for the
undocumented, and literacy challenges, among other pressing issues. In addition
to cultivating good relations with lead consuls and their staff, immigrant rights
organizations must cultivate collaborative relationships with an array of govern-
ment bureaucracies and other nonprofit organizations. For example, in 2003,
when the high-security matrícula consular document became available, the con-
sulate became a critical resource for undocumented workers who were unable to
obtain US identification documents. This new consular ID allowed them to fulfill
an array of basic necessary functions, such as opening bank accounts, signing a
rental lease, and buying car insurance.
The few dedicated labor hotlines described in chapter 3 have proved to be impor-
tant community resources for Mexican and non-Mexican nationals alike. Yet paid
 Advocacy and Accountability in State–Civil Society Relations     109

consular staff are limited to helping Mexican nationals, which narrows commu-
nity outreach potential. Further, community advocates have reported that workers
whom they refer to these hotlines often complain that they cannot get through
the understaffed lines.20 Beyond referrals for labor issues, educational program-
ming through the Plazas Comunitarias (Délano 2014) and health services through
the Ventanillas de Salud (Osorio, Dávila, and Castañeda 2019) are common. These
community partnerships have a broad reach across the Latino immigrant popula-
tion and often advocate on fronts far beyond the stated consular directives.
In sum, community partnerships with consular programs play an important
role in meeting the variety of needs of immigrant communities. However, chal-
lenges remain, such as reconciling clashing leadership and decision-making styles,
expanding outreach targets (e.g., indigenous organizations and other n
­ on-Mexican
Latinos), and more meaningfully addressing concerns in communities of origin.
We discuss each of these dynamics below.

Uneven Encounters: Demanding Greater Equality and More Respect

Beyond labor regulation, the consular network engages in a variety of collabo-
rations with community nonprofits for cultural, educational, health-related, and
financial literacy programs, as well as for transnational community development
in rural Mexico (Goldring 2002; Byrnes 2003; Boruchoff 2019). However, despite
the various benefits of consular collaboration described in chapter 3—specifically
for groups focused on workplace co-enforcement—these are often hierarchical
relationships, with the consular network determining the agenda. Many immi-
grant rights organizations we analyzed sought greater equality and respect in their
collaborations with consular officials (Fennema 2004).
Apart from issues of respect, there were practical concerns. Advocates bemoaned
the glacial pace of the consular bureaucracy. Foreign nationals found such delays
even more irksome, given that they saw themselves as having to endure consular
mistreatment, classism, and racism as well. The solution for some migrants was
to hire brokers who could more effectively navigate the myriad rights bureaucra-
cies—including the consulate itself. Migrants who did not have the option to forgo
a day of work to wait many hours on the phone to get a service appointment at a
consulate could hire a service (a practice sometimes called coyotaje) to do this
for them instead—a worthwhile investment. The use of these aviadores or gestores
(as they are also sometimes called) is a familiar strategy in Mexico—across sec-
tors and class strata—for dealing with a slow and complicated public bureaucracy
(Spener 2011).
At the organizational level groups we interviewed often complained that con-
sular officials played favorites. For example, organizations disputed who was
allowed to provide notary services, who was given preferential legal referrals, and
who received other consular stamps of approval.21 The consular program’s trusted
referral lists were a critical resource for inquiring co-nationals, so organizations
sought to expand the range of referral options offered to community members.
110    Advocacy and Accountability in State–Civil Society Relations

These referrals were not always for pro bono services, often including private
attorneys as well.
Many groups reported a litany of complaints from their members, who con-
tested the notion that the consulate was a viable community resource. For example,
one Los Angeles leader explained, “Our members don’t rely on the consulate. They
rather rely on grassroots organizing to help them with their paperwork because
they don’t trust the consulate and feel like they are not going to help them.”22 Oth-
ers, calling out the classism embedded in consular institutions and Mexico at
large, lamented that any effective consular interaction required intervention from
more savvy community advocates. One New York City leader explained that her
organization was a necessary broker for many members attempting to navigate
the consular bureaucracy: “When a member without any documentation calls the
consulate, the answer is like, ‘Mmm, there’s little we can do.’ They don’t get as many
options unless I call them.”23 This leader—an educated, middle-class woman from
an established worker center—had a better chance of getting a prompt, effective
response than an uneducated, undocumented worker.
Organization staff too voiced frustrations. One leader charged that the consul-
ate lacked a sufficient media strategy to promote the hotline they helped staff in
the community.24 Others complained about patchy access to the consulate’s com-
munity events, and many demanded less neutrality and more aggressive advocacy
on the part of consular staff.
Yet these complaints also implicitly recognized the important role of the con-
sular network and the potential benefits of consular collaboration. And while insti-
tutional gripes abounded, advocates would also laud the personal commitment of
many of their consular colleagues. For example, the nonprofit that ran the New
York City consulate’s hotline had its central funding abruptly cut in 2012 follow-
ing Mexico’s presidential election (after which personnel assignments changed). In
response, the consul in charge commissioned a report detailing how many callers
from both the United States and Mexico the hotline was serving, along with client
success stories. With these data in hand, dedicated consular officials presented the
report to the Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores / Ministry of Foreign Affairs in
Mexico City, and according to the staff we interviewed, “They harassed the people
in charge until we got the funding back.” This did not go unnoticed by the consul-
ate’s partner organization: “So that was really impressive, and it shows us that they
appreciated the services that we were providing, and that was great.”25 This advo-
cacy cemented the organization’s trust in the consulate.
On a broader scale, the varying local conditions for immigrant rights advocacy
across the country go along with a variety of consular relationships. While metro-
politan organizations tend to operate in a richer civil society system, immigrant
rights organizations serving rural and suburban communities face additional chal-
lenges such as lack of access to public transportation and few alternative sources
of support. These conditions elevate expectations for consular services, which can
 Advocacy and Accountability in State–Civil Society Relations     111

lead to frequent disappointments. For example, a Mexican hometown association

from Zacatecas in the Los Angeles metropolitan area complained that consular
invitations to participate in Labor Rights Week were not disseminated to other
hometown associations further from the urban core of Los Angeles, blaming the
local consulate’s lack of media reach for publicizing these events.26 A service-ori-
ented organization in Los Angeles similarly voiced concern that the lack of coor-
dination and information dissemination was failing to keep their clientele abreast
of consular events.27
Community leaders also complained about the consulate’s contradictory quali-
ties: they always seemed to lack capacity, yet they made constant requests for col-
laboration. One Quaker-led immigrant organization in Miami complained that
the local consulate never returned their phone calls, yet the consulate expected
solidarity and mobilization during Labor Rights Week. Moreover, the represen-
tative we spoke to charged that the consulate neither disseminated its program
information nor engaged with local worker-led nonprofits as Labor Rights Week
partners. From this organization’s perspective, the consulate was useful only in
dire emergencies, such as with workers who had lost everything and whose only
solution was to accept a voluntary repatriation paid for by the consulate.28 Critics
argue that this last-ditch consular “support mechanism” is in fact emblematic of a
long history of viewing undocumented migrant workers as ultimately disposable
(González 1999; Goodman 2020).
As we have repeatedly discussed, community frustration often emanated from
a misunderstanding about the limits and possibilities of consular intervention.
Organizations frequently questioned the consular network’s central purpose. A
grassroots immigrant organization in New York, for instance, became frustrated
that instead of getting involved in social justice campaigns to improve labor rights,
the local consulate focused on offering passport services and engaged only super-
ficially with the labor and human rights of Mexican workers.29 Another Mexican
immigrant working for a suburban grassroots immigrant rights organization in
Chicago described his frustration with this consulate in blunt terms:
There are many bad habits, many abusers with bad habits there in the consulate. You
have to clean and bring [in] new people. I am angry, enraged, and feel impotent. I
feel angry when I see that citizens don’t have what they deserve, no attention, no
justice, nothing. The consulate can’t help them with anything at all because they can’t
do anything. I have never heard a single person say: “The Labor Rights Week was
very good.” They don’t even know that this thing exists. Every time I need them to
support difficult cases that involve dead people or difficult legal cases, they never
take such cases.30

Such frustrations seemed to undercut the consulate’s purported mission to be a

resource for (often precarious) emigrants. In this vein, another leader of an immi-
grant organization in San Diego lambasted consular efforts to protect vulnerable
migrants in this border city: “We perfectly know everything that the consulate
112    Advocacy and Accountability in State–Civil Society Relations

does not do and everything that they should do and don’t do. And something that
I can indeed tell you, with full knowledge of the facts, is that the consulate in San
Diego is a white elephant, and I hope that Mexicans abroad unite to shape differ-
ent ways of working in these institutions, because these are funded with taxpayers’
pesos. And they are here like lazy people, without doing anything.”31
Even when consular aid was offered in certain cases (such as arranging for doc-
umentation or securing legal counsel), some organizers saw this help as a waste
of resources in the absence of a simultaneous political commitment to remedying
deep inequities. Even organizations that exclusively focused on defending DACA
recipients—arguably the most sympathetic immigrant group in the country at
present—lamented the local consulate’s lack of proactive engagement. For exam-
ple, one group of mothers (of DACA-mented children) in San Diego expected
bolder action from consular staff:
It is not like consulates are very much siding with Mexicans abroad. I see actually the
opposite. I don’t see that they are sufficiently involved. I think that they are afraid of
losing their diplomatic visas, losing their diplomatic immunity. I don’t really know.
But even if this is the case, I only know that they don’t participate a lot in direct ac-
tions with the community. They don’t go out there and try to find out who are the
community leaders. I don’t see a total support. I think that should be their job as
representatives of this community.32

By and large, immigrant rights organizations conceded that basic consular assis-
tance was helpful while pursuing strong labor cases, and sometimes even in
extreme circumstances such as corpse repatriation (Félix 2011) and deportation
defense (a service that officials proudly espoused during the Trump administra-
tion). For example, a janitorial watchdog group in Los Angeles serving immigrant
workers praised the consulate there for helping it to identify members of a class
action lawsuit who had already returned to Mexico.33 Several organizations also
noted the consulate’s helpfulness in assisting with funeral expenses.34
However, not all organizations were as appreciative. One Dallas day labor cen-
ter leader expressed a particularly cynical view of consular documentation fees:
“The consulate doesn’t offer them [its members] much assistance, because . . . they
see [them as] . . . customers they can get money from.”35 While such perspec-
tives could be seen as singular and misplaced, they do reflect the understandable
ire of migrants who have fled poverty in Mexico, face workplace abuse in the
United States, and then feel betrayed—or fleeced—by their government. For these
migrants, the unavoidable consular bureaucracy can become a source of intense
frustration, a frustration compounded by deep-seated race and class hierarchies.

Legacies with Indigenous Organizations

In Mexico, access to political institutions, services, and other basic freedoms varies
depending on geographic location (urban vs. rural), social class (middle class vs.
working poor), and ethnic group (indigenous vs. mestizo). Histories of class elitism
 Advocacy and Accountability in State–Civil Society Relations     113

and racism (which affect both indigenous people and Afro-Mexicans, among oth-
ers) fuel skepticism toward government officials. The consular network’s attempts
to improve community relations often generate a “rational wariness” on the part of
immigrant organizations, who are often reluctant to participate (Fox 2007).
Most poignantly, Mexican indigenous communities in the United States con-
tinue to experience high levels of marginalization and abandonment by the Mexi-
can government. As migration origins have shifted south—away from traditional
sending regions and toward communities in Oaxaca and Chiapas—organizations
representing these migrants have demanded improved access to health services
and linguistic support for monolingual speakers of indigenous languages (Fox and
Rivera-Salgado 2004; Leco Tomás 2009). On the whole, the consular network’s
track record has been dismal on this front.
In Los Angeles, for example, Maya organizations we spoke with expressed
dissatisfaction with the consular network’s supposed advocacy role. Many
­
­attributed the root of consular disengagement to clear class differences: “[The con-
sulate], they claim that they can’t participate in political things because all our
platforms and demands are political and they don’t have time. They don’t have the
mechanism, and definitely they only side with the winners. They simply side with
those who feel they are bourgeois, [well-funded organizations] that are pretending
to help . . . but the working people, the honest people, they [the consulate] don’t
care about them.”36 An indigenous organization leader in Fresno further explained
that distrust impeded deeper collaboration with the consular office, which, they
pointed out, was run largely by mestizo bureaucrats. Even though both sides were
trying to bridge the gap, they remained frustrated: “Supposedly, the consulate has
a mission to protect Mexican citizens, but few Mexicans want to go there because
the consulate doesn’t treat them well. They are arrogant.”37
This long-standing distrust is transnational. An indigenous Oaxaqueño organi-
zation spokesperson based in San Diego explained that they had been in constant
conflict with local consular officials for two decades and had been unsuccessful
in forging a healthy, fruitful relationship with them: “Sometimes they send me
emails, but [then] sometimes one or two years go by and I don’t hear anything
from them. So it’s difficult for us to know what are they really doing.”38 Part of
the challenge was that this organization had adopted a holistic approach to labor
advocacy that went far beyond the statutory protections embedded in the formal
memoranda of understanding. More than simply processing bureaucratic claims,
they had established autonomous spaces for their members, used radio program-
ming for education and dissemination, and maintained relations with a variety of
advocacy networks including unions and worker centers. Within this framework,
consular engagement was less straightforward, and the ideal partnership would
require far more than neutral engagement in processing claims.
These same communities were also skeptical that the Mexican government
would significantly support immigration reform in the United States—a key topic
114    Advocacy and Accountability in State–Civil Society Relations

of immigration advocacy over the last three decades. This went beyond com-
plaints about consular neutrality; rather, many Maya hometown association lead-
ers viewed Mexico’s own domestic immigration policies as suspect. Indeed, they
argued that the Mexican government had no legitimacy to negotiate an immigra-
tion reform for Mexicans in the United States given that Mexico “does the same
thing to indigenous communities and immigrants from Central America.”39 The
solidarity between Mexican and Central American populations and the ongo-
ing crisis at Mexico’s southern border fuel this critique. In this context, one San
Diego–based organization has made the protection of Central American migrants
in transit an important issue on its agenda.40 And one Houston-based worker cen-
ter organizes migrants from across Mexico and Central America, often attempting
to collaborate with consular officials from governments across the region. As one
leader put it: “Mexicans aren’t blind to what’s going on in their own country, [and
they know] how Mexico has responded to [largely indigenous] Central American
immigrants coming through Mexico.”41 These sentiments confirm that state-soci-
ety relations in destination contexts cannot be understood in a domestic vacuum
and require a cross-border lens.

Transnational Immigrant Advocacy

As for immigrant rights groups led by immigrants themselves, these are often
compelled to adopt a transnational advocacy approach, which can include funding
transnational programs serving immigrant families left behind in Mexico. In Salt
Lake City, one organization used their consular relationship to focus exclusively
on managing Tres por Uno projects. The group rationalized this approach as a way
to “stop the labor exodus from Mexico while supporting productive investment
of migrant workers in the US.”42 While such relatively newer immigrant organi-
zations share the rosy view that increased development can stop the labor exo-
dus from Mexico, there is little evidence of any causal relationship between Tres
por Uno projects and low migration intensity indexes (Duquette-Rury 2019; Bada
and Fox 2021).
Many transnationally focused immigrant rights groups have also worked to
champion justice for guest workers. Several well-funded organizations led by US-
based lawyers, for example, have hired full-time organizers to establish monitor-
ing programs in Mexico (as we describe further in chapter 5).43 Groups such as
these have leveraged their robust networks of lawyers—often in conjunction with
the Mexican Secretaría del Trabajo y Previsión Social / Ministry of Labor—to pro-
vide information and training sessions on the rights of H-2 guest workers. Key
issues include combating visa fraud and recruitment abuses and training workers
about their rights in their seasonal jobs. These highly professionalized organiza-
tions are media savvy and understand the pressure points that trigger the Mexi-
can government’s attention. As we discuss in the next chapter, they invoke not
only domestic law but also bilateral accords such as the North American Free
 Advocacy and Accountability in State–Civil Society Relations     115

Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to raise awareness around migrant workers’ precar-

ity—especially those temporary workers living in rural and suburban areas whom
traditional Labor Rights Week programming can sometimes miss.44 Relying on
their capacity in both the United States and Mexico, these transnational organiza-
tions advocate a global justice framework that brings attention to the portability
of rights for all workers, regardless of legal status, nationality, or consular jurisdic-
tion. As one leader put it, “I think there’s been a really good effort by the Mexican
consulate to help with labor rights issues for their citizens in the United States.
I think it’s a good honest effort. I wish it applied equally to protecting migrant
workers in Mexico.”45
However, only a select group of organizations have the resources for this “gras-
stops” form of advocacy. Grasstops groups have a national profile (Betancur and
Garcia 2011) and often are run by professional elites focused on policy advocacy
(Ashar and Lai 2019). In contrast, hometown associations and other indigenous
organizations in San Francisco and Fresno, for example, operate with mostly
­volunteer staff and largely focus their efforts on the needs of Mexican workers
in their local communities. For example, hometown associations routinely mobi-
lize their paisanos to respond when someone is jailed (triggering the possibility of
consular advocacy) or needs help obtaining an emergency passport or a matrícula
from the local consulate. Yet it can be challenging to obtain direct support from
a consular official, especially in a large metropolitan area like Los Angeles, where
consular staff do not have the capacity to make frequent visits to detained people.
In some cases, the consular staff may call on a hometown association volunteer
to help broker an intervention to stall deportation proceedings.46 Official delega-
tions from state governments in Mexico can also prove helpful following a migrant
death or other emergency situations. For example, in San Francisco, Maya home-
town associations have a close connection with the state government of Yucatán.47
All of these state-society relations are politically fraught. Although consular
diplomats insist that they are nonpartisan and do not work for a political party,
organizations understand that new elections bring certain political parties into
power and new agendas to the consular network. For example, one Omaha group
remembered that when the PAN (Partido Acción Nacional / National Action
Party), whose candidate was Vicente Fox, won the presidency in 2000 after the
seven-decade reign of the PRI, much of the long-standing consular program-
ming was suspended.48 Additionally, as migrant demography shifts, inevitable
changes in consular jurisdictions can significantly interrupt trust-building efforts,
especially affecting those small and informal groups that lack an office, are less
established, and are less likely to be on a consul’s radar. These common (and often
well-founded, based on the experiences of our respondents) perceptions that the
consulate is a highly partisan operation where only sympathizers of the incumbent
party can have their voices heard prevents grassroots organizations with different
or nonpartisan political agendas from pursuing transnational advocacy projects.
116    Advocacy and Accountability in State–Civil Society Relations

HOW P L AC E M AT T E R S F O R SHA P I N G
C O N SU L A R R E L AT IO N SH I P S

Beyond uncovering these universal challenges to achieving broad-based ­consular

collaboration, our interviews with immigrant labor advocates throughout the
country reveal how the wide variety of local contexts can dramatically shape
the collaborative landscape. This holds true even for federated organizations with
a broad national presence across the United States and for consular programs that
have been rolled out nationwide. Local demographic and political dynamics are
certainly crucial, but we also found that the organizational infrastructure of each
consular jurisdiction determined how state-society relationships evolved, as many
other authors have confirmed in their analyses of domestic government coalitions
(Bloemraad 2006a, 2006b; de Graauw 2016; Gleeson and Bada 2019). While a for-
mal typology is beyond the scope of this analysis, we offer some important dynam-
ics that emerged in more and less established destinations.

More Established Destinations

In large established metropolitan areas with a long history of immigration from
Mexico, organizations that provide specialized services and focus on case manage-
ment are far more common. In these places, organizational density also tends to be
much higher, rendering the local consulate an insignificant actor. For example, the
leader of a well-established worker center in San Jose, California, noted the limited
value of the consulate there: “The consulate is a place where people go to find some
information, but I need to say—without sounding pretentious—that our center
offers lots of information. We have multiple workshops where our members can
learn about labor rights, and we likely offer more workshops than the consul-
ate because we focus a lot in education.”49 Similarly, a staff member of a garment
worker center in Los Angeles offered the frank reflection that their organizers had
not been in communication with the consulate for more than three years—with
no adverse effect on their operations.50 In San Francisco, arguably the city with one
of the densest immigrant civil society landscapes (de Graauw 2016), the consular
relationship was similarly nonexistent. One worker center leader claimed that the
consulate did not really help them, even when one of their members died.51
The consulate is also seen as a relatively minor or ineffective player in major
emerging destinations (Singer 2015) where organizations have made significant
headway on the immigrant worker advocacy front and tend to lead far ahead of
the consulate. For example, a worker center leader in Phoenix expressed frustra-
tion over the consulate’s lack of involvement, saying that its members had ­therefore
come to not count on consular aid: “It is very rare that they mention the consul-
ate, and when they do, they sincerely say that the consulate couldn’t help them
or did not solve their problem. Other than that, the members do not mention
the consulate.”52 Staff from an Alinsky-inspired organization in Phoenix expressed
similar reservations about consular help: “They are usually not good. Long lines,
 Advocacy and Accountability in State–Civil Society Relations     117

long waits. For the most part, if our members enter the consulate, it’s to get an ID.
But actual services, we haven’t had many of our members speak about that.”53 For
some, the overwhelmed and understaffed consulate appointment system shaped
their poor impression of the consulate, which was commonly associated with long
lines and interminable waits. In sum, for those groups that had long-established
trust and access to migrant communities, the consulate was not so much an active
partner as yet another bureaucracy with which to contend.
Part of the challenge in establishing fruitful consular collaborations is the
­mismatch in organizational cultures between consulates and civil society orga-
nizations, as described by Gleeson (2012). In large metropolitan areas, consulates
typically engage in co-enforcement efforts with ubiquitous US (and state and local)
labor standard enforcement agencies. Like consulates, these agencies are highly
formalized, with a clear leadership command and a narrow set of expectations
for consular involvement. In contrast, worker centers and other immigrant rights
organizations often have less formal communication styles, hampering the devel-
opment of their relationships with local consulates. One Chicago worker center
leader did not undervalue the benefits of consular-government agency coopera-
tion, pointing to the importance of formal agreements ensuring that a consul-
ate receive regular visits from the DOL and the Occupational Safety and Health
Administration. The leader’s worker center, however, did not have the capacity
to staff repeated, all-day visits to the consulate office because of lack of funding;
able to arrange only four consular visits a year, the organization felt left behind.
This leader hoped to see consular attention more evenly split between government
agencies and community organizations, each of which served a fundamentally dif-
ferent function. The modus operandi of government agencies, this same Chicago
leader remarked sarcastically, was: “Bring me your claim, wait a year, and I will
give you back $50.” By contrast, his organization had a broader set of concerns,
which could lead to contrasting expectations for partnerships: “For us, we care
about organizing. Government agencies only care about offering a service.”54
Indeed, many worker center leaders wanted consular staff to espouse the value
of worker mobilization, rather than merely pursuing individual claims that did lit-
tle to address the root causes of labor abuses. In contrast, consular staff saw them-
selves primarily as street bureaucrats charged with offering individual services to
the Mexican diaspora. Consular staff were thus compelled to preserve their neu-
trality and were often judicious in supporting organizing campaigns. As a result,
consular support was largely limited to referring workers to US labor agencies and
community groups that could help them navigate those bureaucracies, rather than
championing a specific group’s cause.
Meanwhile, civil society groups faced myriad logistical challenges accessing
and navigating the consulate office in these big cities. For example, visiting the
local consulate can be tricky for groups located farther from consular offices, given
transportation challenges, bureaucratic delays, and long wait times. As a result,
118    Advocacy and Accountability in State–Civil Society Relations

one worker center in the Tristate area almost never referred out-of-state clients
to the New York City consulate.55 Groups serving non-Mexican Latinos—in New
York City or Chicago for instance—were also limited in their ability to access the
Mexican consulate on behalf of their members who were not Mexican nationals.
In large global cities like Houston, Mexico was able to convene the entire Latin
American consular corps. However, Mexico’s consular network was by far the best
resourced, as one Washington, DC, community leader acknowledged. Compared
to the Salvadoran consular staff, they explained, Mexican officials “just have a lot
more resources that they put on the ground here.”56 This imbalance affected the
relationships that groups chose to pursue. In Miami, one worker center staffer
explained how the center often opted to work with the Mexican consulate since it
was better organized and resourced than the Guatemalan consulate.57 The Mexi-
can consulate there threw more support behind community events and select
individual cases, another Miami organizer explained.58 Nonetheless, even in these
well-established immigrant destinations, non-Mexican Latinos likely struggled
harder to reap the benefit of consular collaborations.

Newer and Outlying Destinations

While more established places are home to more varied civil society interests and a
diverse Latino immigrant population, newer destinations tend to lack established
groups and have a thinner history of consular collaboration. This was the case with
one worker center in Salt Lake City (a minor emerging destination [Singer 2015])
that offered basic services such as English classes. As a city known for its refugee
resettlement infrastructure, Salt Lake City has far fewer organizations focused on
economic migrants. Though certainly aware of the local consulate, one worker
center we talked to had yet to strike up a working relationship with it.59
In newer destinations like this, there are fewer groups with the capacity to
specifically serve Mexican immigrants, so the Mexican-oriented groups that do
exist must largely shoulder the burden themselves. Often, given the sparse con-
sular presence for other Latin American countries, they end up serving these simi-
larly situated migrants. In places like Atlanta, the Central American consulates
have very limited resources, so the Mexican consulate operates as an important
clearinghouse for many other Latino populations in the absence of other legal aid,
social services, and general community support.60
Albeit stretched thin, consular involvement in these regions is still crucial.
Community leaders we spoke with in these settings did not have the luxury of
expending energy on well-founded consular criticisms. Rather, they were more
likely to report appreciating consular help when it arrived. For example, a staff
member from a worker center serving meatpacking workers in Omaha, Nebraska,
praised the leadership role assumed by the Mexican government in offering a broad
menu of services throughout the state. The consulates of Guatemala, Honduras,
and El Salvador, meanwhile, also relied on the Mexican consulate for resources
 Advocacy and Accountability in State–Civil Society Relations     119

and the space to conduct outreach, which was limited to a few events throughout
the year.61
The Mexican consulates’ health services through the Ventanilla de Salud and
Seguro Popular (a public health insurance program offering minimal coverage
to migrants’ families in Mexico) were especially popular in communities such
as Raleigh and Salt Lake City, which lacked abundant alternatives for immigrant
health care access. These consular outreach initiatives provided thousands of com-
munity members with information about low-cost health services in their region
(R. Smith, Waisanen, and Barbosa 2019).62 In other newer destinations like Atlanta,
there were fewer organizations focused on immigrant workers relative to other
metropolitan areas in our study. Instead, consulates often turned to employers’
associations as outreach partners. These business associations tended to be espe-
cially active at safety fairs catering to workers and their family members, which
also happened to be convenient recruiting opportunities. However, they focused
much less on worker organizing and voice, placing more emphasis on industry
leadership and skills training.
The consular network played an especially important role in the suburbs, where
transportation woes combined with a paucity of services, language access, and
cultural competence to erect formidable barriers for immigrants. For example, the
leader of an organization serving low-wage immigrant workers in suburban Illi-
nois saw consular collaboration as mutually beneficial:
For us, the most important [thing] is that the consulate offers resources that we don’t
have and we offer them resources that they don’t have, like having the possibility to
do outreach to workers that live in the suburbs and to farmworkers who may believe
in the benefits of organizing. The consulate can help us when someone is in jail or
was caught driving without a license and will be deported. While we arrange for a
last payroll payment, the consulate has diplomatic privileges and can visit the worker
in jail and get a signature. If the consulate calls the EEOC to follow up on one of our
cases, the agency picks up the phone faster. They also help us to mediate conflicts
between worker centers and unions as a neutral party.63

Generally, the absence of other community resources and the more hostile local
political environment tended to bring the benefits of the consulate into sharp relief
for immigrant suburbanites and the organizations that served them.

A M P L I F Y I N G I M M IG R A N T VO IC E S : SE A R C H I N G
F O R B R OA D E R AC C OU N TA B I L I T Y

By and large, immigrant advocates have managed to find a way into previously
impenetrable diplomatic bureaucracies and are voicing their concerns more loudly
than in the past. While we have presented many instances of frustration and criti-
cism, we have also highlighted examples of varied community partnerships that
leverage consular resources for community outreach. Yet these successes represent
120    Advocacy and Accountability in State–Civil Society Relations

only a particular kind of community outreach dependent on centralized consular

priorities and resources. Challenges still abound, especially in newer destinations
and those farther from urban cores. It is therefore doubtful that even successful
models can necessarily be scaled up universally. Limitations to consular outreach
persist, and burned-out advocates are often wary of relying on shifting, unevenly
applied government policies.
Budgetary constraints further limit the consular network’s ability to fulfill its
obligations under the Vienna Convention to fully represent the eleven million
Mexican nationals living in the United States (half of whom are undocumented)
(Israel and Batalova 2020). Consulates therefore rely on local organizations to
expand their reach and more effectively liaise with US government bureaucracies.
These efforts are no doubt hampered by class and racial biases among diplomatic
bureaucrats and advocates that may not be easily addressed. However, it is clear
that empowered and engaged immigration and labor activists are willing to make
claims visible and attempt to shatter the social structures behind such divisions.
Meanwhile, the services offered by consulate offices—however imperfect—play a
critical role, especially in places with few other options.
In sum, immigrant advocates must navigate US and Mexican bureaucracies
while also attempting to amplify migrant worker voices democratically. Both
countries of origin and countries of reception typically follow a Westphalian
framework that can leave little room for bottom-up, cross-border accountability
politics. While many grassroots migrant worker advocates are actively holding
consulates to account and collaborating to further migrant justice across an array
of arenas in the United States, grasstops organizations are attempting to address
these issues transnationally. Chapter 5 reviews several key stories of transnational
labor advocacy that has been successful precisely because of the elite expertise and
resources that advocates are able to deploy.
 5

The Strategies of Transnational Labor

Coalitions and Networks

Thus far, we have examined the genesis of the accords that laid the foundations for
Mexico’s outward turn toward engaging its emigrant workforce (chapter 2), the
local dynamics of consulates and migrant civil society collaborating to implement
labor co-enforcement goals in the United States (chapter 3), and the wide range
of demands made by immigrant rights organizations and others to hold Mexico
accountable in arenas extending far beyond US workplace regulation (chapter 4).
In chapter 5, we examine how global civil society rooted in the United States and
Mexico is leveraging international “soft law” to defend the rights of migrant work-
ers prior to their departure and after they return. In particular, we consider the
role of free trade agreements as a platform for advocates to double down on glob-
ally oriented demands.
As the last two chapters reveal, civil society in the host country confronts a
number of locally determined challenges (de Graauw, Gleeson, and Bloemraad
2013). Civil society organizations operating in the sending state have also crafted
strategies to advocate for their compatriots—including those who never leave,
those who do, and those who leave and then return. These groups often mobilize
transnational strategies in coalition with partners across the globe, encountering
unique opportunities and challenges in each environment (Piper 2005; Greer, Ciu-
pijus, and Lillie 2013; Gleeson and Bada 2019).
Often led by social movement lawyers with strategic transnational connec-
tions, many global civil society organizations have engaged both international
instruments and regional agreements to shine a light on the conditions that drive
migrants north, including the lack of pathways for democratic collective bar-
gaining in Mexico and the rampant abuses facing temporary guest workers in
the United States. Here, we document how strategic alliances came together to
address key human rights issues shaping migrant experiences, such as femicide in

121
122    The Strategies of Transnational Labor Coalitions and Networks

c­ ommunities of origin and at the border, gender discrimination in the workplace,

rampant violence against migrants in transit, and the need for sustainable agricul-
tural development to give people an option to remain in their homeland.
We consider how transnational campaigns have emerged across these various
arenas, the power dynamics that have determined their success or sowed division,
and the ability of these campaigns to craft a broader migrant worker rights agenda
that holds states accountable on all fronts. Specifically, this chapter examines how
advocates have leveraged the 1993 North American Agreement on Labor Coopera-
tion (NAALC), also known as the labor side accords under the North American
Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) (Compa 2001; Kay 2011; Vega 2000). We focus on
the strategies that Mexico-based transnational civil society advocates pursued to
exercise pressure at the local, bilateral, regional, and international levels to bring
visibility to migrant labor rights violations. While efforts in Canada are certainly
relevant and long-standing, our fieldwork and archival inquiries focus on the US-
Mexico aspects of these broader campaigns.
Elsewhere, we have analyzed the dual strategies pursued by two of the most
high-profile transnational migrant rights groups: the Centro de los Derechos del
Migrante / Migrant Rights Center (CDM) and Justice in Motion (formerly the
Global Workers Justice Alliance), both of which maintain advocacy initiatives and
programs in the United States and Mexico (Bada and Gleeson 2019, 2020). Both
the CDM and Justice in Motion/Global Workers Justice Alliance were key actors
in establishing a transnational coalition of advocates seeking to leverage the public
petitions offered by the NAALC, the consular partnership program, and the joint
ministerial declarations between the US Department of Labor and Mexico’s Secre-
taría del Trabajo y Previsión Social / Ministry of Labor to demand restitution for
labor violations in both countries. Here we investigate the work of other, less vis-
ible organizations that have also forged transnational coalitions to confront labor
violations and the detrimental effects of free trade agreements in the region.
We find that in the North American region, tripartite systems constructed to
defend migrant labor rights have created what Keck and Sikkink (1998) have called
the “boomerang effect”—whereby international allies urge their own governments
to pressure the offending state. These migrant rights activists have also deployed
Hertel’s (2006) “dual-target” campaign model for cross-border advocacy that tar-
gets both offending states (i.e., the sending and receiving states) simultaneously.
In each case, transnational coalitions help amplify civil society’s power to effect
change in a context where advocates alone have insufficient power to hold state and
market actors accountable. In the case of Mexican migrant workers in the United
States, local actors have implicated both receiving and sending governments when
pursuing restitution for those subjected to labor violations, regardless of jurisdic-
tion. In doing so, they have forged new transnational labor advocacy networks and
strategic (if sometimes tenuous) alliances between unions and NGOs. This chapter
maps those networks in the United States and Mexico, outlines their strategies and
challenges, and describes their victories and ongoing battles.
 The Strategies of Transnational Labor Coalitions and Networks     123

T H E B I L AT E R A L R IG H T S F R A M EWO R K
F O R M E X IC O - U S M IG R A N T S

Several international instruments guarantee the rights of all workers regardless of

immigration status. The Migrant Workers (Supplementary Provisions) Conven-
tion 143 (1975) of the International Labour Organization (ILO) sets basic mini-
mum protections. Building upon ILO Migration and Employment Conventions
47 (1949) and 143 (1975), the UN International Convention on the Protection of the
Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families includes protections
for both documented and undocumented migrants. As we explore in chapter 2,
the NAALC also recognizes basic principles across member states within the
framework of NAFTA (1994) and in terms of labor regulation standards. Trade
agreements between Latin American and Caribbean countries have also aimed to
increase labor inspections (Dewan and Ronconi 2018). Similarly, the new genera-
tion of Free Trade Agreements signed by the European Union include sustainable
development clauses promoting minimum labor standards and adhering to the
Conventions of the ILO. In the global arena, in 2013 the United Nations convened
another High-Level Dialogue on Migration and Development in which member
states, including the United States and Mexico, collectively vowed to protect the
rights of migrants irrespective of their legal status (Berg 2016).
The rights laid out by these international bodies are largely symbolic and
unenforceable in national courts. For example, trade barrier regulations diminish
the capacity of bodies like the European Union to uphold labor standards with
partner states (Bronckers and Gruni 2019). At the national level, receiving countries
such as the United States have codified labor and employment laws that formally
extend many rights even to undocumented workers. Yet workers are reluctant
to access these rights in practice, given widespread immigration enforcement
concerns that deteriorate community trust. Similarly, in Mexico, the tight alliance
between many nondemocratically elected unions (also known as charro unions)
and government leaders renders collective bargaining agreements—dubbed as
“protection contracts”—largely meaningless.1
In parallel to these formal mechanisms, migrant civil society actors have crafted
local, regional, and bilateral strategies of their own to go beyond the (nonbinding,
largely symbolic, and ineffective) international governance frameworks in place
(Delgado Wise 2018).2 They do so by leveraging this panoply of international gov-
ernance frameworks (often labeled “soft law”) alongside social movement cam-
paigns that garner resources and power from global allies and migrant workers on
the ground. This can be a solid investment of resources. Indeed, while mobilizing
claims via national and international bureaucracies may be costly, unfeasible, or
simply impractical for individual low-wage workers without access to legal repre-
sentation, litigating such cases can bring much-needed visibility to transnational
advocacy organizations calling for improved conditions.
The NAALC is a good example of how civil society has leveraged interna-
tional governance frameworks. Despite its many flaws, it set a precedent in the
124    The Strategies of Transnational Labor Coalitions and Networks

­ emisphere by incorporating labor standards into free trade negotiations, even if

h
those standards were originally excluded from the binding elements of the agree-
ment itself. Thus far, according to Robert Russo (2011, 38), the most promising
result of the NAALC process has been the “greater cooperation and inclusiveness
among various NGOs and civil society groups, including previously marginalized
groups such as unofficial Mexican unions and Mexican migrant workers in the
United States.” The NAALC provides a framework of participatory democracy in
which to experiment with a tripartite model of labor rights enforcement, wherein
sending and receiving governments, civil society organizations, and employers
work together (Amengual and Fine 2017; Ayres and Braithwaite 1992; Dias-Abey
2016). This model empowers advocates to work alongside regulators—and to call
them out if necessary—to address employer impunity. Savvy migrant worker
advocates stake out a middle ground on the world stage between deterrence and
compliance, with the goal of making it increasingly difficult for employers to abuse
workers without facing any consequences. Thus any assessment of the potential
of tripartite co-enforcement regimes to enforce migrant worker rights must pay
attention not only to the local context of implementation (as described in chapter 3)
but also to the work of advocates in the sending state and those working transna-
tionally across borders.

I S SU E S FAC I N G WO R K E R S A N D TA R G E T E D
OU T R E AC H C A M PA IG N S

Our interviews with Mexican civil society organizations reveal a network of advo-
cates pushing for the effective co-enforcement of domestic labor laws as well as
wider policy changes. For these advocates, a long list of issues are tied up with
immigrant labor precarity: economic pressures in communities of origin, forced
rural displacement, agricultural disinvestment, the militarization of Mexico’s
northern and southern borders, overdue compensation to former braceros, a
guest worker labor recruitment industry ripe for abuse, Mexico’s failure to support
unionized guest workers toiling on Canadian farms, lack of internet access and
digital fraud prevention tools in rural areas, unsatisfactory language interpreta-
tion services in courts, violence against women and femicide, union corruption,
insufficient predeparture outreach to migrants, insufficient services for returned
or deported migrants, and justice for the Central American, Haitian, and other
migrant workers fleeing poverty and insecurity who require asylum and jobs in
Mexico. These network coalitions typically leverage a human rights frame to sup-
port workers irrespective of legal status, ethnicity, or citizenship.
One of the most prominent rallying points for advocates is the rampant abuse
in Mexico’s temporary labor export programs. This has been widely documented in
Canada (Basok 1999; Fuller and Vosko 2008; Goldring 2017) but often gets less
attention in the United States given that guest workers there compose a far smaller
 The Strategies of Transnational Labor Coalitions and Networks     125

proportion of the migrant workforce—an estimated 450,000 low-wage guest

workers (Costa 2017) compared to 8 million undocumented workers (Passel and
Cohn 2016), most in both groups hailing from Mexico. In the United States, Mexi-
can guest workers with temporary visas are recruited to fill low-wage ­positions in
agriculture, fishing industries, or seasonal and other service jobs (ILRWG 2013).
These workers have limited access to other forms of community support, given
that their stay in the destination country is often short and seasonal. While the
NAALC obligates each nation to provide migrant workers with equal labor law
rights, in practice the United States excludes legal guest workers from some of its
labor provisions under the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection
Act. For example, the act allows domestic and undocumented workers to sue their
employers in federal court and provides for actual or statutory damages. How-
ever, it also explicitly excludes H-2A workers from its coverage (Linares 2006;
Russo 2011).
In Mexico, Article 28 of the federal labor law protects the labor rights of all
­temporary migrant workers and includes private recruitment fraud prevention
mechanisms. However, the relatively small size of bilateral guest worker pro-
grams prevents adequate enforcement and inspections, as private recruiters oper-
ate in rural areas where workers have limited means of submitting complaints to
labor regulators when violations occur. Moreover, since those workers are cov-
ered by special bilateral agreements negotiated between sending and receiving
states, they have few opportunities for claims making and must seek help from
­diaspora-serving organizations and labor unions with cross-border operations in
Mexico, Canada, and the United States (Dias-Abey 2016; Vosko 2019). Since 2005,
however, a small but highly visible group of pioneering cross-border civil society
advocacy organizations have successfully leveraged transnational labor advocacy
tools on behalf of temporary migrant workers (H-2 visa holders), utilizing the
NAALC framework to pursue an increased portability of labor rights for migrants,
regardless of country of residence (Bada and Gleeson 2020, 2019; Caron 2005;
Caron and Lyon, forthcoming).
Increasingly, immigrant advocates in Mexico and the United States have
pointed to a range of workplace abuses endured by guest workers in North America
(most of them from Mexico). In 2013, a Southern Poverty Law Center report
described the guest worker program in the United States as “close to slavery”
(SPLC 2013). The binational CDM, moreover, has issued reports on the challenges
facing fair and carnival workers (American University Washington College of Law,
Immigrant Justice Clinic and CDM 2013), agricultural workers (CDM 2020), and
crab pickers (American University Washington College of Law, Immigrant Justice
Clinic, CDM, and Georgetown University Law Center, Federal Legislation Clinic
2020). They have also documented fraud in labor recruitment practices (CDM
2019b, 2019c), including in the TN (Trade NAFTA) visa program created by
NAFTA for professionals (CDM 2019a), as well as in other specialized temporary
126    The Strategies of Transnational Labor Coalitions and Networks

foreign worker programs such as the J-1 summer work travel exchange (ILRWG
2019) and the Au Pair program (ILRWG 2018). While each of these temporary
foreign worker programs composes a relatively small part of the immigrant work-
force, each represents a paradigm of state-sanctioned labor exploitation for a sub-
set of workers whose authorization to live and reside in the United States is tied
to a specific employer and work contract. This restriction, by design, limits their
occupational mobility and keeps them from earning a wage premium relative to
their unauthorized counterparts (Costa 2020).

T R A N SNAT IO NA L S T R AT E G I E S T O C O N F R O N T
G U E S T WO R K E R A BU SE

Transnational advocacy groups anchored in the United States, such as the CDM
and Justice in Motion, have led the charge in filing petitions and complaints on
behalf of guest workers during their stay and after their return to Mexico. How-
ever, Mexico-based immigrant worker rights advocates have also sought to raise
awareness around temporary migrant workers whose rights are frequently abused
prior to their journey. Mexican federal labor laws protect workers from fraudulent
contracts and scams, but the lack of reporting among rural and illiterate work-
ers encourages impunity. Some campaigns run by local advocates have brought
national visibility to the large-scale, fraudulent recruitment practices of private
contractors by targeting federal bureaucracies such as the National Commission of
Human Rights, the Secretaría del Trabajo y Previsión Social, and the Secretaría de
Relaciones Exteriores / Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Lacking resources and politi-
cal will, these central offices (located in Mexico City) are not always well versed
in the intricate details of temporary contracts (usually carried out in rural areas)
or familiar with the alphabet soup of temporary work visas (the H-2A agricultural
and H-2B nonagricultural visas most common among them), which in any case
represent a very small part of Mexico’s emigrant labor force. Consequently, advo-
cates frequently use media campaigns to push for greater oversight and account-
ability on the part of government offices that facilitate these arrangements.3 In
these cases, close and frequent communication with counterpart organizations
based in the United States helps Mexican advocates understand the labor stan-
dards enforcement agencies operating across federal, state, and local jurisdictions
throughout the United States and sets the stage for high-profile bilateral cam-
paigns and litigation strategies.
While it does not coordinate its export labor efforts to the same extent as coun-
tries like the Philippines (Guevarra 2009; Rodriguez 2010), the current Mexi-
can government does play a central role in arranging visa approvals, regulating
recruitment practices, and facilitating repeat applications for seasonal workers,
who in some cases have been returning to the same job site for decades in Canada
 The Strategies of Transnational Labor Coalitions and Networks     127

and the United States. However, there is a darker history to Mexico’s export labor.
Ample historical research has documented Mexico’s coercive practices during the
Bracero Programs (the United States’ longest-lasting, wide-scale guest worker
programs that operated from 1942 to 1964) (e.g., García y Griego 1988; Calavita
1992). More recently, scholars and advocates have documented evidence of con-
sulates ­blacklisting workers labeled as prounion (Vosko 2016, 2018), even in the
oft-hailed Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program / Programa de Trabajadores
Agrícolas Temporales in Canada, where union representation is far higher than in
the United States (UFCW Canadá and Alianza de Trabajadores Agrícolas 2020).
Apart from governmental processes, labor brokers and recruiters are key actors
in facilitating immigrant labor networks on the whole, and especially guest worker
programs the world over (Martin 2017). Individuals, subcontractors, and related
agencies typically charge steep fees to desperate workers, who often accumulate
debt that can take years to pay off—debt that then shapes what migrants are willing
to endure on the job. Mexico has been called out for turning a blind eye to these
exploitative practices abroad and at home, for example when indigenous migrant
workers travel to other parts of the country to work on farms in ­conditions of
forced labor (Moloney 2017). Additionally, fraud in international recruitment is
notoriously rampant, bordering on trafficking by some accounts (Fernandez 2013).
According to one estimate, between 2005 and 2018 at least ten thousand Mexican
workers were victims of recruitment fraud. This translates into millions of US dol-
lars lost to ghost recruiters who disappear after charging exorbitant fees for non-
existent jobs in the United States (CDM 2019c).
Transnational advocacy groups have worked together to bring visibility to these
abuses and other violations of migrant worker rights. They have not only called
on the Mexican government to do more but also urged state governments to use
the penal code to actually enforce the labor protections already on the books.
As a direct result of this advocacy, several Mexican states have begun to classify
recruitment fraud as a criminal activity. Advocates also have succeeded in increas-
ing federal protections against fraudulent international recruitment. Amid these
efforts, RADAR, a new transnational labor advocacy program, was established by
the Mexico-based human rights organization Proyecto de Derechos Económicos,
Sociales y Culturales (ProDESC), with additional support from the AFL-CIO Soli-
darity International in Mexico City and the CDM. The RADAR program seeks
to eradicate labor rights violations committed against migrant workers during
the recruitment process for temporary employment (ProDESC n.d.). It focuses
on joint responsibility among recruiters, employers, and other actors within sup-
ply chains and provides a bilateral framework for addressing broader workplace
abuses that often go ignored. The RADAR program is the culmination of almost
two decades of strategic communication around building shared strategies among
Mexican advocates, US labor unions, and other human rights NGOs.
128    The Strategies of Transnational Labor Coalitions and Networks

BU I L D I N G T R A N SNAT IO NA L N E T WO R K S

The Emergence of Transnational Networks

Inclusive and loosely structured transnational immigrant rights networks benefit
from open boundaries that enable the rapid mobilization of participants and the
free exchange of ideas (Massa and O’Mahony 2021). Transnational labor advo-
cates with “big tent” agendas (rather than those focused on singular issues) pro-
vide a broader platform for participation and do the important coalitional work
of c­onnecting different migrant rights struggles. However, this work requires
frequent communication and compromise that is unlikely to persist past specific
campaigns. Indeed, collective practices designed to foster engaged democratic
participation are difficult to sustain in the long term (Polletta 2012; Whyte and
Whyte 1991).
Transnational migrant labor advocacy in Mexico emerged amid the long tran-
sition from Mexico’s one-party rule (which lasted from 1929 to 2000), a transition
that was hoped would increase opportunities for meaningful citizen engagement.
Mexico-US binational coalition building arose as advocates in both countries
deepened their interest in cross-border organizing strategies, especially in the
wake of NAFTA. To be sure, the creation of the Red Mexicana de Acción Frente
al Libre Comercio / Mexican Action Network Confronting Free Trade (RMALC)
in 1991—a coalition that sought not only to oppose NAFTA but also to discuss
alternatives to neoliberalism and strategies to strengthen democracy—paved the
way for increased cross-border organizing. This coalition worked across multiple
sectors beyond free trade, including sustainable agricultural development, human
rights protections (particularly in light of rising femicide and gender inequality),
Mexico’s own framework for labor rights (for migrants and nonmigrants), and
environmental justice. Previously, ties between cross-border social constituencies
were concentrated primarily in the border region and were limited to labor issues
in maquiladoras, undocumented migrant border crossings, and environmen-
tal concerns. During the 1980s, however, Mexico’s economic dependency on the
United States was growing steadily, and national policies were increasingly crafted
on a broader scale to attract the attention of US political and economic elites. By
the early 1990s, trade unionists in both countries realized that they were confront-
ing similar issues: antiunion policies, privatization, and deteriorating living condi-
tions and job security for workers. Years of local, regional, and national campaigns
to challenge such conditions broke down long-standing divides between sectors
(Brooks and Fox 2002b, 2002a).
As the public debate around NAFTA and the structural economic changes
occurring in the two countries intensified, the boundaries between international
and domestic policy issues blurred. Domestic civil society actors across Mexico and
the United States struggled to mitigate the impacts of free trade and soon real-
ized that a cross-border strategy was necessary. This shift reinvigorated the
 The Strategies of Transnational Labor Coalitions and Networks     129

i­ nternationalist wings of the labor movement (Hathaway 2000) but also tested the
typically protectionist tendencies of the AFL-CIO, which had previously failed to
take the concerns of Mexican labor leaders seriously (Moody 1995). The irony is
that NAFTA itself (and the global governance institutions it created) has helped
increase North American labor solidarity by providing mechanisms with which to
demand accountability. This newfound solidarity has changed the purely domes-
tic identity of labor unions, whose members now fear job-outsourcing and the
influx of new migrant workers who might undercut their wages, forcing union-
ists to reimagine alternative strategies that include advocating for improved labor
­conditions in sending states. It has also led to strategic alliances between labor
organizations (who have been quickly losing membership [Nolan García 2011])
and NGOs, for whom labor rights have been but one of a long litany of demands
against governments and employers (von Bülow 2010).
The first coordinated binational efforts between unions and NGOs occurred
in the 1980s and dealt with the maquiladora and agricultural sectors. Founded in
1989, the multisectoral Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras brought together
religious, environmental, labor, community, and women’s rights organizers active
around binational integration issues related to improving the working condi-
tions and living standards of workers employed in Mexico’s maquiladora industry
­(Williams 2002; Hennessy and Ojeda 2005). A similar long-running organizing
campaign emerged around farmworkers in the Midwest who supplied vegetables
for Campbell’s Soup, headquartered in New Jersey (Corporate Campaign, Inc.
n.d.). In this case, the midwestern AFL-CIO affiliate the Farm Labor O ­ rganizing
Committee partnered with an agricultural worker union in Sinaloa, Mexico,
­affiliated with the Confederación de Trabajadores de México / Confederation
of Mexican Workers to combat the Campbell Soup Company’s efforts to divide
unions in the United States and Mexico (Barger and Reza 1994).
These two pioneering efforts paved the way for subsequent cross-border labor
organizing campaigns against violations of freedom-of-association laws, even if
the resulting claims filed through the NAFTA labor side agreements yielded few
tangible results affecting government policies or private employers. The continued
relationship between organized labor and NGOs interested in worker rights would
eventually open the door to sustained cross-border networks. Those coalitions
became denser and inspired new strategies to strengthen labor regulation in Mex-
ico and the United States. Mexico-based advocates impressively crowd-sourced
coalitional resources to increase momentum, which they could then mobilize
within different international, national, and domestic jurisdictions to make worker
rights more portable.4 In 2005, the Global Workers Justice Alliance (now Justice
in Motion) introduced the concept of portable rights to the United Nations in
Geneva, and several migrant rights organizations subsequently adopted this advo-
cacy platform (Caron 2005; Caron and Lyon, forthcoming). One important site
for this advocacy exchange was the 2010 Peoples’ Global Action for Development,
130    The Strategies of Transnational Labor Coalitions and Networks

Migration, and Human Rights, an event that coincided with the Global Forum
on Migration and Development taking place in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. These
simultaneous events offered an opportunity to develop a claims-making agenda
with a strong transnational justice and human rights framework that could
incorporate a diverse group of labor rights advocates throughout the North
­American corridor and Central America.

Sectoral Dynamics
The transnational networks that have emerged around migrant worker rights in
North America span a number of “issue areas,” much like the varied domestic immi-
grant advocacy landscape described in chapter 4. While a complete accounting
is beyond the scope of this chapter, it is instructive to examine how distinct sectors
have approached migrant worker rights, often with different end goals and cross-
border strategies in mind. Adopting distinct discursive frames (Benford and Snow
2000), they reveal a diverse set of transnational labor advocacy strategies.

Workers’ Rights across Borders. Communications between Mexican and US

labor unions predate NAFTA (Kay 2011), though NAFTA did reinvigorate the AFL-
CIO’s alliances with Mexico’s labor movement. In 1997, the AFL-CIO established a
solidarity center in Mexico City to support the democratization of Mexico’s labor
unions and the elimination of protection contracts awarded to charro unions.
While their main objective was to support Mexico’s unions in attaining collective
bargaining rights, the AFL-CIO and its international affiliates have also created
alliances with local NGOs and other labor allies working to protect migrant rights,
especially Mexican guest workers in Canada and the United States.
Perhaps one of the most well-known examples of cross-border alliances between
the two countries is the Frente Auténtico del Trabajo / Authentic Labor Front
(FAT), a Mexican labor organization founded in 1960 that encompasses coopera-
tives, unions, tenant organizations, ejidatarios (common-land shareholders), and
training centers. This national umbrella organization cites plurality, democracy,
and social struggle as its main principles. The FAT “distinguished [itself] from
most Mexican unions by its early and continuing conviction that profound politi-
cal change is needed for workers to be able to achieve their goals” (Hathaway 2000,
428). The organization was a leader in organizing maquiladora workers, frequently
collaborating with the US-based United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of
America (UE) in coordinating “worker to worker” tours and hosting worker train-
ings and exchanges (Hathaway 2000). In one of those FAT-UE exchanges, Mexi-
can artist Daniel Manrique created, in 1999, Manos Solidarias, the mural that is on
the cover of this book and is located outside of the UE headquarters in Chicago,
while a US-based artist created a painting for Mexico City’s FAT offices (Duncan
2008; Stone 2019).
In addition to its organizing work, the FAT joined petitions filed with the
NAALC in solidarity with temporary migrant workers. FAT coalitions would
 The Strategies of Transnational Labor Coalitions and Networks     131

eventually submit several petitions to the United States’ National Administra-

tive Office to denounce Mexico’s failure to uphold the freedom of association.
For more than two decades, FAT officials testified before the ILO on the violation
of freedom of association in Mexico, and as a result of these efforts, the Mexi-
can Congress eventually passed a constitutional amendment to guarantee secret
ballots in union elections in 2017. These changes took effect just after the elec-
tion of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, whose party—Movimiento Regeneración
Nacional—controlled both parliamentary chambers and would go on to pass a list
of long-desired labor reforms. This boon to union democracy affirmed the ILO
Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949 (No. 98), but it
should be noted that prolabor policy changes also risked a backlash from charro
unions. Further challenges remained. For example, many progressive labor lead-
ers denounced key omissions that allowed subcontracting to proliferate and that
failed to strengthen mechanisms to investigate violations and assess sanctions. In
the border region, ­maquiladora leaders refused to comply with López Obrador’s
minimum-wage increases, and today the violent repression of progressive labor
leaders persists (Bacon 2019).
Binational labor advocates have also focused their organizational efforts on
former braceros. RMALC sought to help the thousands of Mexican braceros who
had had about 10 percent of their wages withheld by the Mexican government in
a forced saving scheme that lacked accountability (Durand 2007). The Mexican
government was supposed to function as the guarantor of its citizens’ rights (and
money) in guest worker programs, but these savings often disappeared, and the
Mexican government has claimed it has no record of these transactions. Several
grassroots organizations created cross-border coalitions around this issue in the
late 1990s. Activist researchers from RMALC sent students to Chicago to conduct
archival research to support recuperative litigation, with some success. By 2006,
the Mexican government had agreed to compensate—up to $3,500 USD—all those
who could demonstrate participation in the program (Martin 2003). After a long
campaign to disseminate information among potential beneficiaries, 250,000
­former braceros and relatives of late braceros had registered for compensation by
2006. The resulting demand ($875 million) far exceeded the fund established
by the Mexican government (a mere $27 million), and as a result the garnished
wages remain a central issue for Mexico-based organizers today. These “illicit”
deductions were just one among many abuses braceros endured in the United
States under the watch of the consular network (Gordon 2006).

Agriculture/Land. Beyond the worker coalitions that NAFTA’s labor side accords
have propelled, widening free trade has led to an exodus of Mexicans, the undis-
puted result of reduced agricultural employment demand in the rural countryside,
where farmers have struggled to compete with big agribusiness and subsidized
US farmers (Audley et al. 2004). This exodus not only was an unintended con-
sequence of the marketized race to the bottom but also revealed one of NAFTA’s
132    The Strategies of Transnational Labor Coalitions and Networks

core premises to be faulty: that trade liberalization would stem, and even reverse,
the flow of migrants. This highly politicized promise foreclosed any provisions
for the free flow of labor, provisions that were incorporated into the European
Union and later the Schengen Area. In fact, NAFTA was negotiated during the
same era as the (still-ongoing) southern border buildup and militarization, which
only succeeded in funneling migrants to more dangerous crossing points, leading
to an increase in border deaths (Nevins 2002), many of them involving people
from crop-producing indigenous regions (Nevins 2007).
Indeed, NAFTA’s impact on agricultural regions was severe, especially for
small-scale, peasant producers. Mexico’s agricultural census found that the num-
ber of jobs in agriculture dropped 20 percent between 1991 and 2007. By 2019, the
agricultural share was less than 15 percent of total Mexican employment, according
to the National Survey of Occupation and Employment (Bada and Fox 2021). But
this decline does not represent the full story, as many peasants have fought back.
The sustained level of protest among the peasantry since NAFTA has shown the
resiliency of campesino identity and their resistance to displacement (Fox 1994).
For example, Mexicans were able to diversify their income sources by pushing
for government subsidies to blunt the impact of opening trade, and at the same
time rural communities began accessing urban employment opportunities as well
(Hoogesteger and Rivara 2021; Torres-Mazuera 2013).
To be sure, the impact of trade liberalization has been significant. However,
despite dire predictions, the rural economy has not been obliterated by NAFTA,
and rural livelihoods are not sustained solely by family remittances sent by migrant
workers in the United States. While many rural Mexicans have indeed chosen to
exit and migrate north, others have stayed and made their voices heard. Famously,
the Zapatistas have offered sustained resistance to globalization, and other rural
social actors have engaged in protests such as the 2002–3 El Campo no Aguanta
Más (The Countryside Won’t Take It Any More) movement (Rubio 2004), or
the more transnational mobilization of farmworkers who conducted an unprec-
edented strike across Baja California’s strawberry farms (Bacon 2015; Garrapa
2019). The latter managed to build international solidarity and launch boycotts
against Driscoll, a multinational distributor. The long-standing Driscoll campaign
is an especially trenchant example of the post-NAFTA advocacy landscape. As
photojournalist David Bacon explains, transnational labor solidarity is gradually
emerging because employers in places like Washington and Baja California “aren’t
just connected by a common distributor, Driscoll’s, but by the workforce that picks
the berries. Agricultural labor in virtually all the berry fields on the Pacific Coast
comes from the stream of indigenous migrants from southern Mexico.”
Organizations interested in fostering bottom-up transnational worker soli-
darity have often leveraged the fact that Mexican agricultural workers are likely
to work in the United States at some point in their lives. As an organizer from
the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement (LCLAA) explained to us
 The Strategies of Transnational Labor Coalitions and Networks     133

in 2015: “The same workers end up working in Washington State. These are the
same people, same family members. It’s interesting to see also the communication
that’s happening with the campesinos in Washington with the campesinos in San
Quintín and vice versa, going back and forth because they are all from the same
community.”5 These campaigns have normalized migrant labor as central to agri-
cultural production and land stewardship, while also supporting Mexicans’ “right
to stay home” (Bacon 2014; Bada and Fox 2021) rather than be forced to migrate
by economic concerns.
In sum, the transnational migrant labor demands emerging from Mexico are
inextricably linked to peasant movements demanding land reform, as described
below through a discussion of the challenges facing workers without access to the
ejido system of community-based properties created through agrarian reform.
These campaigns have highlighted the impact of free trade on commodity supply
chains and stressed that labor solidarity across borders is necessary as bilateral
policies continue to affect the lives and working conditions of workers in both
Mexico and the United States.

Human Rights. Human rights campaigns typically make demands irrespec-

tive of workers’ legal status, ethnicity, or citizenship. Unions and their allies have
come together to demand migrant worker rights within the framework of labor
­protections afforded by domestic statutes and international norms, and peas-
ant movements have anchored their claims as part of their right to the land.
­Meanwhile, human rights advocates broadly view migrant worker struggles as
untethered from national territory or specific legal frameworks. This universalistic
approach to labor rights has alienated some advocates but has also created innova-
tive strategies for connecting disparate struggles.
The human rights frame for transnational migrant labor advocacy has been
adopted by a wide range of organizational types. As a member of a border network
established in the 1990s in El Paso, Texas, explained:
There has been a qualitative change in Mexico in the last few years, where migration
has been contextualized with a human rights framework. And I believe that this is
the best opportunity that we have and it should not be seen as a challenge. We need
to recognize that what connects the migratory phenomenon in the United States and
Mexico is the phenomenon of the obligation to respect human rights. I believe this
has been a great opportunity in international fora, to make an impact in the United
Nations committees to push for a human rights agenda.6

In this vein, advocates have litigated on behalf of indigenous communities

throughout Latin America at the Tribunal Internacional de Conciencia de los
Pueblos en Movimiento. The tribunal was inspired by the 1966 Russell-Sartre
Tribunal (International War Crimes Tribunal), in which Mexico and other Latin
American states have frequently been placed on trial, most recently in the 2011
134    The Strategies of Transnational Labor Coalitions and Networks

San Fernando m ­ assacre in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, where 193 bodies were
found in mass graves. While these victims were determined to be Mexican nation-
als, the horrific discovery came less than a year after seventy-two travelers (mostly
migrants from Central America and South America) were similarly abducted
from buses and killed also in the municipality of San Fernando in Tamaulipas, as
part of a vicious cartel feud. These abuses are unfortunately “nothing new,” and,
as Delgadillo, García, and Córdova Alcaraz (2019) argue, “have been an intrinsic
element of the treacherous migratory route through Mexico.”
While the human rights abuses of the failed drug wars—in which Mexican
authorities have repeatedly been implicated—may seem unrelated to the concerns
of migrant workers, they are in fact deeply connected. Indeed, the same forces
that displace migrants (by creating a context of violence and economic insecu-
rity) also draw them north (WOLA 2020; Bada and Feldmann 2017). This is true
both for migrants transiting through Mexico and for Mexican nationals, whose
demands for better working conditions are often met with repression, inaction, or
violence. The 2014 disappearance of forty-three students from Ayotzinapa Rural
Teachers’ College exemplified this perilous situation, as the military most likely
helped f­ acilitate their capture, torture, and killing—or at best looked the other way
(Raphael 2021). They had been en route to a protest in Mexico City calling for the
repeal of neoliberal educational reforms and showing support for striking teachers
(A.R.E. Editorial Collective 2015; Bracho 2020).

Immigrant Families, Children, and Women’s Rights. A fourth sector of civil soci-
ety active in transnational migrant advocacy circles is focused on the rights of
families and children, many of whom rely on the livelihoods of migrant workers.
These are universal concerns that often garner bipartisan support and can soften
the push toward increased border militarization and punitive enforcement mea-
sures. Shining a light on children and family rights also undercuts the bombastic,
stereotyping rhetoric that typically brands migrants as criminals and threats to
society (Pallares and Flores-González 2011; American Immigration Council 2017).
For labor advocates, focusing on immigrant families can also shift the discussion
away from migrants “stealing jobs” to their “providing for families,” a preferred
frame (Lederer 2019; Glynn 2021).
Civil society groups on each side of the border have approached the issue of
family well-being in distinct ways. For example, US advocates have long called
for the end of “baby jails” and family detention practices that were seared into the
public imaginary during the Trump administration, though the foundations of this
practice were established under the Obama administration (Miroff 2020). Indeed,
the closest the United States has come to mass legalization arguably is the 2012
Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Program, which was struck down
by various lower courts but continues to exist precariously on a temporary stay for
existing beneficiaries as of or before July 16, 2021 (CLINIC 2022). A later ­Obama-era
 The Strategies of Transnational Labor Coalitions and Networks     135

executive action—the 2014 Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful
Permanent Residents (DAPA)—was struck down altogether (Capps et al. 2016).
One of the most profound, visually striking protests over the way that borders
fracture families is the annual Abrazos, No Muros gathering. This moving event
allows separated families to come together for three minutes along the banks of
the Rio Bravo thanks to a painstakingly negotiated local agreement with the US
Border Patrol in the El Paso–Ciudad Juárez border region (Ramos Pacheco and
Corchado 2021). Border activists have also joined forces with Mexican organiza-
tions to demand better public policies that respect the human rights of migrants.7
However, a legalization program for undocumented workers in the United States
remains an elusive goal, as does a more humane management of border crossings.
Moreover, the border buildup ebbs and flows according to presidential adminis-
trations and in response to periodic calls for “national security,” most profoundly
after 9/11 (Andreas and Biersteker 2003; Rodriguez 2008). In fact, one could argue
that this push toward national security (and the subsequent further militarization
of the border), combined with the incessant criminalization of immigrants, has
amplified advocates’ focus on family as they seek to construct a counternarrative
in the United States.
Meanwhile, immigrant rights groups have increased the visibility of Mexico as
a transit country, which has infused public policy debates with a gendered per-
spective on migrant rights. For example, the CDM, which has offices in Oaxaca,
Maryland, and Mexico City, has worked with researchers and policy makers to
emphasize that many of the most precarious migrant guest workers are women
and that their precarity has ripple effects on their transnational families in and
outside the United States (Costa and Martin 2018). Mexico is also home to trans-
national advocates specializing in women’s and family rights such as the Instituto
para las Mujeres en la Migración, a large legal service and advocacy organiza-
tion with diverse international and domestic funding sources.8 This organization
was established during the peak of Mexico’s deportation of Central Americans
to their countries of origin.9 While such groups share many of the same concerns as
their US counterparts regarding the deleterious effect of immigration and labor
policies on families and children, rather than focusing solely on US abuses and
calls to halt deportations, much of their advocacy has also targeted the Mexi-
can state’s responsibility to integrate children who are effectively deported from
the United States alongside their parents. The Instituto para las Mujeres en la
Migración and its broad range of advocates have similarly decried Mexico’s failure
to address the needs of accompanied minors entering the country from the south-
ern border (Asylum Access México et al. 2021; IMUMI n.d.).

The Creation of Cross-sector Networks

The organizational landscape of civil society groups working transnationally
comprises Mexico-based groups seeking international linkages and US-based
136    The Strategies of Transnational Labor Coalitions and Networks

groups joining their partners in Mexico. These networks have been buttressed by
forums designed to bring interested groups together across sectors (though grass-
roots organizations can often be excluded). For example, the Comité Fronterizo
de Obrer@s (CFO) emerged in the late 1970s to address labor exploitation in the
maquiladora border region along three states: Coahuila, Tamaulipas, and Chi-
huahua. Its work intensified during the free trade agreements era, during which
time it transformed into a registered worker center.10 With funding from the Phil-
adelphia-based American Friends Service Committee, the CFO participated in
the 1995 UN Conference on Women in Beijing and the World Summit on Social
Development in Copenhagen. These opportunities expanded their networks with
US-based organizations, and the CFO went on to collaborate with a Washington,
DC–based law school to file claims first via the ILO and later under the NAFTA
labor side accords.
The FAT, described earlier in this chapter, has also embraced international net-
working in its struggle to democratize Mexican labor unions since the 1960s. This
network of independent labor unions has a Catholic background and would later
be inspired by liberation theology to support the Chilean workers denouncing
the military overthrow of Salvador Allende in the 1970s. The FAT developed alli-
ances with the United Farm Workers union during the Cesar Chavez era and had
strong contacts with Quebec’s National Union Confederation. These transnational
­contacts led to a 1991 meeting in Zacatecas with like-minded Canadian and Mexi-
can NGOs and unions, as well as with US-based NGOs and the UE. The collabo-
ration between FAT and the UE would lead to a strategic alliance formed to take
on General Electric and Honeywell factories in Chihuahua and demand collective
bargaining rights. Together, they would file a petition under NAFTA’s labor side
accords in 1994, with the support of the US Teamsters union (Hathaway 2000).
After this initial trinational 1991 meeting, the FAT would also become a key
player in the founding of RMALC, a leading transnational network that included
“several FAT unions, unions from various universities, environmentalists, women’s
groups, academics, the National Association of Democratic Lawyers, and labor
representatives from two political parties, the PRD and the PRT, as well as peasant
organizations and other NGOs” (Hathaway 2000, 173). The FAT’s participation in
RMALC led to its increased presence in the international arena, as they partici-
pated in the 2001 World Social Forum of Porto Alegre and met with the Argentine
Confederación General del Trabajo and with unions from Uruguay.11
RMALC was instrumental in the negotiation of NAFTA’s parallel e­ nvironmental
and labor agreements, but the network has since transformed its mission,
­privileging action research for social change to support various social movements.
Because of the loose coalitional structure it has maintained for more than three
decades, RMALC benefits from open boundaries that enable the rapid mobili-
zation of participants and exchange of ideas (Massa and O’Mahony 2021). This
­strategic network activates when its members launch specific projects. For e­ xample,
 The Strategies of Transnational Labor Coalitions and Networks     137

RMALC offered support when the Brazilian Movimiento de los Afectados por
Represas sought to consolidate in 1991 and when the Mexican Red de Afectados
por la Minería attempted the same in 2008. When Mexican president Vincente
Fox announced the Plan Puebla Panama, a trans-Isthmus megaproject including
new superhighways along the Pacific and Gulf Coasts that would connect south-
ern Mexico to the north and also to Central America, RMALC denounced the
potential displacement it would cause. They convened a meeting in Tapachula,
Chiapas, with many NGOs from Central America discussing how to resist the
Plan and the maquila-based development model that has consistently failed to
respect labor rights. RMALC members were the natural allies of Central American
NGOs because they had already gained policy expertise from the NAFTA negotia-
tions. As a founding RMALC member explained: “It was our turn, as RMALC, to
be an important part of this organizing process because we already had networks
with lots of organizations in Central America. We knew that free trade agreements
had been discussed for the Northern Triangle. When CAFTA [Central American
Free Trade Agreement] came, we invited NGOs to Mexico to discuss resistance
plans, and this process led to the Mesoamerican Social Forum in 2000 and later to
the Mesoamerican Project in 2008 that now includes Colombia as well.”12 In other
words, just as the FAT was organizing binationally with an eye north to its North
American neighbors, it was also cementing its role (through RMALC) as a leading
labor leader in Latin America as a whole.
The ability to unite across sectors can grant transnational campaigns enormous
power. Forging these alliances, however, comes with a number of challenges,
which we describe next.

D I V E R SE O R G A N I Z AT IO NA L M I S SIO N S
A N D C OA L I T IO NA L T O O L K I T S

Organizational missions that span multiple transnational labor advocacy divides—

that is, across sectors and geographical borders—vary substantially and give rise
to unique coalitional tool kits. While the sectoral frames described above reveal
the central foci of each respective social movement, we have also identified dis-
tinct organizational missions within each sector. The power and benefits of coali-
tions notwithstanding, these missions can often clash, exposing major power and
resource inequities.

Highlighting the Crisis of Migrants in Transit

Labor organizations working across borders generally agree on the centrality
of respecting workers’ rights regardless of nationality. Yet each group has also
developed particular priorities, often determined by uneven resource distribution.
A veteran advocate who began working in transborder coalitions during NAFTA
and who had been a labor organizer for the CFO explained that her organization
138    The Strategies of Transnational Labor Coalitions and Networks

aspired but was not able to open a shelter in Piedras Negras for deported
Guatemalans who had been attacked by the Mexican police and/or the US Border
Patrol. Despite resource constraints, the CFO managed to expand into a labor
­organization in the border region with offices in the Mexican states of Coahuila,
Tamaulipas, and Chihuahua while maintaining connections with like-minded
organizations in Canada such as the Toronto-based Red de Solidaridad de la
Maquila, a NAFTA-era organization. The CFO’s evolution reflects the tension that
border advocates constantly face in addressing the needs of transit migrants in
crisis as well as broader coalitional goals across the region.
On the international front, border advocacy groups such as the CFO have stra-
tegically deployed their coalition networks with unions in Canada, the United
States, and Europe to advocate against protection contracts with the ILO. While
they recognize that the ILO takes many years to issue (usually nonbinding) recom-
mendations against Mexico, the organization values the opportunity to tap into
the ILO’s resources and create connections within the international arena. They
must take care, however, to remain autonomous and maintain egalitarian deci-
sion-making with unions in the United States, even as they work to support their
domestic agenda (which also includes offering leadership opportunities and ser-
vices to women workers and laborers in maquiladoras across the border region):
We are doing lots of follow-up to the implementation of the amendments to the
[Mexican] federal labor law. And with other unions such as the Steel Workers in
the US, they have been supporting a campaign that we have in Ciudad Acuña, and
we value these relationships because they are based on mutual respect and autono-
my. We do not depend on any organization of any type. We work on a level playing
field, as equals. A labor union can be very powerful, but they don’t have the authority
to tell us what to do. If we want to invite a union to request their support to go against
an employer, we don’t accept relations of subordination.13

Despite decades of divisive tactics, organized labor today largely views supporting
Mexican workers as beneficial to US labor as well. For example, the AFL-CIO Soli-
darity Center in Mexico City believes that protection contracts are responsible for
the substantial minimum-wage disparities between Mexico and the United States
and has thus invested resources in challenging them. In Mexico, the minimum
wage is established by a national governmental commission with union represen-
tation that has historically sided with government officials and employers to attract
foreign investment by offering cheap labor. In seeking to address these disparities,
the AFL-CIO has mainly targeted charro labor unions affiliated with the govern-
ment-backed Confederación de Trabajadores de México for outreach. These are
the unions often preferred by US and European automakers, who pay lower wages
in Mexico for the same job performed at their plants elsewhere in the world.
More broadly, organizing opportunities in Mexico have expanded. When
the Solidarity Center was established in Mexico City in 1997, advocates worried
 The Strategies of Transnational Labor Coalitions and Networks     139

about the feasibility of supporting a temporary workforce liable to migrate north.

But the arrival of workers from Central America has turned Mexico into an
important labor education target and organizing hub as those workers move into
formal ­sectors. In contrast, according to the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center, the large
unions in Mexico that represent sectors such as pilots, teachers, or telecommu-
nication workers are simply not too invested in organizing campaigns involving
migrant workers.14
Within this context, the AFL-CIO has increased its Mexican networks by
working with community-based groups that offer training and capacity-building
workshops. For example, they have collaborations with ProDESC, the CDM, Jus-
tice in Motion, the CFO, the Centro de Apoyo al Trabajador in Puebla, the Red
de Solidaridad de la Maquila, and several other union federations. As we saw in
chapter 2, the AFL-CIO has also promoted training opportunities for US-based
union leaders to learn more about the status of labor rights in Mexico. Meanwhile,
the FAT has evolved over the last sixty years into a social movement network that
includes worker cooperatives, tenant rights organizations, and a group of autono-
mous labor unions created by workers that support labor and human rights—with
a growing focus on women’s rights perspectives. The FAT is officially independent
from the government, political parties, churches, and employers. While the AFL-
CIO has reached south to expand its outreach efforts, the FAT has looked north,
collaborating in campaigns to train undocumented workers in union organizing
in Chicago and Milwaukee.
Widely recognized as one of main organizers of the peasant social movement El
Campo No Aguanta Más (The Countryside Can’t Take It Anymore), the Asociación
Nacional de Empresas Comercializadoras de Productores del Campo / National
Association of Marketing Companies of Rural Producers (ANEC) was founded
in the 1990s and now includes more than sixty thousand small and medium agri-
cultural producers. In ANEC’s view, Mexico’s neoliberal model has devalued the
peasant economy, with the government repeatedly attempting to reduce the size of
the rural population without offering any real alternatives to rural employment.15
ANEC’s main focus is supporting economic projects that diversify and expand
the regional markets of small producers and that empower ejidatarios and their
families to stay home. For ANEC, the right to stay home is a core advocacy goal.
While they recognize that US agricultural subsidies have pushed thousands of
peasants to migrate to the United States, the lack of parallel agriculture subsidies
to small ejido landholders in Mexico has caused others to leave the countryside
and become salaried factory workers. These workers are often incorporated into
government-backed charro unions—an important link to US-Mexico solidarity,
as it is in the interest of both Mexican and US workers to have access to greater
workplace democracy free from intervention by political and economic elites.
In a country where 25 percent of the national population is still classified as liv-
ing in rural areas, Mexico’s agricultural workers without access to ejido properties
140    The Strategies of Transnational Labor Coalitions and Networks

have been another target of coalition building. These workers are forced to labor
for minimum wage as jornaleros (day laborers), facing abuses and labor violations
due to the lack of effective labor regulation in the agricultural industries. Since the
mid-1990s, ANEC has fostered connections with hometown associations and US-
based nonprofits working with small family farms in the Midwest to raise aware-
ness around corn-dumping practices and production disparities exacerbated by
differences in governmental corn production subsidies. In the last twenty years,
they have also strengthened their relations with organizations in Canada, the
United States, and Central and South America and have supported labor rights
campaigns to respect the labor rights of all migrants, regardless of immigration
status. They have also maintained a constant presence in international coalitions
as a way of highlighting regional food sovereignty issues.

Contextualizing the Migrant Worker

While organized labor advocates on both sides of the border have focused on
the labor extraction process that individuals confront before, after, and following
migration, other groups have contextualized these struggles more broadly within
the structural and direct violence that has long affected migrant workers across an
array of social institutions. As a result, there is a range of diverse migrant worker
advocacy strategies that often differ across sectors and borders. Especially in this
capacious framework, Mexico must be understood as a sending state, a transit
country, and an ultimate destination for precarious migrants.
The ecosystem of immigrant rights NGOs in Mexico is comparatively smaller
than in the United States. While most immigrant rights organizations we inter-
viewed emerged in the 1990s, several pioneering organizations also sprang up in
the aftermath of the Central American wars in the 1980s, when Mexico became an
important country of reception for Guatemalans and other refugees fleeing vio-
lence. These organizations, like the Mexico City–based Sin Fronteras, advocate for
migrant rights along the southern border and bring visibility to the abuses com-
mitted by Mexican authorities upon Central American migrants in transit. As one
of the older NGOs with extensive expertise in immigrant human rights, Sin Fron-
teras is the leader of multiple networks and coalitions in the region that seek to
provide direct service to migrants while also pushing for policy change across the
Americas. For example, Sin Fronteras is the leader of an action plan for the Brazil
Declaration, a 2014 cooperation agreement supported by the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees to strengthen the international protection of refugees
displaced and stateless persons in Latin America and the Caribbean.16 Though not
legally binding, this instrument offers a blueprint for member states to respect
basic international asylum protocols (UNHCR 2014).
Adopting a similar human rights frame, ProDESC is a transnational femi-
nist human rights organization that has successfully utilized the environmental
and labor side accords of NAFTA to secure restitution for peasant communities
 The Strategies of Transnational Labor Coalitions and Networks     141

exploited by Canadian mining corporations, ejidatarios in Coahuila, and temporary

migrant workers enduring labor violations. They have a distinctively ­intersectional
approach to human rights defense and offer legal and ­capacity-building services
to individuals and grassroots organizations. In the last two decades, ProDESC
has nurtured a network of transnational labor advocacy ­organizations focused on
migrant rights, including the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center, the National Workers
Alliance of New Orleans, the National Domestic Worker Alliance, the National
Day Laborer Organizing Network, and several legal service organizations and law
schools across the United States.
Also focused on migrant justice litigation, the organization Prevención, Capac-
itación y Defensa del Migrante (PRECADEM) deploys a restorative justice frame-
work and participates in both formal litigation strategies and international citizen
tribunals on behalf of migrants in transit and other individuals who have been
forcibly displaced (Fundación para la Justicia y el Estado Democrático de Derecho
2018). Reflecting on their decision to participate in the Tribunal Internacional de
Conciencia de los Pueblos en Movimiento, PRECADEM staff explained that this
was a strategic way to collect testimonial data that could eventually be used in a
formal international tribunal, as such citizen tribunals were “an open microphone
in a global effort to offer voice to those who are never heard, to victims, to mar-
ginalized, to the vulnerable, to the invisible.”17 While the road to justice is long
and uncertain, advocates see these exercises as an important tool for demanding
accountability for the many instances of state violence (Delgadillo, García, and
Córdova Alcaraz 2019).
Beyond the dense network of Mexico-based civil society groups, US-based
NGOs play a central role in defending migrant workers and erecting a legal
­scaffolding supporting migrant rights. In September 2005, after offering a series
of training workshops on US labor law to Mexico’s consular corps, a US-trained
attorney established the CDM in Zacatecas, Mexico. Its focus is to improve the
working conditions of low-wage migrant workers in the United States. By set-
ting its headquarters in Mexico, CDM pursued an innovative transnational
approach: in providing migrant workers with training, legal services, and advo-
cacy ­opportunities in their communities of origin, it could help workers safely and
effectively claim their rights under US law. Ultimately, when security conditions
became untenable from drug cartel violence in Zacatecas, it moved its base to
Mexico City and opened up outreach and policy offices in Juxtlahuaca, Oaxaca,
and Baltimore, Maryland.
In 2008, the Global Workers Justice Alliance, now Justice in Motion, an
established immigrant worker advocacy organization based in New York City
and founded in 2005, would also set up a satellite office in southern Mexico to
document abuses experienced by H-2A and H-2B low-wage guest workers and
to redouble efforts to recover their back wages. Unlike CDM, Justice in Motion
does not maintain a physical office in Mexico, opting instead to support (with its
142    The Strategies of Transnational Labor Coalitions and Networks

limited budget) local organizers, whom they rely on to train and equip a small
group of grassroots advocacy organizations. By late 2016, Justice in Motion had
developed an active Defenders Network to promote a portable rights model, with
forty immigrant advocacy NGOs operating in Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El
Salvador, and Nicaragua. Justice in Motion also supports cross-border humanitar-
ian immigration work and family law, asylum, and unaccompanied minor cases,
among other issues (Dias-Abey 2016).
In sum, groups operating in Mexico have utilized dense cross-border networks
to achieve their aims throughout Mexico, Canada, the United States, and Central
America, despite their often differing points of entry to migrant worker advocacy.
These efforts culminated in the Regional Initiative on Labor Mobility (INILAB)
(CDM 2018). INILAB forged a network of twelve organizations from Canada to
Central America with ties to United Food and Commercial Workers of America
(UFCW), an international union with operations in the United States, Canada,
and Mexico City. UFCW, in turn, has worked to support immigrant workers in the
United States, as well as seasonal agricultural workers in Canada, and has explored
opportunities for launching a campaign aimed at Walmart workers in Mexico
(Galvez, Godoy, and Meneima 2019).
Like INILAB, El Colectivo Migraciones para las Américas / Migration Collec-
tive for the Americas (COMPA), formerly known as Colectivo PND-Migración,
is a group of 128 organizations and networks scattered across eleven countries in
North and Central America. The impetus for this collective began in 2013, when
the recently inaugurated government of Enrique Peña Nieto convened a series
of citizen forums with civil society organizations in Mexico, the United States,
and Europe to discuss how immigration would factor into Mexico’s national
­development plan. After eight public consultation meetings held in Tijuana,
Mexico City, Guadalajara, Tijuana, Tapachula, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Zurich,
many participants took advantage of the repeated gatherings to form a ­monitoring
network that would hold the government accountable.18 Ultimately, COMPA has
focused on the security of migrant workers, decrying the abuses of immigration
authorities and urging the federal Mexican government to effectively implement
and enforce the Programa Especial de Migración 2014–2018 / Special Migration
Plan 2014–2018, a dedicated section in the country’s National Development Plan
created in April 2014 that was heralded as ushering in a new era in Mexico’s migra-
tion management. Among the many lofty objectives of this plan, the federal gov-
ernment committed to respecting migrant rights by harmonizing all internal laws
and international treaties to establish a nondiscriminatory framework for human
rights, legal protection, and the prevention of rights violations (Secretaría de
Gobernación 2014).
Some of these networks activate and deactivate depending on their level of
funding, the cost-effective calculations of their social accountability goals, or
whether member organizations choose to pivot once campaign goals have been
 The Strategies of Transnational Labor Coalitions and Networks     143

achieved. One such campaign, Jornaleros SAFE, was an ambitious research net-
work project financed by the Centro Independiente de Trabajadores Agricolas, the
Dimensión Pastoral de la Movilidad Humana, the Global Workers Justice Alliance,
United Farm Workers, and Catholic Relief Services. This project focused on the
challenges facing temporary migrant workers and internal agricultural migrants,
targeting both the Mexican and US governments. It produced important research
reports, though the collaboration formally ended when funding ceased, leaving
unfinished the important work of on-the-ground outreach.19

Varying Tool Kits for Transnational Advocacy

The tool kits utilized by advocates vary depending on the resources at their dis-
posal, their organizational capacities, and campaign goals. Coordinating legal
petitions in bilateral jurisdictions takes time and many witnesses willing to share
their experiences and expertise around submitting claims—which may or may not
bring restitution and will certainly prove costly. Consequently, some organizations
may opt to focus their efforts instead on high-level changes to trade agreements or
to domestic policies that shape labor recruitment practices. For the vast majority
of advocates, the choice to devise and pursue a legal strategy to target a Mexican or
US court or an international body is taken with care, and the deliberations usually
involve how to maximize an issue’s visibility.
For groups such as the FAT involved in direct organizing, capacity building and
inclusive worker training are key. In 1992, the FAT inaugurated the Strategic Orga-
nizational Alliance, aimed at organizing Mexican workers whose employers also
had factories in the United States. The goal was to highlight wage differentials and
make workers aware that US factories interested in moving to Mexico were trying
to cut labor costs.20 This focus has also shaped labor organizing on the ground in
the United States, with advocates seeking to challenge the often xenophobic and
protectionist tendencies of rank-and-file workers nervous about seeing their jobs
shipped abroad (AFL-CIO 2020).
For organizations with robust access to lawyers, supranational mechanisms
such as the NAALC are important tools that allow them to submit multiple and
frequent petitions on behalf of workers. Yet these efforts also require on-the-
ground coordination, especially in rural communities like San Luis Potosí and
Oaxaca, which send a large number of guest workers and are hotbeds of recruit-
ment fraud. The CDM has incubated a group focusing on these efforts called the
Centro de Defensa del Migrante, as has Justice in Motion through its defender
network. These strategies employ local grassroots organizing tactics along with
high-level policy advocacy; the goal is both to strengthen their legal case and to
build legitimacy in communities of origin that may be wary of outside influence.21
For ProDESC, an important strategy has been to create equitable and respectful
binational collaborations with short-, medium-, and long-term goals. To this end,
it has convened bilateral meetings with Mexican and US organizations to outline
144    The Strategies of Transnational Labor Coalitions and Networks

commonalities and differences, share resources, and create mutually beneficial

common work plans. In 2007 in Mexico City, ProDESC convened its first meet-
ing to discuss binational labor justice in collaboration with the CDM and a group
of thirty organizations, fifteen from Mexico and fifteen representing the United
States. With funding from the Ford Foundation, this collaborative project would
produce an essential bilingual manual of binational labor justice that explains the
main legal mechanisms for enforcing labor rights in Mexico and the United States
(ProDESC and CDM 2010).
Along the border, maquiladora organizers have gathered testimonios of wage
violations perpetrated by corrupt union leaders. These narratives have been criti-
cal to litigation brought before Mexico’s labor courts and the ILO, the NAALC,
and the Interamerican Commission on Human Rights. By contrast, other border
activists focused on family reunification have championed a watchdog mechanism
that would allow for a more collaborative relationship with enforcement authori-
ties when voicing community complaints. Such collaboration, these activists
argue, is necessary, even if fraught. In El Paso, for example, the US Border Patrol
is seen as both a reviled arm of the immigration enforcement apparatus and an
inevitable presence in a community. Indeed, many officers are from immigrant
families themselves. However, an event like Abrazos, No Muros can occur only by
the establishment of a (fragile) foundation of trust. This cooperative focus places
activist organizations in a delicate position vis-à-vis government surveillance, as
well as opening them up to endless critiques from leftist advocates who decry
these strategies as a form of theater, stunts merely serving to soften the image of
the federal government.
While our focus here has largely been on US- and Mexico-based organiza-
tions, Canadian organizations are members of these collaborations as well and
have been involved in training and educating workers navigating the Seasonal
Agricultural Worker Program (and the many associated abuses and fraudulent
schemes). UFCW (an international union with a strong presence among the
Canadian agricultural workforce) initiated a bilateral strategy in 2007 by invit-
ing Mexican legislators from the three main political parties (PRI, PAN, and PRD
[Partido Revolucionario Democrático / Party of the Democratic Revolution]) to
witness the conditions of Mexican workers in Canada. Once back in Congress,
these ­ legislators held discussions about modifying the Seasonal Agricultural
Worker Program.22 UFCW also established an office in Mexico and began collect-
ing testimonies from workers who had been forced to bribe Mexican authorities
in order to get their names on recruitment lists. For UFCW, generating local pub-
licity around such cases was vital in the “mobilization of shame” that could pres-
sure decision makers. This campaign was run in parallel with the co-enforcement
efforts taking place in the United States (as described in chapter 3). UFCW had
supported the Consular Partnership program since its inception, and their US
organizers also coordinated with their Canadian counterparts. Eventually, UFCW
 The Strategies of Transnational Labor Coalitions and Networks     145

was ­successful in holding accountable fraudulent recruiters preying upon desper-

ate workers seeking entry into the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program. It also
established cooperation agreements with Estado de México, Michoacán, Guana-
juato, Guerrero, and Oaxaca to promote predeparture training for workers. The
union would also later denounce corruption in the state of Guanajuato, singling
out officials in Mexico’s Ministry of Labor who were illegally demanding kickbacks
from migrant workers. The campaign won restitution for Mexican guest work-
ers who had experienced retaliation after they exposed these rampant violations
(Galvez, Godoy, and Meneima 2019).
In sum, grassroots organizations are the linchpins of a transnational advocacy
strategy that actually results in domestic policy change. These cross-border net-
works must mobilize workers on the ground to maintain legitimacy and execute
educational campaigns aimed at abuse prevention. Meanwhile, they are also rais-
ing awareness about the portability of worker rights while generating solidarity
among Mexican and US workers. Educating workers about the role of free trade
agreements in driving labor precarity and highlighting multinational corpora-
tions’ labor practices that create a “race to the bottom” in each country’s labor
arena is crucial. Yet this process is long and slow, and achieving justice and restitu-
tion requires constant organizing and deliberation.

C OA L I T IO NA L F R IC T IO N S

The work of any social movement is riddled with coalitional challenges, and immi-
grant worker rights advocacy is no exception. While there are myriad opportuni-
ties for disagreements that can threaten the sustainability of these networks, two
are worth highlighting here: capacity and funding disparities; and organizing chal-
lenges and unevenly distributed power.

Capacity and Funding Disparities

Expanding networks in Mexico and the United States face funding imbalances,
which affect their negotiating power vis-à-vis regional governments. In 1980,
Mexico had only six human rights organizations; by 2010, there were more than
1,100, some of them advocating on behalf of transit migrants from El Salvador,
Guatemala, and Honduras fleeing poverty, unemployment, and unfettered vio-
lence perpetrated by state and nonstate actors (París-Pombo 2017). Many of these
organizations are relatively new and are hard-pressed to find enough funding for
programs to prevent abuses, provide legal protection, organize migrants, effect
policy changes in migration management, and improve migrants’ access to labor
rights (Rojas Wiesner 2022).
Furthermore, Mexico’s civil society infrastructure is spread thin, with 3.6 civil
society organizations per 10,000 inhabitants compared to 65.1 per 10,000 inhabit-
ants in the United States (Layton 2011). Many organizations in Mexico struggle to
146    The Strategies of Transnational Labor Coalitions and Networks

obtain funding in a country where social inequality has depressed levels of social
capital and trust. Case studies of social capital in Mexico help explain the lack of
a robust and formal civil society capable of demanding better services from the
government or of creating efficient alternative models to solve community prob-
lems beyond the local level (Cleary and Stokes 2006; Layton and Moreno 2010).
For example, one Mexico City–based organization offering legal services mostly
to Haitian and Central Americans estimates that their budget represents just 10
percent of the local Human Rights Commission’s annual funding. Their meager
resources allow them to have only one lawyer per country of origin, despite the
enormous need for representation.23
Furthermore, regional differences in organizational density have emerged, as
Mexican NGOs are frequently dependent on private domestic and foreign donors
to operate, exacerbating existing hierarchies of power and influence between
Mexican and US labor advocates. The funding that Mexican civil society orga-
nizations receive from foreign sources is minuscule, as only 6.4 percent of their
resources come from foreign donors, 75 percent from private domestic donors,
and the rest from the government (Chávez Becker, González Ulloa, and Venegas
Maldonado 2016). Difficulties in finding sustainable sources of funding, coupled
with low density and a disproportionate concentration of organizations in a few
states, limit their ability to effectively fulfill their mission. For example, Mexico
City, the Estado de México, and the state of Oaxaca are home to 36 percent of
the nonprofit organizations in Mexico (CEMEFI 2019). The unequal distribution
of resources among existing networks of transnational advocates in the North
American region—which Anner and Evans (2004) dub “the double divide” across
borders and sectors—also makes it difficult to coordinate successful campaigns
that can challenge the power and influence of agribusiness and international labor
recruiters and enact meaningful migrant worker rights reforms.
Key issues facing migrant workers currently include wage theft, occupational
safety and health protections, criminal international recruiters, and growing secu-
rity concerns that often target migrants in transit and return migrants. Advocacy
funding disparity is thus consequential given that immigrants commonly face
labor and employment law violations and struggle to access social protections in
host countries, especially in communities where watchdog civil society groups do
not have a presence. Groups may also fear establishing a presence in such areas
because of insecurity. On the whole, a thin and scarcely funded civil society infra-
structure in the sending state forces migrants (and return migrants) to rely on
complex government bureaucracies to claim rights as the only avenue for redress,
and the weak enforcement system has allowed abuse to flourish (Gunningham,
Thornton, and Kagan 2005).
While funding from international donors to Mexico-based organizations is
rather small, many of the organizations interviewed frequently rely on interna-
tional and US-based donors such as the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center, Catholic
 The Strategies of Transnational Labor Coalitions and Networks     147

Relief Services, the Ford Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, and OXFAM, to
name a few with transnational labor advocacy agendas and active programming
in Mexico. These sources of support are critical, though often fickle and fleet-
ing. Member-based organizations such as unions, worker defense networks, and
worker centers rely on voluntary member contributions, ad hoc organizing funds,
or union fees to support transnational organizing efforts. Many of these Mexico-
based organizations also depend on Mexican government subsidies and domestic
private donors to offer direct services, including access to labor litigation in US
courts.24 Some networks have diversified their donor base and increased direct
services, but this can siphon resources away from their organizing efforts around
demanding state accountability.
The organizations that value their independence from the Mexican government
have decided to base their fundraising exclusively on international donations or
private donations. Yet relying on international donations can also be fraught, as
many international organizations seek out successful Mexican organizations to
offer financing in exchange for their participation in preexisting projects that are
not necessarily jointly envisioned. An organization with a history of successful
collaborations with US NGOs complained that these organizations use Mexican
groups to implement and execute broader projects with little interest in garnering
local feedback. In general, Mexican organizations mentioned that it is difficult to
obtain international funding because the same groups are competing for the same
donors.25

Organizing Challenges and Uneven Power

Organizations must constantly adjust their agendas to align with their funders’
priorities. The Mexican organizations we observed noted that certain US-based
organizations have a utilitarian view of partnerships and are not interested in
establishing equitable collaborations through sustained dialogue and common
agendas. Similarly, many organizations complained of being prevented from lodg-
ing direct complaints in international organizations such as the ILO. For example,
border groups were entirely dependent on a labor union to lodge complaints at the
ILO, and this was a major obstacle for using this international mechanism to bring
visibility to worker abuses.
Organizations struggle both to hold states accountable and to effectively rally
workers. They must constantly battle the state’s refusals to accept responsibility
for being the main perpetrators of violations. In the view of one labor organizer,
it is very difficult to launch organizing worker campaigns in Central America
and defend the rights of migrants in transit when all governments in the region
deny their involvement in abusing human and labor rights.26 Finding avenues to
let migrants in transit secure access to unionized jobs in Mexico is also a diffi-
cult project for a union. Despite the challenging environment, independent labor
unions in Mexico strive to defend the labor rights of Central Americans trying to
148    The Strategies of Transnational Labor Coalitions and Networks

find temporary work in Mexican factories, even when they know that their ulti-
mate goal is to cross into the United States.27 Uneven attention is also a factor;
in comparison to the disproportionate attention paid to migrant workers in the
United States, migrant workers in Canada still receive relatively little attention
from Mexican organizations. This imbalance creates additional competition for
resources among advocates.28
Transnational organizations must also balance their legal work with their col-
lective organizing and outreach among workers. These efforts are all the more vital
because of the government’s outreach failures. According to the NAALC frame-
work, the Mexican Ministry of Labor is in charge of educating workers about fraud
prevention in international recruitment, though the government does not have
the political will or adequate funding to implement a national campaign aimed at
eradicating such fraud.29 As a result, it lacks the internal capacity to design its own
educational programming, having to piggyback instead on the training workshops
that international coalitions have produced. Even when transnational coalitions
manage to mount preventive campaigns to educate workers through interactive
phone apps and websites, the vast majority of rural workers do not have access to
this information because they lack internet or smartphones.30
Worker outreach is further impeded by the unsafe conditions organizers face
in areas where organized crime operates with impunity. Moreover, opportunities
for legal redress are uneven. Thanks to tireless advocacy, the states with the highest
levels of insecurity have modified their penal codes to classify recruitment fraud
as a criminal activity. But while trainings offered in the states of Michoacán and
Zacatecas may eventually allow access to claims making in the municipal prosecu-
tor’s office, the same training will prove less valuable in states where fraud recruit-
ment is not a punishable crime.31
Finally, transnational advocates focusing on organizing and educating local
workers in guest worker programs are increasingly coming to terms with the real-
ity that any such program will primarily fulfill the needs of sovereign countries
and the employers who request them. This realization, one organizer explained,
ultimately presents a conflict: whether to continue monitoring employers within a
guest worker framework that does not ultimately address the race to the bottom in
the labor practices of these industries.32

LOOKING TO THE FUTURE

The sustained effort of transnational advocates to bring awareness to labor viola-

tions since the enactment of NAFTA in 1994 paved the way for a new era marked
by an increased recognition of labor rights for all workers in international trade
agreements. This change has offered new possibilities for the bilateral enforcement
of labor rights. The 2020 United States Mexico Canada Agreement inaugurated
the direct use of trade agreements to respect labor rights in the region. The p
­ arallel
 The Strategies of Transnational Labor Coalitions and Networks     149

agreements on labor established by NAFTA became integrated into chapter 23 and

its annex 23A on worker representation in collective bargaining in Mexico
and are now part of the agreement. The forty-five public communications (peti-
tions) lodged by the National Administrative Offices between 1994 and June of
2020 to bring attention to labor rights abuses—including violations of collective
bargaining rights and failures to guarantee basic labor protections for guest work-
ers—had a limited but symbolic effect in a few arenas such as collective bargaining
rights and the prevention and deterrence of recruitment fraud around Mexican
temporary guest worker visas.
While the public submissions system remains in place, the new chapter on
labor makes the labor provisions of the United States Mexico Canada Agreement
fully enforceable and subject to dispute resolution. It also requires parties to adopt
and maintain core ILO labor standards, including freedom of association and the
right to strike. These reforms, however, will still rely on the capacity of labor
advocates to lead the charge in making sure they are enforced. Nonetheless, the
new language is heartening for advocates. In Article 23.8, the agreement includes
migrant rights and recognizes their portability: “The parties recognize the vulner-
ability of migrant workers with respect to labor protections. Accordingly, in imple-
menting Article 23.3 (Labor Rights), each Party shall ensure that migrant workers
are protected under its labor laws, whether they are nationals or non-nationals
of the Party” (USTR 2020). In 2020, UFCW Canada signed a new agreement with
the Confederación Autónoma de Trabajadores y Empleados de México that aims
to strengthen the protections of Mexican migrant workers while in Canada. It also
seeks to coordinate communication and training approaches focused on labor,
health, and safety rights to better protect migrant workers in that country.
Low-wage Mexican workers in the formal economy continue to face multiple
hurdles in claiming their labor rights. Currently, the tripartite conciliation and
arbitration boards take anywhere between two to ten years to resolve worker
claims, and few even reach labor courts. In 2018, Mexico introduced an important
amendment to its labor laws that may provide faster access to claims-making pro-
cedures and may democratize collective bargaining, among other major changes.
The new legislation establishes that by 2022, salaried workers will have access to
local and federal labor courts to resolve labor disputes that cannot reach an ami-
cable resolution after negotiations in conciliation and arbitration boards. Most
importantly, the labor courts will now depend on the judicial instead of the execu-
tive branch. The new law also guarantees collective bargaining rights by allowing
workers to choose union leaders in a secret ballot procedure, and all collective
bargaining agreements will be filed and deposited in a national registry (Straulino-
Rodriguez and Delsol Espada 2019). In Mexico, the gradual democratization of
labor practices, combined with the election of a president at the head of a center-
left coalition, led to substantial increases in the national minimum wage: a 16 per-
cent rise in 2019 and 20 percent in 2020.
150    The Strategies of Transnational Labor Coalitions and Networks

While the ambitious framework of the Programa Especial de Migración 2014–

2018 has yet to be implemented across Mexico’s federal government, the high con-
centration of advocates in Mexico City has led to increased demands for better
services and protections for all migrants. Mexico City’s 2011 Law of Intercultural-
ity, Migrant Attention, and Human Mobility and Mexico City’s 2017 Constitution
ratified the decriminalization of migrants and offered equal access to basic social
services. Both instruments recognized migrants, refugees, and their families as
persons with portable rights, regardless of immigration status. While the neces-
sary bylaws that will regulate the delivery of basic services to migrants and refu-
gees have yet to be discussed in Mexico City and elsewhere in the country, trans-
national advocates do have a few benchmarks by which to measure how well these
commitments are being met.
Finally, though many of the international jurisdictions put in place to enforce
labor rights are nonbinding and minimally effective in remedying conditions
on the ground, the trilateral adjudication process inaugurated by NAFTA did pave
the way for increased strategic cooperation among transnational advocates. These
actors are ready to take advantage of political opportunities to embed multilay-
ered coalitions—comprising worker centers, labor unions, academia, legal service
organizations, transnational migrant organizations, and human rights organiza-
tions—in the regional governance regulatory framework of labor enforcement
initiated by NAFTA. Over the last two decades, transnational labor coalitions have
multiplied and have built on the early gains of anti-NAFTA activists. The outcomes
of these post-NAFTA coalitions may seem rather modest and the changes mini-
mal at best; however, assessing change always depends on one’s frame of reference
and geographic location. While preventing fraud in international recruitment may
seem meaningless for empowered migrant workers in Chicago, this issue looms
very large for displaced peasants in rural Oaxaca.
 Conclusion
Scaling Migrant Worker Rights

The roots of this book extend back over a decade to when we were each engaged in
simultaneous research on the organizational lives of Mexican immigrant workers
in the United States. As sociologists working in interdisciplinary spaces, both of
us became interested in how the Mexican state had emerged as a critical interlocu-
tor in the conversations around workplace precarity (Gleeson, as a labor scholar
obsessed with how bureaucracies function, and Bada, as an expert in Mexico’s
politics and transnational civil society). We each viewed the question of why and
how the consular network had taken up the task of labor rights outreach and co-
enforcement through our own lens.
What emerged—through the work of over sixteen research assistants, 206
interviews in twenty cities, and countless hours sorting through media and gov-
ernment archives—is a story that disrupts how we think migrant policies are cre-
ated and implemented, why coalitions emerge and retreat, and the centrality of
national borders—but also bilateral relations—in enforcing domestic rights.

E P I S T E M O L O G Y O F T H E SE N D I N G S TAT E

From the beginning, the central approach of this research was triangulation. Rather
than focus on the sending state as an autonomous actor, we attempted to under-
stand both the multiple relationships Mexico maintained with other states and civil
society organizations and the diverse advocacy strategies that shaped these rela-
tionships and Mexican policy. We knew that the letter of the law—as inscribed
in the labor side accords of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA),
the various labor codes in the United States, and the constitutional assurances
Mexico extended to its emigrants and, more recently, to all migrants—was largely

151
152    Conclusion

aspirational and often disregarded. Our first step was to understand each of these
legal arenas and the bureaucracies that had emerged to implement them.
To gain an understanding of how US labor standards affected Mexican
immigrant workers, nearly half of whom were unauthorized, we started by
­
talking with US labor agency staff themselves about their outreach strategies. We
spoke with a range of US labor regulation actors operating across the span of a
decade and three presidential administrations during which time a deterrence-
oriented model of labor enforcement has persisted (Piore and Schrank 2018). We
knew that the well-meaning “Don’t ask, don’t tell” approach of labor agencies when
it comes to immigration status (Gleeson 2014) was not enough to dissolve com-
munity anxiety in an era of intensified immigration enforcement (both through
the spectacle of devastating large-scale raids and through the far more effective
but lower-profile audits honed during the Obama administration) (Griffith and
Gleeson 2019). We spoke with representatives from each of the major US labor
standards enforcement agencies (the Department of Labor [DOL]’s Wage and
Hour Division, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and Bureau of
International Labor Affairs), the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission,
and the National Labor Relations Board. We also spoke with seven Community
Outreach and Resource Planning Specialist (CORPS) staffers, whose job it is to
create and maintain consular ­relationships.
We fielded a survey with all representatives of the Mexican consular network
and followed up with interviews with consuls in the Departamento de Protección
(and sometimes other departments as well, such as Comunidades) in each of the
fifteen cities that formed the pioneer cohort of the Semana de Derechos Laborales /
Labor Rights Week. We then spoke with key Mexican officials at the Secretaría de
Relaciones Exteriores / Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE) and the Secretaría del
Trabajo y Previsión Social / Ministry of Labor, two federal bureaucracies that have
proven critical to negotiating and fulfilling Mexico’s obligations to its emigrants.
We treated enforcement and consular agencies as complex bureaucracies in which
the left hand does not always know what the right hand is doing, officials have an
enormous amount of discretion, and the implementation of national directives is
subject to local capacity and preferences. All told, we spent at least fifteen years
following and attending consular events in Chicago, New York City, and Northern
California. We paired these longitudinal observations with recurrent (and often
unsuccessful) formal requests to interview key foreign affairs personnel, as well as
data requests to Mexico’s Instituto Nacional de Transparencia, Acceso a la Infor-
mación y Protección de Datos Personales (INAI). We also did a deep dive into
the various social media (Facebook, Twitter) and news (print, radio, community
TV) outreach related to labor rights that consular officials have cultivated over the
years. These data formed the basis of chapter 2.
But the data that have perhaps most shaped our story here are the 176 conversa-
tions we had with civil society organizations across the United States, which gave
 Conclusion    153

us their sometimes brutally honest take on the binational effort to improve Mexi-
can immigrant worker conditions. These organizations (which include traditional
labor unions, legal service providers, and an array of alt-labor groups, including
worker centers and immigrant rights organizations) helped bring into stark relief
the challenges Mexicans living in the US contend with when they interface with
their local consulate. Our empirical goal was saturation in each project city, which
we selected to represent traditional immigrant-receiving places whose ­consulates
have been active on the labor rights front and new and emerging destinations
(Atlanta, Austin, Chicago, Fresno, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, Nashville,
New York, Omaha, Orlando, Phoenix, Raleigh, Sacramento, Salt Lake City, San
Diego, San Francisco/Oakland, San Jose, Tucson, and Washington, DC). Many of
the groups in our study were part of federated organizations (e.g., labor unions),
and we aimed to speak with their national leadership as well as with staff at sister
chapters in other cities. Each city where we sampled respondents had a distinct
infrastructure for immigrant labor advocacies. In some, unions were major play-
ers; in others, faith-based organizations took the lead in offering legal assistance.
Throughout these cities, the advocacy goals often differed substantially, as did the
local demography and political landscape of immigration policies. Insights from
these national and local groups form the basis of chapters 3 and 4.
Finally, we spoke with twenty-two transnational NGOs operating in Mexico,
which provided a critical perspective on the range of issues for which the sending
state should be held accountable, as described in chapter 5. Beyond the consular
network in the United States (and Canada), these organizations and the coali-
tional networks they have forged have leveraged bilateral and regional instru-
ments to realize a migrant worker rights agenda that goes far beyond domestic
­co-enforcement models.

K EY PAT T E R N S I N S TAT E - C I V I L S O C I E T Y R E L AT IO N S

The Invisible Labor of Demanding Accountability

Bilateral agreements do not simply arise through fully formed executive decrees.
We uncovered hidden—and often conflicting—evidence regarding what led to the
grand proclamations and policy shifts that dominated the news archives. The 2004
joint ministerial negotiations, the 2008 memoranda of understanding between
Mexico’s SRE and the US DOL, and the 2014 recommitment to enforcing immi-
grant worker rights were all preceded by loud and carefully coordinated calls for
accountability from civil society on both sides of the Río Bravo. Thus we find that
the official origin story of what became the Semana de Derechos Laborales gives
outsized credit to bilateral diplomacy and overlooks the long haul of state account-
ability politics driven by civil society, whose efforts predate the joint ministerial
negotiations and stretch as far back as the consular-appointed honorary com-
missions in the Midwest (Valdés 2000) and the independent mutualistas in the
154    Conclusion

Southwest, both in the 1920s (Pycior 2014). As Natasha Iskander (2010, 253) aptly
describes, the state and migrants have redefined their goals and learned from each
other transnationally through a long-running dance of state-society relations.
Such efforts to hold the sending state accountable can be traced back to the bra-
ceros’ struggles to recover their meager savings from Mexican banks, as discussed
in chapter 5. There are, to be sure, many instrumental reasons why the US DOL
facilitated a partnership with Mexico’s SRE, whose consular network could be used
to conduct outreach within the largest immigrant group in the United States and
a labor force overwhelmingly concentrated in low-wage jobs ripe for abuse. Simi-
larly, the Mexican government (as Alexandra Délano Alonso chronicles) has over
the years committed to a new path of engagement with its diaspora that has led
to modest improvements on the issues of collective family remittances, absentee
voting, and trade relations (Délano 2011; Délano Alonso 2018).1
Yet all along the way, the Mexican government has had to be coaxed into spend-
ing precious political capital on promoting immigrant labor rights and compre-
hensive immigration reform. Indeed, former Mexican president Felipe Calderón
(2006–12), following the failure of his predecessor to make substantial advances
on immigration policy, explicitly sought to desmigratizar the bilateral agenda2—
that is, to remove immigration from it as a central issue (Durand 2013). How-
ever, pressure to keep immigration issues front and center in bilateral diplomatic
negotiations came from multiple sources, including a new institution, the Consejo
Consultivo del Instituto de los Mexicanos en el Exterior / Advisory Board of the
Institute of Mexicans Abroad (CCIME), which was made up of many key Mexi-
can labor leaders across the United States. Several union officials we spoke with
claimed that they had single-handedly convinced the SRE to invest in what would
become the Labor Rights Week, their preferred advocacy model of local engage-
ment and one clearly inspired by the Semana Binacional de Salud / Binational
Health Week.
Similarly, US labor agency officials in cities known for their collaborative part-
nerships (e.g., Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, New York City) would all take
credit for piloting the Ventanilla Laboral / Labor Rights Window. But whatever
the origin (and there were likely many), it was clear that the Mexican govern-
ment, and its US counterparts, would soon claim this national collaboration as
their own; moreover, Mexico promoted a narrative that these partnerships were
benevolent government creations that would help hold the US regulatory appara-
tus and unscrupulous employers accountable—thus downplaying its own regula-
tory failures vis-à-vis its foreign nationals. In turn, the long historical arc of Mexi-
can migrant self-representation—in which migrants developed a “voice after exit”
in order to gain visibility as political actors (Hirschman 1970; Fox 2007; Duquette-
Rury 2019; Iskander 2010; Pycior 2014; Bada 2014; Valdés 2000)—was commonly
downplayed by government bureaucrats.
 Conclusion    155

But in fact, it was the demands of advocates themselves—sometimes outside

formal channels, sometimes overly critical, and almost always rooted in a condem-
nation of the Mexican government’s historic abuse and abrogation of duty toward
its diaspora—that (at least partially) propelled government bureaucrats to begin to
embrace a bilateral commitment to upholding immigrant worker rights. Advocacy
claims would take many forms, including invitations to consular officials to speak
with workers (who in turn demanded greater involvement), formal proposals by
labor leaders via the CCIME, and denunciatory petitions by transnational advo-
cates to the National Administrative Office of the North American Agreement on
Labor Cooperation (NAALC), the 1993 labor side agreement negotiated as part
of NAFTA. Establishing state accountability is a drawn-out, nonlinear process in
which allies sometimes coordinate their efforts and sometimes do not. In short,
there was a series of simultaneous efforts—of varied intensities—to pull the Mexi-
can state into a more engaged modality for the legal protection of Mexican citizens
living abroad. Some advocates focused on the co-enforcement of migrant worker
rights on the books in the United States (chapter 3), while many others took a
more inclusive approach encompassing economic, social, and cultural rights in
the receiving country (chapter 4) and back in Mexico (chapter 5).
Moreover, state targets often varied. In local communities, these could
include the consul in charge of the Departamento de Protección, but most often
the advocacy target was a low-level functionary who, day in and day out, heard the
complaints of workers struggling to navigate the behemoth consular bureau-
cracy. During Labor Rights Week, the consular network would host labor allies
(public officials and private civil society actors) to conduct outreach and “­ Know
Your Rights” workshops to their captive audiences of migrants (as described in
chapter 3). The consulate office also provided a podium for higher-ups from the
embassy who came to share their vision for diaspora engagement with community
leaders. In places like Chicago—home to a seasoned corps of progressive labor
advocates—these ambassadors and ministers rarely escaped without receiving an
earful from their skeptical constituents (as told in chapter 4). Beyond the formal
petitions lodged to specific National Administrative Offices by coalitions of well-
funded advocates based in the United States, Mexican civil society (based largely
in the capital city) and allied labor federations continuously pressed the Mexican
government on migrants’ portable rights and ultimately their right to stay home
(as outlined in chapter 5). Each of these forms of migrant voice ensured that the
formal declarations, memoranda, and agreements would have some enforcement
bite and, at the very least, not become letra muerta.

The Possibilities and Limits of Tripartite Co-enforcement

Our research revisits tripartite co-enforcement and situates the role of the sending
state in the coproduction of labor regulation. The SRE and its various ­bureaucracies
156    Conclusion

and mechanisms for diaspora management offer a menu of supporting services

for vulnerable migrants through the claims process. Despite its drawbacks, the
Mexican consular network espouses an ideal version of immigrant rights claims
making in which rights mobilization is not exclusively tied to deportation preven-
tion, services are delivered in a claimant’s language and according to the claimant’s
cultural sensibility, and a single ally can help manage a case and follow up with
relevant bureaucrats directly as a claim inevitably drags on. The ultimate goal of
the annual Labor Rights Week is to leverage the collaborative synergy of consular
partners to educate workers about their rights, introduce each relevant agency
in a neutral and safe space, and, in the best-case scenario, bring these resources
directly into the community.
Yet we find that despite all their benefits, consulate offices are imperfect bro-
kers. Labor regulation is only one of many priorities that consular Departments
of Protection must juggle, and consular officials (who do not tend to stay long in a
given post) bring with them their own agenda and list of programmatic priorities.
Charismatic leaders often seek to leave a bold legacy, but their favored projects
can vary substantially, from prison advocacy for Mexican inmates on death row to
culture and art exhibits, fellowships for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals
(DACA) students, and subnational trade missions. In the day-to-day operations of
any Mexican consulate office, the issue of labor rights always has stiff competition.
What is more, labor rights advocacy is a perennially underfunded priority, and the
sheer magnitude of consular responsibilities and tasks can quickly overwhelm
the best intents for outreach and direct service. This research thus highlights the
need for greater institutional analysis of how priorities are set and executed within
the consular network offices.
The collaborative nature of co-enforcement means that civil society/worker
advocates must now coordinate with US labor agencies and Mexican diplomats,
who sometimes—but not always—work in concert with each other. Harkening
back to Piore and Shrank (2018), labor regulation is largely dependent on street-
level bureaucrats who exercise an enormous amount of discretion (Lipsky 1980).
And while this situation would ideally create an all-hands-on-deck approach that
was mutually beneficial to all parties, what we find is that consular officials can
sometimes cut out civil society advocates who are deemed too demanding, needy,
or intent on the consulate sharing their labor organizing goals. They opt instead
for direct partnerships with US regulators, whose directives are narrower in scope
and less contentious and who are generally easier to work with. Consular officials
are often civil service diplomats with narrow training, meager net salaries, and
their own goals for promotion in the uncertain and highly political bureaucracy
in which they are embedded. Therefore, while the sending state provides another
important opportunity for supporting claims making and collaborating with local
community partners (Gleeson 2016), it suffers from many of the same constraints
as US labor regulators. This suggests that the work of an expanding set of actors
 Conclusion    157

engaged in reactive claims making will never be a sufficient substitute for mean-
ingful strategic enforcement and broader efforts to shift labor power, as we explain
in the first chapter (Piore and Schrank 2018; Goldman 2018).

How Place Matters

Any study of enforcement, civil society advocacy, and the role of the sending state
must be locally grounded. Our research reveals the importance of place for under-
standing the devolution of enforcement patterns, as well as the factors shaping
policy implementation (whether at the supranational, bilateral, or national level)
(Varsanyi 2010). In the case of labor standards enforcement, certain state and
local policies determine which enforcement agencies are relevant partners for co-
enforcement. Labor and social movement actors simultaneously partner with and
push against regulators, so local context also determines which ones they specifi-
cally target for accountability (Fine and Gordon 2010). For immigrant workers,
labor policy inevitably clashes with federal immigration enforcement policy, and
indeed, across the country various communities can skew either “pro rule of law”
or “immigrant friendly.” Yet even in communities defined as “sanctuaries,” federal
immigration enforcement is ubiquitous. On the flip side, in rural and other new
destination contexts where immigrant reception is more circumspect and some-
times outright hostile, such as in Raleigh, North Carolina, immigrant advocates
have worked tirelessly to create important openings for change.
Within this varied context the Mexican government implements its mandate to
provide legal protection for its citizens living abroad. Industry differences across
regions shape the priorities and statutory contexts for labor rights, as well as the
outreach programming and coalition partnerships that are formed. For example,
the concerns of agricultural workers in California’s Central Valley have led other
activists to focus on the labor conditions for construction workers in the boom-
ing residential construction markets of places like Houston, Atlanta, and Dallas.
However, while California’s Labor Commission and Agricultural Labor Relations
Board provide some oversight over the agricultural industry there (collective bar-
gaining rights that are otherwise absent from federal protections), in Texas and
Georgia the dearth of state oversight leaves federal agencies as the main regulatory
actor and contact point with foreign consulates. And even within states, regional
differences can matter greatly, as central city populations are far better served than
more isolated rural and suburban communities distant from the general consulate
offices located in the urban metropolis. While mobile consulate mechanisms—
sporadically coordinated and notoriously understaffed—meet part of this rural
demand, they do little to extend the lasting collaborative potential of the consular
network in newer destinations.
Demography also plays an important role in differentiating the strategies of
each of the fifty-two consular offices. Places with large and long-established Mexi-
can immigrant populations have offices with more resources and personnel, and
158    Conclusion

in turn more capacity to respond to community needs. However, these traditional

and historic immigrant destinations are also home to dense concentrations of civil
society groups, which can sometimes render the local consulate a less relevant
actor. Nonetheless, in hyperdiverse global cities like Houston, Los Angeles, and
New York City, the Mexican consulate can take on the role of “elder brother,” lead-
ing the consulate corps from Latin America in service and cultural programming
for the Latino immigrant population as a whole. In places like California and
Texas—home to ten and eleven offices respectively—cooperation between offices
can also multiply capacity. Yet in cities with more recent indigenous migrant pop-
ulations, such as Orlando, Miami, and Raleigh, local consulates have struggled to
bridge the linguistic gap for non-Spanish-speaking migrants and to combat the
classism and endemic racism of some diplomatic personnel.
Local consular priorities also vary according to the leadership of each consular
office, whose aims often end up competing with those of labor rights advocates.
The Departamento de Protección, for example, has no specific mandate or budget
to handle workplace concerns, and thus its ability to funnel resources to labor out-
reach is highly variable across offices and changing presidential administrations.
In this regard, immigrant civil society becomes a critical resource for orienting
new staff (who may have scant knowledge of local labor issues and the regula-
tory bureaucracies that workers must navigate). A select group of these NGOs
may even become consulate contractors to litigate high-impact labor/immigra-
tion cases (e.g., abogados consultores), or partners in staffing hotlines (e.g., the
Catholic nonprofit in New York that staffs the LABORAL line or the collection
of groups that help run the EMPLEO hotline in Southern California). These col-
laborations have provided the model for other consular collaborations, such as the
EMPLEO-Pinoy partnership between the Consulate of the Philippines, state and
federal agencies, and advocates in seven Southern California counties (including
the Filipino Worker Center) (Constante 2015). Another place-based challenge is the
lack of public transparency and social oversight in the provision of contracts to
local law firms, which can create a climate in which conspiracy theories and allega-
tions of fraud proliferate.

The Need for Portable Rights

For advocates working from within Mexico and across North America and beyond,
the local labor standards enforcement bureaucracy is not their biggest target. Nor
is the consular network. Many US-based organizations with satellite offices in
Mexico (Mexico City in particular) have led strategically assembled legal teams to
defend the rights of guest workers in the United States by calling on the protections
afforded by the NAALC. Petitions are carefully curated by alt-labor groups that
focus on specific industries and sympathetic workers who are willing to testify in
long and protracted battles with limited odds of success. These efforts have created
very narrow material wins for some groups of affected workers and have succeeded
 Conclusion    159

in putting both governments on notice. While not a complete deterrent, the high
cost of this litigation sends a message to employers and labor recruiters looking to
improve their bottom line by exploiting low-paid migrant workers.
Navigating international law arenas without the help of experts with law
degrees is a nonstarter for the average person. For a returned worker awaiting res-
titution, winning or losing a wage theft case can have long-lasting effects and may
affect reinstatement or trigger blacklisting in the next hiring season. The small
group of dedicated pro bono lawyers mounting international class-action lawsuits
to demand decent work conditions for temporary guest workers is part of a larger
strategy to shift industry norms. These transnational legal advocates carefully
court funders and supporters to change on-the-ground reality: the international
temporary foreign worker recruitment system is rife with abuse, and the meager
enforcement mechanisms in place are in desperate need of an overhaul.
These citizen petitions result from the work of well-funded (primarily US)
philanthropy organizations, activist lawyers, on-the-ground organizers in rural
areas (including in countries of origin), a credible class of plaintiffs, and a strong
coalition focused on garnering broad public support. The campaigns are not easy
to execute, sometimes requiring decades of building trust, often among strange
bedfellows. Moreover, the ability to maintain a presence in migrant communities
is hampered by security concerns, which have led some transnational NGOs to
abandon their original outposts to protect their staff ’s safety. Even in Mexico City,
where violence is moderate compared to outlying communities, local organization
offices have had to reinforce their security protocols.
Keck and Sikkink’s boomerang effect model suggests that advocates in the
Global South need their Global North counterparts to effect change. However,
we find significant regional divides between US-based organizations and groups
rooted in Mexico. Los norteamericanos, as US and Canadian groups are often
called, tend to garner disproportionate attention, with a focus on demands for
legalization and calls to end employer impunity for workplace violations. Mexico-
based groups, meanwhile, have focused increasingly on the “right to stay home”
by reclaiming food sovereignty and calling attention to the needs of returning
migrants seeking to reintegrate (or integrate for the first time) into the Mexican
economy, social institutions, and educational and health care systems. While US-
based immigrant advocates have fought tirelessly to reunite families who have
been torn apart by detention and deportation—calling for visas that would make
a path to legalization possible—a return to the United States is not always the big-
gest priority for Mexican civil society. As Mexico has gradually transformed into a
country of transit, expulsion, and destination, immigrant advocates have grappled
with the urgent needs stemming from a chaotic border where both governments
collude to trample on migrant rights on both sides of the border.
Rather than viewing their country as simply the David to the US Goliath,
Mexican advocates have repeatedly called on Mexico to account for its role in the
160    Conclusion

abuse of migrants at its southern border. As a major transit country that is now
forced to contend with the aftereffects of Central America’s brutal civil wars of the
1980s, Mexico has time and again feigned innocence as it denounces the United
States for human rights abuses. Meanwhile, it willingly implements the “Remain in
Mexico” policy of the US and expels destitute migrants from its own border com-
munities without due process. After Mexico offered refuge to twenty-four Afghan
journalists in the wake of the chaotic US military withdrawal from Afghanistan in
2021, Mexico’s foreign minister and head of the consular network Marcelo Ebrard
explained, “Maybe society in the United States is not aware of the Mexican tra-
dition in terms of refugees.” When he was pressed on the irony of making this
statement while his country was simultaneously “stemming the tide of Central
American migrants,” the foreign minister responded that it was wholly consistent
with Mexico’s “push to make clear the difference between economic migrants and
the people who are looking for refuge and asylum” (B. Smith 2021). Indeed, this
illusory migrant-refugee binary, Rebecca Hamlin argues, is generated and forti-
fied by the need to uphold state sovereignty around who has the right to entry
(Hamlin 2021; FitzGerald and Arar 2018).3 In the aftermath of this episode, Ebrard
made public promises to process the asylum requests of thirteen thousand Haitian
immigrants (teleSUR 2021). However, journalists continue to report on how the
Instituto Nacional de Migración / National Immigration Institute has carried out
ongoing deportations of migrants back to Port-au-Prince from Mexico (El Sol de
México 2021).
As the region revisits possibilities for immigration reform, transnational advo-
cates denounce any new proposals for guest worker programs that, harkening back
to the Bracero Program, create cycles of debt and indenture (Gordon 2006). These
programs inherently weaken labor protections and fuel an underground labor
brokerage economy in which migrant workers are the least likely to benefit while
a small group of growers reap significant profits. Moreover, though the Mexican
government can indeed be a valuable resource for funneling restitution back to
returned migrants (if and when they win their labor claims), Mexico has notori-
ously blocked any reforms that would create real improvements for the emigrant
labor force. In 2014, after being held accountable for violations under the bilateral
labor side accords, Mexico—via its National Administrative Office—was forced
to institute changes to ensure that H-2A workers would receive information and
resources prior to departing north. The long-lasting institutionalization of these
supports remains uncertain.
The consular network represents a space where Mexican migrants can find
refuge from endemic immigration enforcement and where they can demand
­linguistic and culturally appropriate support for navigating US laws and bureau-
cracies. Mexican immigrants on the whole, however, do not trust the Mexican
­government any more than Mexicans in Mexico trust their government. The
opaque and antidemocratic institutions that Mexicans must navigate to exercise
 Conclusion    161

their full citizenship rights generate a rational sense of caution and wariness (Fox
2007). After the ousting of the Salinas de Gortari administration in 1994 marked
the end of an era of neoliberal antagonism toward migrants, governments inau-
gurated a rapprochement that included more forceful demands to defend migrant
rights in the United States and Mexico. This shift, however, must be understood
not only in terms of the dispositions of government leaders but also within the
context of migrant advocates demanding change, budget transparency, and social
accountability. This push now includes extending domestic rights and, increas-
ingly, making rights portable (Caron and Lyon, forthcoming).

Immigrant Civil Society Is Not a Monolith

The literature on state-society relations has previously focused on efforts to hold
governments accountable to promote rural democratization (Fox 2007), politi-
cal migrant engagement (Félix 2019), and the use of collective remittances for
rural development (Goldring 2003; Duquette-Rury 2019; Bada 2014; Iskander
2010; Byrnes 2003). In our book, chapters 3 and 4 reveal the ever-shifting nature
and complexity of these relations, which are defined by competing agendas and
demands. For civil society groups involved in the relatively straightforward task of
labor co-enforcement, there are well-defined ways in which the consular network
can partner with labor organizations and legal service providers to educate work-
ers about their rights. Labor Rights Week has created a template for turning the
physical consulate office into a space for labor education and for training consular
staff to field community queries about state and federal protections. In practical
terms, local consulates are also able to leverage their diplomatic standing to inter-
face with federal regulators and follow up with claims or cases in ways that civil
society advocates rarely can. And for returned migrants, consular staff become a
critical resource for tracking down claimants who are owed restitution.
Yet beyond the labor advocates and lawyers engaged in the formal bureaucracy
of labor standards enforcement, the consular network—as an emissary of the
sending state—can be a more complicated partner. There are ideological divides
even within the labor movement over the extent of consular collaboration, with
some wanting to work within the existing system to mobilize workers’ demands
and others more critical of the formal bureaucracy and its enablers—including
the Mexican state and its representatives. More importantly, immigrant advocates
vary in terms of what demands they make of Mexico: whether to focus on the chal-
lenges of immigrant life in the United States, the events that led to their decision
to leave home, or both. The endemic corruption in Mexican governance, the farce
of postrevolution labor protections (in a country where over half the population
is in the informal labor market and fails to qualify in any way), and the deep-
seated frustrations that immigrants relive with every visit to the overburdened
and understaffed consular office color the relationship between Mexico’s govern-
ment and many immigrant advocates. Moreover, the official consular directive to
162    Conclusion

stay “neutral” in the host country means that paradoxically, the same diplomatic
standing that gives consulates an opening to advocate for their citizens abroad also
renders them formally unable to visibly advocate for them in most struggles for
basic justice. Consulates therefore must balance this diplomatic stance with the
immediate need to offer meaningful and direct advocacy to show their constitu-
ents that they truly care about their emigrants.
All this explains why civil society groups may opt to work from within or from
outside the system. While the Chicago consulate has a long history of offering
up its building for labor union events, some advocates have far more experience
picketing outside that space, denouncing Mexican government impunity and the
failure to respect the rights of braceros and electrical, mining, or newspaper labor
unions, for example. The situation is even more complicated for other groups. For
example, hometown associations often work with the consulate to funnel remit-
tance dollars back to their communities of origin, often to fund development proj-
ects that should in theory be the responsibility of any functioning state rather than
that of migrants (Bada 2016). These same organizations, however, have also force-
fully lobbied for additional rights for expatriates, including the right to vote, the
right to be elected to political office, the right to extend Mexican nationality by
jus sanguinis indefinitely, and the right to gain representation in the now largely
defunct CCIME. While some activist leaders have leveraged their consular access
narrowly for personal gain, they have also crucially pressured Mexico not only on
perennial issues such as trade, development, education, and access to health care
but also when individual emergencies arise and a direct consular connection is
needed to cut through red tape. These connections, however, are tenuous, requir-
ing constant rebuilding as career diplomats are (regularly) reassigned and rotated.

E P I L O G U E : I M M IG R A N T WO R K E R R IG H T S A M I D
PA N D E M IC S A N D P O L I T IC A L C R I SI S

The fieldwork for this book spanned over a decade, drawing to a close prior
to the COVID-19 pandemic, which was deadliest for low-wage migrant workers in
the United States, the largest plurality of whom are Mexican. In the United
States, the migrant workforce accounted for more than 16 percent of the health
care sector in 2020 (BBVA Foundation and Ministry of the Interior 2021), while
two-thirds of hired farmworkers were born in Mexico (Ornelas et al. 2021). By
May of 2020, the SRE reported that 959 Mexicans had died of COVID-19 in the
United States, 67 percent of them in the state of New York. The news prompted a
Mexican senator to issue a resolution encouraging the consular network to cover
the corpse repatriation of all those who had died of COVID-19 in the United
States. This led to the return of 245 ash-filled urns, which were transported in a
military plane from New York City to Mexico City in July 2020. As the fatalities
mounted, however, the SRE discontinued tabulating the death count and instead
 Conclusion    163

issued a special how-to guide for handling corpse or ashes repatriation in times of
COVID-19 (Redacción Animal Político 2020; Zepeda 2020).
This tragic scenario brings into sharp relief the ways in which diasporic bureau-
cracies become relevant, even in the afterlife. The necropolitics of counting and
honoring the victims, however, should not overshadow the various inequities laid
bare by the pandemic, including severe economic inequality, housing instability,
barriers to health care access, and lack of social provision more broadly. During this
crisis, the meager infusions of cash assistance provided by the US federal govern-
ment excluded the most vulnerable immigrants, rental aid was difficult to access,
and many immigrants feared making use of eviction moratorium protections
(Cruz Guevarra, Bandlamudi, and Montecillo 2021). Mexico also failed its most
vulnerable. While access to vaccines was essentially universal in the United States,
in Mexico migrants from Central America and elsewhere were largely excluded in
the early months of vaccine availability. The Center for Justice and Interna-
tional Law filed a report to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of
Migrants denouncing the lack of access to health care for migrants in transit with
COVID-19. Pressure from local advocates mounted at the local level until Mexi-
co’s federal government, as well as some state health departments, agreed to offer
limited access to vaccines for migrants (Cervantes 2021; CEJIL 2020; Z ­ onaDocs—
Periodismo en Resistencia 2021).
Consular assistance played an important role during the pandemic, espe-
cially in aiding travelers and visitors stranded outside their home country (IOM
Research n.d.). In the United States, Mexican consular offices worked to direct
food-insecure families to area food banks. In San Jose, these efforts were carried
out in conjunction with the Ventanilla de Asesoría Financiera and the Mission
Asset Fund (Consulado General de México en San José 2021). In Salt Lake City,
consular officials circulated resource guides promoting safety measures and point-
ing to health care and other resources (Consulado General de México en Salt Lake
City 2021). The Chicago consulate (which as of this writing covers counties in both
Illinois and Indiana) created a guide specific to resources in the state of Indiana,
encouraging migrants to also call the Centro de Información y Asistencia a Mexi-
canos / Center for Assistance and Information to Mexicans for navigational help
(Consulado General de México en Chicago 2021). And in Miami, consular out-
reach included support from the Ventanilla de Salud, the Ventanilla de Orient-
ación Educativa, and the Ventanilla de Atención Integral para la Mujer (with a
nod to the rise in domestic violence during the shutdown) (Consulado General
de México en Miami 2021). The New York consular office advertised a variety of
state-run and philanthropic relief funds for restaurant and gig workers in New
York City. Indeed, we identified at least two dozen such announcements by differ-
ent Mexican consular offices across the country.4
Yet ultimately these resource and referral sheets reflected very little direct
investment in relief efforts by Mexico, which is understandable given the c­ ountry’s
164    Conclusion

l­imited response to the pandemic as a whole. Mexico’s central-left government

inherited an underfunded patchwork of health care systems that quickly buckled
under pressure, and the government increased health-related expenditures dur-
ing the pandemic only slightly. By and large, the thorniest challenge for workers
involved deciding whether to ignore the government’s stay-at-home orders given
the limited COVID-19 financial support available to citizens and businesses. They
had little choice. The economic shock caused by the pandemic in Mexico forced
workers to ignore stay-at-home orders in the absence of robust emergency relief
(even well into one of the largest case surges of the winter that caused oxygen short-
ages followed by a significant rise in deaths in January of 2021). Amid this nation-
wide predicament, migrants in transit through Mexico—given their segmented
incorporation into Mexico’s labor market—had fragmented access (at best) to
housing, health care, and other basic necessities (Zapata and Prieto Rosas 2020).
Today, undocumented Mexican immigrants continue to battle not only the
health and economic impacts of the pandemic but also the ongoing effects of
being concentrated in jobs that often lack health insurance (Duncan and Horton
2020), the exclusions for undocumented residents under the Affordable Care Act
(US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services n.d.), and very uneven Med-
icaid access (Kaiser Family Foundation 2021). Under the Trump administration,
changes to Public Charge rules created enormous confusion and made it difficult
to convince even qualified immigrants to access the state and federal aid for which
they were eligible (National Low Income Housing Coalition n.d.).
In sum, the COVID-19 pandemic has reaffirmed that an inquiry into the send-
ing state’s role in managing and engaging its diaspora must also consider the need
for global coordination to ensure the dignity of work and basic social protections.
This inquiry, however, cannot take place without a serious critique of capitalism
and the centrality of free trade in bilateral negotiations, most recently evident in
the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). Transnational civil soci-
ety has played a key role in broadening the labor protections under discussion in
such negotiations (as well as those in other regional instruments such as the Cen-
tral American Free Trade Agreement). A year into the USMCA, advocates have
noted an improvement over NAFTA in terms of protections afforded to workers,
though they have highlighted the continued need for real compliance mechanisms
(as they did in their first petition under the USMCA in March 2021, which also
alleged US violations of gender-based discrimination protections). The CDM used
this initial petition as a point of departure to call on Mexico to pressure the United
States into compliance, a reversal of the typical boomerang effect that tends to
focus on leveraging the power of the “Global North.” The need for bilateral coop-
eration was the running theme in these testimonies, which called on both govern-
ments to take charge of their responsibilities toward labor migrants. In addition
to demanding concrete changes in the United States, these advocates expected the
Mexican government to address the abuses that would-be migrants face when
being recruited from their own homeland (Peña 2021; CDM 2021).
 Conclusion    165

D I R E C T IO N S F O R F U T U R E R E SE A R C H

Our research suggests that the sending state should continue to be seen as both a
coalition partner and an accountability target. While the United States is a prime
immigrant destination, its relationship with Mexico is unique. Mexico does not
replicate its vast bureaucratic presence in the United States in any other country,
nor does any other country come close to replicating this consular presence in the
United States. Further research, therefore, is needed to continue to hone the com-
parative scope conditions of these findings, and many scholars have already begun
to conduct it (Iskander 2010; Margheritis 2016; Okano-Heijmans and Price 2019;
Pedroza et al. 2016). Further, with fifty-two offices (fifty-seven including those in
Canada), the Mexican consular network is not so much one central system as a
collection of local outposts with rotating leaders who must respond to local norms
and customs. Additional locally grounded research will continue to be important
as new and emerging destinations evolve into well-established immigrant com-
munities. And as Mexican migrants continue to move into diverse Latino metro-
politan areas, it will be important to consider the role that pan-ethnic civil society
plays in urging the entire Latin American consular network toward a more active
negotiating stance with horizontal resource-sharing mechanisms (Délano Alonso
2018). The study of the Mexican state and its consular network (and the foreign
ministry as a whole) as a complex institution (rather than a single bureaucracy)
will continue to benefit from institutional ethnographies and an organizational
approach that can disentangle the competing interests and power dynamics from
within. As an example of this complexity, the various Ventanillas—some of them
more aspirational than functional—often have very different directives and targets.
Even with regard to labor rights, the legalistic instincts of Protección look very dif-
ferent from the outreach and prevention-oriented approach of Comunidades. The
consuls in charge of each of these directorates wield a great deal of power, and
more work is needed to understand their role in mediating rules from the central
offices in Mexico City. Moreover, as we’ve seen with the implementation of the
bilateral memoranda of understanding, and in light of the petitions to the National
Administrative Office, the foreign ministry has increasingly coordinated with a
range of domestic offices like the Secretaría del Trabajo y Previsión Social, the
Secretaría de Desarrollo Social, the Secretaría de Hacienda y Crédito Público, and
the Secretaría de la Función Pública, to name a few. Some of these ministries have
offered transversal services to migrants and returnees, but resources to reintegrate
Mexican migrants as binational citizens with full rights lack institutionalization
and are still exceedingly opaque.
Similarly, US domestic agencies such as the DOL are complex entities that
have to navigate different statutory obligations at home (such as the Wage and
Hour Division and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration) as well as
international engagements (such as the International Bureau of Labor Affairs—the
unit responsible for coordinating the formal bilateral accords and collaborative
166    Conclusion

outreach efforts). Indeed, beyond the DOL, the wide array of other federal and
state labor regulators all have somewhat distinct relationships with the consular
network. More research is needed to understand what drives these dynamics,
especially as each agency (within and far beyond the labor regulation sphere) con-
tinues to contend with the pall that immigration enforcement (much of it concen-
trated in the workplace) casts over immigrants’ claims to their rights.
The Mexican consular network needs to be understood as working within not
only the broader bureaucratic arena of labor standards enforcement and immi-
gration “management” but also the wide array of other social outreach and co-
enforcement entities described above. Indeed, the aspirational CORPS system
established by the DOL (not currently located in all offices) situates the consular
network in this broader ecology. To what extent destination states coordinate
with sending states as bilateral partners with unique diplomatic power or as com-
munity-based entities with privileged access to migrant populations reveals the
complexity of the destination state’s migrant integration apparatus. In the United
States, this coordination is largely ad hoc—with the exception of refugee resettle-
ment—in contrast to more robust systems of cooperation in Canada (Bloemraad
2006a, 2006b). These factors have a significant effect not only on individual immi-
grant trajectories but also on how bilateral migration management relationships
evolve. Comparative work with other major Mexican immigrant destinations
(most notably Canada) should continue, especially as US immigration propos-
als (even those championed by many left-of-center immigration policy circles)
are likely to resemble Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker and points-based pro-
grams (Chishti, Gelatt, and Meissner 2021).
All told, our research reveals that the need for subnational comparative
­fieldwork will continue, as will the need to continue systematic reviews of govern-
ment archives. Much of this research relied on public records requests from INAI.
While intended to increase transparency with the broader public, the INAI sys-
tem (and the parallel FOIA—Freedom of Information Act—system in the United
States) requires additional systematization to fully clarify the patterns of invest-
ment to implement bilateral accords via the consular network and how they vary
across regions. Similarly, it is clear that some data were lost to the public in the wake
of the Trump administration, leaving some important holes in our knowledge of
how the DOL and other sister agencies were conducting outreach and engaging
in co-enforcement with the sending state and other partners. Indeed, some web
archives simply disappeared. Further, this labor rights fieldwork involves chasing
moving targets that will require periodic review as administrations shift (every
six years in Mexico), as laws change (such as the much-anticipated immigration
reform Biden has promised but has yet to realize as of this writing), and as bilateral
agreements emerge and fall away. Moreover, to the extent that state and local gov-
ernments will continue to be critical partners for worker struggles, the consular
network will need to remain relevant in jurisdictions where their lateral federal
partners are not the main attraction for claims making.
 Conclusion    167

Finally, labor and migration scholars will need to continue to skate the fine
line between seeing national governments as relevant actors for managing their
vulnerable migrants abroad and paying attention to the broader forces shaping
the precarity of global labor in an era of advanced capitalism. While nation-states
are not the sole architects of capitalist economies, these logics permeate the gover-
nance of borders and the bodies that move across them. The neoliberal consensus
is also relevant for how we understand the prospects for organized labor, which
has—not always but increasingly—embraced migrant members, and for global
civil society, which often experiences cleavages depending on the willingness to
accept neoliberal narratives and solutions. Neoliberalism has also shaped how
emigrants are viewed by the sending state, as either human beings entitled to full
rights or export commodities to be managed.
As the frontal attack on labor unions continues unabated and unionization
campaigns become increasingly difficult to win in both Mexico and the United
States, labor advocates may turn to each other more frequently, emphasizing com-
monalities and de-emphasizing differences. The common goal of retrofitting a reg-
ulatory framework aimed at reducing unfair competitive national advantages that
exploit wage differentials among the most vulnerable workers is a perennial aspi-
ration. US advocates may continue to increase pressure on the DOL to improve
enforcement mechanisms for all workers regardless of legal status, while Mexi-
can advocates may continue demanding that the Mexican government uphold the
constitutional right to dignified social work. Accomplishing such reforms would
allow people to stay home and defend the rights of those who were forced to cross
a border to find higher-paying jobs.
 Note s

1 . I N T R O DU C T IO N

1. Throughout this book, we use a variety of terms including sending/receiving states,

origin/destination countries, and country of origin/destination. We are aware of the scholarly
and political debate around these terms. Most significantly, colleagues have argued against
the term sending state because it pigeonholes a particular country into one role and ac-
cords it a (circumscribed) agency as “sending” migrants, often ignoring and even reifying
global power differentials. However, we argue that alternatives like origin country are not
neutral terms either. Both accept the nation-state/country construct uncritically, ignoring
the ways in which countries have often arbitrarily drawn borders around ethnic communi-
ties, ­leaving us with origins on one side and destinations on another. For the purposes of
this ­inquiry, we have chosen to accept these constructs rather than attempt to coin new
and potentially equally fraught terms. Often we refer to sending states to emphasize the
positionality of Mexico’s Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores / Ministry of Foreign Affairs
and its explicit directive to manage and engage with its diaspora. We also adopt the term
transit country when appropriate to refer to Mexico’s simultaneous position as a country of
origin, destination, and transit of migrants, some of whom continue on to other parts
of North America.
2. The impact of this expanded political influence of emigrants on Mexican politics is
undeniable. The stakes of expatriate voting were highest during the 2006 election, in which
Felipe Calderón was elected by a razor-thin margin of less than a quarter-million votes.
In the 2006 election, 32,621 Mexican expatriate citizens voted in the presidential race and
40,876 registered to vote. In the 2018 presidential election, 181,873 Mexican citizens living
abroad registered to vote, and a vast majority (65 percent) of the absentee electorate favored
Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the left-leaning presidential winner.

169
170    Notes

3. On the whole, undocumented migrants are often concentrated in industries where

wage and hour violations, racial discrimination, sexual harassment, and barriers to collec-
tive organizing are rampant (Bernhardt, Spiller, and Theodore 2013).
4. This definition is inspired by the republican tripartite model outlined in Ian Ayres
and John Braithwaite’s (1992, 56–60) Responsive Regulation, under which public interest
groups get access to the same information as the regulator, a seat at the negotiating table
with the employment firm and enforcement agency, and the same standing as the regula-
tor to sue or prosecute under the regulatory statutes. When successfully implemented, co-
enforcement is beneficial for migrant and other workers alike, as well as for industry and
the government.
5. While studies analyzing the outcomes of these new state-society partnerships are
limited, critics have pointed to the unequal power among participants and the highly local
nature of these initiatives (Oswalt and Rosado Marzán 2018).
6. Article 123 of Mexico’s constitution states that “every person has the right to dignified
and socially useful employment. To attain that goal, the state will promote, according to
existing laws, employment creation and the social organization of work” (our translation).
7. Since 1917, Mexico’s liberal constitution and federal labor legislation have placed clear
limits on the rights of foreigners and immigrants, curtailing their full freedom of expression
and limiting their access to the domestic labor market, among other restrictions (Yankelev-
ich 2019). Because of entrenched and widespread impunity in its judicial system, Mexico is
among the worst offenders in allowing human trafficking within its borders and abetting
the smuggling of its own citizens to the United States (Rojas Wiesner 2022).
8. Some labor scholars estimate that 37 percent of undocumented immigrant work-
ers are victims of minimum-wage violations, compared with 24 percent for immigrants
with work authorization and 16 percent for US-born workers. More than a quarter of all
low-wage workers in the country’s largest cities are paid less than the legally mandated
minimum wage, and overtime violations are rampant (Bernhardt, Milkman, and Theodore
2009).
9. Some cities such as Seattle have implemented harsh penalties for minimum-wage vi-
olations and/or have instituted wage theft prevention initiatives in conjunction with worker
advocates (Galvin 2016; Theodore 2020).
10. These cities represent a range of economic, demographic, and political contexts.
In each case, local labor markets both incorporate and displace immigrant labor (Simsek-
Caglar and Schiller 2018) as urban regeneration, real estate development, and capital accu-
mulation have occurred in large part on the backs of low-wage and immigrant labor forces.
Our sample includes cities whose overall foreign-born populations are significantly above
the national average (13.5 percent), such as Miami, Chicago, and Dallas, and also newer
immigrant destinations (including Omaha, Raleigh, and Orlando). In the majority of the
cities in our sample (11), Mexicans make up more than a quarter of the total immigrant
population.

2 . T H E M E X IC A N C O N SU L AT E N E T WO R K A S A N A DVO C AC Y I N S T I T U T IO N

1. Using family remittances as leverage to demand more consular services represents

just one perspective. Alternative arguments utilized by Mexican migrant civil society
 Notes    171

groups fully rest on citizenship claims as the basis of demanding more consular services,
regardless of economic contributions to family remittances.
2. For example, consular staff need to be constantly retrained on local minimum-wage
standards and other state labor protections every time they get reassigned to a different
consular jurisdiction within the United States.
3. Section b of article 36 states, “If he so requests, the competent authorities of the re-
ceiving State shall, without delay, inform the consular post of the sending State if, within its
consular district, a national of that State is arrested or committed to prison or to custody
pending trial or is detained in any other manner.” Section c states that “consular officers
shall have the right to visit a national of the sending State who is in prison, custody or de-
tention, to converse and correspond with him and to arrange for his legal representation”
(United Nations 1967).
4. Both California and New York have strengthened their protections against employer
retaliation on the basis of immigration, though enforcement remains challenging (Costa
2018; Litrownik and Kessler 2020).
5. Eduardo Medina Mora, Mexico’s ambassador to the United States, speech to local
civil society organizations at the Mexican consulate in Chicago. Translation by the authors,
May 29, 2014.
6. Interview, Mexican embassy, Washington, DC, November 8, 2012.
7. According to Keck and Sikkink (1998), the boomerang effect consists of local NGOs
bypassing their government and directly searching out powerful international allies to try
to bring pressure on their state government from outside. This effect usually occurs when
channels between the state and its domestic actors are blocked, as is the case mostly in
nondemocratic societies.
8. The term charro union harkens back to the government-backed railroad unions in
the 1940s led by Jesús Díaz de León, who iconically wore a charro suit, which became a
symbol for party-controlled union corruption (Rubio Campos 2017; Martín 2017).
9. Interview, Frente Auténtico del Trabajo, Mexico City, June 26. 2018.
10. Interview, Mexican embassy, Washington, DC, November 8, 2012.
11. Interview, STPS, Mexico City, August 31, 2015.
12. Interview, STPS, Washington, DC, May 15, 2015.
13. Interview, IME and DGPME, Mexico City, September 19, 2014.
14. Interview, IME, Mexico City, September 19, 2014.
15. Interview, IME, Mexico City, September 19, 2014.
16. Interview, IME, Mexico City, September 19, 2014.
17. In 2002, President Vicente Fox appointed as the IME’s first executive director Cán-
dido Morales, a migrant leader from California affiliated with the California Human Devel-
opment Corporation (CHDC).
18. Interview, Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, Chicago, June 24, 2013.
19. Interview, Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, Chicago, June 24, 2013.
20. We thank Benjamin Davis from the United Steelworkers (USW) for sharing a copy
of the agenda with us.
21. See Gleeson and Bada (2019) for additional detail on interagency coordination.
22. Interview, Mexican embassy, Washington, DC, February 23, 2015.
23. Interview, Mexican embassy, Washington, DC, February 23, 2015.
172    Notes

24. Interview, SRE, Mexico City, October 15, 2014.

25. Interview, Mexican embassy, Washington, DC, February 23, 2015.
26. Interview, DOL, Washington, DC, January 25, 2013.
27. Interview, SRE, Mexico City, October 15, 2014.
28. Interview, DOL, Washington, DC, January 25, 2013.
29. Interview, DOL, Washington, DC, January 25, 2013, and interview, DOL-ILAB,
Washington, DC, October 14, 2014.
30. Interview, DOL, Washington, DC, January 25, 2013.
31. Interview, DOL-ILAB, Washington, DC, October 14, 2014.
32. Interview, SRE, Mexico City, October 15, 2014.
33. Interview, STPS, Washington, DC, May 15, 2015.
34. Interview, SRE, Mexico City, October 15, 2014.
35. Interview, IME, Mexico City, September 19, 2014.
36. Authors’ field notes, Trinational Solidarity Conference, UE Hall, Chicago, October
18, 2017.
37. The precarious position of some Mexican consular personnel sometimes creates
headlines. In January of 2021, the consulates of Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Denver,
Las Vegas, Tucson, Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, Indianapolis, San Francisco, and Presidio
(TX) made news when the National Committee of Local Consular Employees went to the
press to denounce the dismissal of at least fifty local employees in the middle of a p
­ andemic.
They also brought awareness to the low wages and labor insecurity of local personnel work-
ing at consular offices (Ocampo and Reveles 2021).
38. Interview, Mexican consulate, Sacramento, CA, July 7, 2021.
39. For the events of one such consulate, see Casa ALBA Melanie (n.d.).
40. Authors’ field notes, June 2, 2021, and Cámara de Diputados (2018).
41. Interview, Mexican embassy, Washington, DC, October 18, 2012.
42. Interview, Mexican embassy, Washington, DC, February 23, 2015.
43. Request to the Instituto Nacional de Transparencia, Acceso a la Información y Pro-
tección de Datos Personales / National Institute of Transparency, Information Access and
Private Data Protection (INAI) for total number of calls from CIAM.
44. Interview, Mexican embassy, Washington, DC, November 8, 2012.
45. Interview, Mexican embassy, Washington, DC, February 23, 2015.
46. Interview, SRE, Mexico City, October 15, 2014.
47. Interview, Mexican embassy, Washington, DC, October 18, 2012.
48. Interview, Mexican embassy, Washington, DC, October 18, 2012.
49. Interview, IME, Mexico City, September 19, 2014.
50. Interview, Mexican embassy, Washington, DC, November 8, 2012.
51. Interview, Mexican embassy, Washington, DC, November 8, 2012.
52. Request to INAI for event statistics summary for the Semana de Derechos Laborales.
53. Interview, SRE, Mexico City, October 15, 2014.
54. Interview, SRE, Mexico City, October 15, 2014.
55. Interview, SRE, Mexico City, October 15, 2014.
56. For the most recent analysis of Tres por Uno, see Duquette-Rury (2019). Natasha
Iskander (2010, 253), in her pioneering work on the program, claims that the state and
migrants redefined their goals and learned from each other transnationally through a long-
running dance of state-society relations.
 Notes    173

3 . T H E SE N D I N G STAT E A N D C O - E N F O R C E M E N T

1. According to Martínez-Schuldt (2020, 1036), “Specifically, a 10-percent increase in

the number of local immigrant advocacy or related organizations coincides with a ­7-percent
decline in administrative cases. Though my analysis does not consider the efficacy of ap-
proaches to rights protection, my results do suggest that the concentration of local orga-
nizations may lessen the burden consulate offices face in the realm of rights protections.”
2. Chapter 5 highlights transborder efforts to leverage soft-law instruments, including
the roundly critiqued new governance model of corporate good behavior.
3. Bloemraad, de Graauw, and Gleeson (2020, 293–94) define an immigrant organiza-
tion as a “civil society or nonprofit organization that serves or advocates on behalf of one or
more immigrant communities, promotes their cultural heritage, or engages in transnational
relations with countries or regions of origin [de Graauw, Gleeson, and Bloemraad 2013].
Such organizations may include second- or later-generation individuals of a particular
cultural, ethnic, religious, or national-origin background, and even some citizens without
immigrant origins. However, a substantial part of the organization’s interests or activities
should involve issues that tend to distinguish immigrants from native-born citizens, such
as legal status barriers, linguistic or cultural obstacles to service, or concern over economic
or political development in the country of origin.”
4. Interview, SEIU, Chicago, December 4, 2014.
5. Interview, SEIU, San Jose, CA, January 30, 2015.
6. Interview, AFL-CIO, Houston, Harris County, TX, August 8, 2014.
7. Interview, UFCW, Chicago, December 11, 2012.
8. Interview, UFCW, San Jose, CA, April 14, 2014.
9. Interview, UFCW, Chicago, April 25, 2013.
10. Interview, UFCW, Chicago, April 25, 2013.
    11. Interview, AFL-CIO, Houston, Harris County, TX, August 8, 2014.
  12. Indeed, while the two national federations worked out their differences, at the local
level central labor councils across the country signed solidarity charters with their longtime
allies in breakaway unions (McNeill 2007).
13. Interview, Teamsters, Chicago, February 28, 2013.
14. Interview, AFL-CIO, Houston, Harris County, TX, August 8, 2014.
15. Interview, UFCW, Chicago, April 25, 2013.
16. Interview, Teamsters, Chicago, February 28, 2013.
17. Interview, UFCW, Phoenix, AZ, March 21, 2014.
18. Interview, SEIU, Chicago, December 4, 2014.
19. Interview, UFCW, Washington, DC, October 17, 2014.
20. Interview, UFCW, Oakland, CA, November 6, 2012.
21. Interview, UFCW, Washington, DC, October 17, 2014.
22. Interview, UFCW, Washington, DC, October 17, 2014.
23. Interview, UFCW, Phoenix, AZ, March 21, 2014.
24. Interview, Santa Clara and San Benito Counties Building and Construction Trades
Council, San Jose, CA, February 14, 2014.
25. Interview, UFCW, San Jose, CA, April 14, 2014.
26. Interview, AFL-CIO, Houston, Harris County, TX, August 8, 2014.
27. Interview, UFCW, Phoenix, March 21, 2014.
174    Notes

28. Interview, SEIU, San Jose, CA, January 30, 2015.

29. Interview, Santa Clara and San Benito Counties Building and Construction Trades
Council, San Jose, CA, February 14, 2014.
30. Interview, Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division, November 21, 2014.
31. Interview, UFCW, Washington, DC, October 17, 2014.
32. Interview, Roofers Union, San Jose, CA, March 18, 2015.
33. Interview, UFCW, Oakland, CA, November 6, 2012.
34. Interview, SEIU, San Jose, CA, January 30, 2015.
35. Interview, Teamsters, Chicago, February 28, 2013.
36. Interview, SEIU, San Jose, CA, January 30, 2015.
37. Interview, SEIU, San Jose, CA, January 30, 2015.
38. Interview, Teamsters, Chicago, February 28, 2013.
39. Interview, SEIU, San Jose, CA, January 30, 2015.
40. Interview, UFCW, Oakland, CA, November 6, 2012.
41. Interview, Community Justice Project, Reading, PA, July 29, 2015.
42. Interview, Center for Workers’ Rights, Sacramento, CA, January 16, 2015.
43. Interview, Legal Aid of North Carolina, Raleigh, March 21, 2014.
44. Interview, Southern Poverty Law Center, Atlanta, GA, September 25, 2014.
45. Interview, California Rural Legal Assistance, Fresno, November 18, 2014.
46. Interview, Utah Legal Services, Salt Lake City, UT, August 6, 2014.
47. Interview, Catholic Migration Services, New York City, June 5, 2015.
48. Interview, Catholic Migration Services, New York City, June 5, 2015.
49. Interview, Services, Immigrant Rights, and Education Network, San Jose, CA, April
14, 2014.
50. Interview, Wage Justice Center, Los Angeles, November 11, 2013.
51. Interview, Center for Workers’ Rights, Sacramento, CA, January 16, 2015.
52. Interview, Instituto Laboral de la Raza, San Francisco, April 30, 2014.
53. Interview, Instituto Laboral de la Raza, San Francisco, April 30, 2014.
54. Interview, Worksafe, Sacramento, CA, January 5, 2014.
55. Interview, Farmworker and Landscaper Advocacy Project, Chicago, February 7, 2013.
56. Interview, Legal Aid Society-Employment Law Center, Fresno, CA, December 3,
2014.
57. Interview, Santa Clara University, Alexander Law Center, San Jose, CA, June 16, 2014.
58. Interview, Farmworker and Landscaper Advocacy Project, Chicago, February 7, 2013.
59. Interview, Equal Justice Center, Dallas, TX, July 28, 2014.
60. Interview, Equal Justice Center, Dallas, TX, July 28, 2014.
61. Interview, Catholic Migration Services, New York City, June 5, 2015.
62. Interview, Catholic Migration Services, New York City, June 5, 2015.
63. Interview, Catholic Migration Services, New York City, June 5, 2015.
64. Interview, Community Legal Services of Philadelphia, July 23, 2015.
65. Interview, California Rural Legal Assistance, San Francisco, December 17, 2013.
66. Interview, Legal Aid Society, San Francisco, October 2, 2013.
67. Interview, Legal Aid Society-Employment Law Center, Fresno, CA, December 3, 2014.
68. Interview, Legal Aid Society-Employment Law Center, Fresno, CA, December 3, 2014.
69. Interview, La Raza Centro Legal, San Francisco, November 19, 2013.
70. Interview, Center for Workers’ Rights, Sacramento, CA, January 16, 2015.
 Notes    175

71. Interview, Golden Gate University School of Law, Women’s Employment Rights
Clinic, San Francisco, October 2, 2013.
72. Interview, Farmworker and Landscaper Advocacy Project, Chicago, February 7, 2013.
73. Interview, University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law: Immigration Law
Clinic, Tucson, March 28, 2014.
74. Interview, Legal Aid Society, San Francisco, October 2, 2013.
75. Interview, Legal Aid Justice Center, Washington, DC, August 4, 2014.
76. Interview, Bet Tzedek Legal Services, Los Angeles, November 7, 2013.
77. According to Pew, DAPA would have legalized an estimated 3.2 unauthorized Mex-
ican immigrants (two-thirds of those eligible) had it not been later struck down in the
courts. Mexico is the country of origin with the most potential DAPA beneficiaries, with
44 percent of unauthorized Mexicans eligible to apply, compared with 24 percent for other
nationalities (López and Krogstad 2017).
78. Public Talk, Mexican Consulate, Undersecretary for North America, Ministry of
Foreign Affairs, Chicago, October 17, 2013.
79. Interview, Legal Aid Justice Center, Washington DC, August 4, 2014.
80. Interview, Community Justice Project, Reading, PA, July 29, 2015.
81. Interview, Legal Assistance Foundation, Chicago, April 1, 2014.
82. Interview, Mano a Mano Family Resource Center, Chicago, January 31, 2013.
83. Interview, Catholic Migration Services, New York City, June 5, 2015.
84. Interview, Farmworker and Landscaper Advocacy Project, Chicago, February 7, 2013.
85. Interview, Equal Rights Advocates, San Francisco, April 21, 2014.
86. Interview, Farmworker and Landscaper Advocacy Project, Chicago, February 7, 2013.
87. Interview, Catholic Migration Services, New York City, June 5, 2015.
88. Interview, Legal Assistance Foundation, Chicago, April 1, 2014.
89. Interview, Legal Aid Justice Center, Washington, DC, August 4, 2014.
90. Interview, Legal Assistance Foundation, Chicago, April 1, 2014.
91. Interview, North Carolina Justice Center, Raleigh, March 25, 2014.
92. Interview, Golden Gate University School of Law, Women’s Employment Rights
Clinic, San Francisco, October 2, 2013.
93. Interview, Golden Gate University School of Law, Women’s Employment Rights
Clinic, San Francisco, October 2, 2013.

4 . A DVO C AC Y A N D AC C OU N TA B I L I T Y I N S TAT E – C I V I L
S O C I E T Y R E L AT IO N S

1. In September of 1985, a strong earthquake hit Mexico City. The solidarity movement
that ensued rallied multiple groups interested in encouraging a more democratic soci-
ety. One of the most iconic organizing campaigns in the aftermath of the earthquake was
led by a seamstress, Alejandra Martínez, who made it to the ruins of the factory to help
her coworkers and would later establish the Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadoras de la Indu-
stria de la Costura, Confección, Vestido, Similares y Conexos “19 de Septiembre” (teleSUR
2017).
2. “The number of wage and salary workers belonging to unions . . . [is] at 14.3 million
in 2020 . . . . In 2020, 7.2 million employees in the public sector and 7.1 million workers in
the private sector belonged to unions” (BLS-DOL 2021).
176    Notes

3. Community meeting with Undersecretary for North America, Mexican Ministry of

Foreign Affairs, at the Mexican consulate in Chicago, October 17, 2013.
4. Interview, Chicago Workers’ Collaborative, Chicago, March 13, 2013.
5. Interview, ARISE, Chicago, April 25, 2014.
6. Interview, New Immigrant Community Empowerment, New York, December 8, 2014.
7. Interview, New Immigrant Community Empowerment, New York, December 8, 2014.
8. Interview, Asociación Campesina de Florida, Orlando, February 14, 2014.
9. Interview, La Union, New York, April 4, 2015.
10. Interview, Coalition of Immokalee Workers, Miami, October 27, 2014.
11. Interview, Heartland Workers Center, Omaha, NE, October 6, 2014.
12. Interview, Jornaleros Unidos, New York, March 19, 2015.
13. Interview, Coalition of Immokalee Workers, Miami, October 27, 2014.
14. Interview, ARISE, Chicago, April 25, 2014.
15. Interview, Chicago Workers’ Collaborative, Chicago, March 13, 2013.
16. Interview, Heartland Workers Center, Omaha, NE, October 6, 2014.
17. Interview, Day Worker Center of Mountain View, San Jose, CA, January 31, 2014.
18. This covenant clearly asserts the right to work in favorable conditions, which include
freedom of association and the right to strike. These latter two rights are often considered
politicized domains in which consular staff rarely involve themselves.
19. These financial entanglements often limited the types of policy advocacy in which
groups could engage and steered the focus of their service provision. For example, educa-
tion- and health-related causes capture the lion’s share of private philanthropic donations
(Guthrie 2010).
20. Interview, Catholic Migration Services, New York, June 5, 2015.
21. Interview, American Friends Service Committee, Miami, November 13, 2014.
22. Interview, CARECEN Day Labor Center, Los Angeles, December 13, 2013.
23. Interview, New Immigrant Community Empowerment, New York, December 8, 2014.
24. Interview, Catholic Migration Services, New York, June 5, 2015.
25. Interview, Catholic Migration Services, New York, June 5, 2015.
26. Interview, Federación de Zacatecanos del Sur de California, Los Angeles, May 6, 2014.
27. Interview, Hermandad Mexicana, Los Angeles, May 7, 2014.
28. Interview, American Friends Service Committee, Miami, November 13, 2014.
29. Interview, El Centro del Inmigrante, New York, March 26, 2015.
30. Interview, immigrant rights organization, Chicago, February 19, 2013.
31. Interview, Centro Internacional de Derechos Humanos Todo por Ellos, San Diego,
CA, May 7, 2014.
32. Interview, DREAMers’ MOMs, San Diego, CA, May 9, 2014.
33. Interview, Maintenance Cooperation Trust Fund, Los Angeles, November 13, 2013.
34. Interview, Pueblo Sin Fronteras, Dallas, TX, July 28, 2014.
35. Interview, Pueblo Sin Fronteras, Dallas, TX, July 28, 2014.
36. Interview, EcoMaya, Los Angeles, May 9, 2014.
37. Interview, Frente Indígena de Organizaciones Binacionales, Fresno, CA, January 14,
2015.
38. Interview, Coalición de Comunidades Indígenas de Oaxaca, San Diego, CA, April
25, 2014.
39. Interview, Asociación MAYAB, San Francisco, April 30, 2014.
 Notes    177

40. Interview, Angeles sin Fronteras, San Diego, CA, May 10, 2014.
41. Interview, Fe y Justicia Worker Center, Houston, TX, September 23, 2014.
42. Interview, Centro de la Familia de Utah, Salt Lake City, July 28, 2014.
43. Interview, Global Workers Justice Alliance, New York, October 14, 2016.
44. Interview, Centro de los Derechos del Migrante, Washington, DC, August 14, 2014.
45. Interview, Global Workers Justice Alliance, New York, June 11, 2015.
46. Interview, Casa Colima, Los Angeles, May 7, 2014.
47. Interview, Asociación MAYAB, San Francisco, April 29, 2014.
48. Interview, St. Mary’s Cathedral: Immigration Program, Omaha, NE, October 14, 2014.
49. Interview, Day Worker Center of Mountain View, San Jose, CA, January 31, 2014.
50. Interview, Garment Worker Center, Los Angeles, November 13, 2013.
51. Interview, San Francisco Day Labor Program, San Francisco, April 30, 2014.
52. Interview, Arizona Worker Rights Center, Phoenix, June 16, 2014.
53. Interview, Living United for Change in Arizona (LUCHA), Phoenix, July 31, 2014.
54. Interview, Centro de Trabajadores Unidos: Immigrant Workers Project, Chicago,
March 14, 2013.
55. Interview, New Immigrant Community Empowerment, New York, December 15, 2014.
56. Interview, CASA de Maryland, Washington, DC, October 6, 2014.
57. Interview, We Count!, Miami, April 18, 2014.
58. Interview, American Friends Service Committee, Miami, November 13, 2014.
59. Interview, English Skills Learning Center, Salt Lake City, UT, November 13, 2014.
60. Interview, Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights, Atlanta, GA, September 25,
2014.
61. Interview, Heartland Workers Center, Omaha, NE, October 6, 2014.
62. Interview, El Pueblo, Raleigh, NC, June 20, 2014; interview, Comunidades Unidas,
Salt Lake City, UT, January 21, 2015.
63. Interview, Farmworker and Landscaper Advocacy Project, Chicago, February 7.
2013.

5 . T H E ST R AT E G I E S O F T R A N SNAT IO NA L L A B O R
C OA L I T IO N S A N D N E T WO R K S

1. Protection contracts (contratos de protección) refer to collective bargaining agree-

ments that are frequently registered without the knowledge of employees and in which the
employer retains significant discretion in the management of labor relations.
2. For example, for the Mexican government, signing the UN International Convention
on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families
has not been an impediment to denying basic protections to Central American migrants
traversing its southern border while trying to reach the United States (Feldmann Pietsch,
Bada, and Durand Arp-Niesse 2020). To complicate matters, the United States has not rati-
fied this convention, and in 2017 it ended its participation in the UN Global Compact of
Migration, arguing sovereignty concerns.
3. Interview, Global Workers Justice Alliance, Mexico City, August 3, 2015.
4. The concept of portable rights for migrant workers encompasses a demand for justice
prior to, during, and even after migrants return to their country of origin, regardless of their
immigration status (Piper and Grugel 2015).
178    Notes

5. Interview, Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, New York, May 26, 2015.
6. Interview, Border Network for Human Rights, El Paso, TX, October 28, 2019.
7. Interview, Border Network for Human Rights, El Paso, TX, October 28, 2019.
8. For a partial list of donors, see IMUMI (n.d.).
9. In an estimate calculated by Martha Rojas Wiesner, between 2000 and 2006,
1,050,287 migrants were deported by Mexico, and 95.1 percent were sent back to Central
America (Rojas Wiesner 2022).
10. Interview, Comité Fronterizo de Obrer@s, Piedras Negras, Coahuila, June 9, 2018.
11. Interview, Frente Auténtico del Trabajo (FAT), Mexico City, June 26, 2018.
12. Interview, Red Mexicana de Acción Frente al Libre Comercio, Mexico City, July 3,
2018.
13. Interview, Comité Fronterizo de Obrer@s, Piedras Negras, Coahuila, June 9, 2018.
14. Interview, AFL-CIO, Mexico City, May 7, 2018.
15. Interview, Asociación Nacional de Empresas Comercializadoras de Productores del
Campo, Mexico City, August 24, 2018.
16. Interview, Sin Fronteras, Mexico City, June 26, 2018.
17. Interview, Prevención, Capacitación y Defensa del Migrante, Mexico City, March 6,
2018.
18. By November of 2018, multiple migrant caravans from Central America were at-
tempting to cross the Mexico-US border en masse and were met with Mexican and US
police forces trying to disperse them with violent force and tear gas, thus shattering any
aspirational goals toward government accountability and a more humane management of
migrants along the southern and northern borders (París-Pombo and Varela-Huerta 2022).
19. Interview, Jornaleros SAFE, Mexico City, June 26, 2018.
20. Interview, FAT, Mexico City, June 26, 2018.
21. Interview, Centro de los Derechos del Migrante (CDM), Oaxaca, June 15, 2018.
22. Interview, United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), Mexico City, June 22,
2018.
23. Interview, Prevención, Capacitación y Defensa del Migrante, Mexico City, March
6, 2018.
24. The current administration of López Obrador (2018–23) has followed a populist
strategy that includes drastic cuts to public funds that have been used to subsidize private
social service organizations and civil society groups. In 2022, in order to privilege direct
subsidies delivered to citizens and discourage the strengthening of independent civil soci-
ety groups, the president supported a new fiscal initiative to restrict tax-deductible dona-
tions to civil society organizations from both private citizens and corporations (Camarena
2021; Olvera 2020).
25. Interview, Proyecto de Derechos Económicos, Sociales y Culturales, Mexico City,
June 13, 2018.
26. Interview, AFL-CIO, Mexico City, May 7, 2018.
27. Interview, FAT, Mexico City, June 26, 2018.
28. Interview, UFCW, Mexico City, June 22, 2018.
29. Interview, Global Workers Justice Alliance, Mexico City, August 3, 2015.
30. Interview, CDM, Oaxaca, June 15, 2018.
31. Interview, Global Workers Justice Alliance, Mexico City, August 3, 2015.
32. Interview, CDM, Oaxaca, June 15, 2018.
 Notes    179

6 . C O N C LU SIO N

1. For a comprehensive overview of post-1990s migrant civil society advocacy to gain

political rights for Mexican migrants in the United States, see Badillo Moreno (2004).
2. Since the mid-1990s, the Mexican government has tried to privilege trade and eco-
nomic cooperation as the most salient issues in the bilateral agenda as a public relations
and media strategy. To do so, the Mexican government aims to hide from public view the
most delicate issues, such as bilateral cooperation in Mexico’s drug trafficking enforcement,
immigration policy along Mexico’s northern and southern borders, and US comprehensive
immigration reform.
3. The 1952 Refugee Convention asserts the right to leave as a universal right but re-
mains silent on the right to entry; therefore, the universal right to leave does not have a
corresponding right to asylum (Sassen 1998).
4. Though this is surely an incomplete list, online archives revealed resources at each
of the following offices: Albuquerque, Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles,
Miami, Milwaukee, New Orleans, New York, Orlando, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Portland,
Saint Paul, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose,
Seattle, and Tucson.
 Ap p e ndix

Key Institutions, Instruments,

and Actors in Transnational Labor
Regulation and Consular Affairs

Table 5 Key institutions, instruments, and actors in transnational labor regulation and consular affairs

Spanish English Translation

Acuerdo de Cooperación Laboral de América del North American Agreement on Labor

Norte (ACLAN) Cooperation (NAALC)
Arreglos de entendimiento Arrangements establishing understanding (AEUs)
Asuntos Comunitarios Department of Community Affairs
Carpeta Informativa Básica Consular (CIBAC) Basic Consular Information Binder*
Cartas de acuerdo a.k.a. memoranda de Letters of agreement (LOAs) a.k.a.
entendimiento memoranda of understanding (MOUs)
Centro de Información y Asistencia a Center for Assistance and Information to
Mexicanos (CIAM) Mexicans*
Confederación de Trabajadores de México (CTM) Confederation of Mexican Workers
Consejo Consultivo del Instituto de los Advisory Board of the Institute of Mexicans
Mexicanos en el Exterior (CCIME) Abroad
Consulado móvil Mobile consulate
Consulado sobre ruedas Consulate on wheels*
Consultoría Jurídica Legal Consulting*
Coordinación General del Servicio Nacional de General Coordination for the National
Empleo Employment Service*
Departamento de Protección y Asistencia Department of Legal Protection and Consular
Consular Assistance
(Contd.)

181
Table 5 Continued

Spanish English Translation

Dirección de Protección para Estados Unidos de General Directorate of Protection for the
América (DPEUA) United States*
Dirección General de Comunicación Social General Directorate of Communications*
Dirección General de Delegaciones General Directorate of Delegations (Field Offices)*
Dirección General de Protección a Mexicanos en General Directorate for the Protection of
el Exterior (DGPME) Mexicans Abroad*
Instituto de los Mexicanos en el Exterior (IME) Institute of Mexicans Abroad
Instituto Nacional de Transparencia, Acceso a la National Institute of Transparency, Information
Información y Protección de Datos Personales Access and Private Data Protection
(INAI)
Jornadas Informativas del IME IME Informative Meetings*
Oficina Administrativa Nacional (OAN) National Administrative Office (NAO)
Oficina Internacional de Asuntos Laborales Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB)
Organización Internacional del Trabajo (OIT) International Labour Organization (ILO)
Procuraduría Federal de la Defensa del Trabajo Federal Attorney’s Office for Labor Protection*
Programa de Asistencia Jurídica a Personas Legal Assistance Program to Mexicans by
Mexicanas a través de Asesorías Legales Externas Attorneys in the United States*
en los Estados Unidos de América (PALE)
Programa de Asistencia Jurídica Telefónica Free Legal Assistance Program Hotline*
Gratuita (JURIMEX)
Programa de Trabajadores Agrícolas Mexico-Canada Seasonal Agricultural Workers
Temporales México-Canadá (PTAT) Program (SAWP)
Programa Paisano Paisano Program
Programa para las Comunidades Mexicanas en el Program for the Mexican Communities Abroad
Extranjero (PCME)
Secretaría de Desarrollo Social (SEDESOL Ministry of Social Development
1992–2018)
Secretaría de Gobernación (SEGOB) Ministry of the Interior
Secretaría de Hacienda y Crédito Público (SHCP) Finance Ministry
Secretaría de la Función Publica Ministry of the Civil Service
Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores (SRE) Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Secretaría del Trabajo y Previsión Social (STPS) Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare
Seguro Popular Public Health Insurance (with an annual sliding
fee scale)
Semana de Derechos Laborales (SDL) Labor Rights Week (LRW)
Servicio Exterior Mexicano (SEM) Diplomatic Civil Service
Servicio Telefónico Gratuito para Citas (MEXITEL) Free Consular Appointment Hotline*
Tratado de Libre Comercio de América del Norte North American Free Trade Agreement
(TLCAN) (NAFTA)
Ventanilla de Salud Health Access Window Program*
Ventanilla Laboral Labor Affairs Window Program*
*
Translation by the authors
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 Inde x

accountability: alt-labor group pressure for, 101; Farmworker and Landscaper Advocacy
civil society pressure for, 4, 21, 31, 44, 45, Project, 57, 85, 86; Farmworker Justice Fund,
95–96; co-enforcement and, 65, 94; Inc., 29fig.; field safety, 57, 58; Frente Indígena
cross-border accountability, 119–20, 147, de Organizaciones Binacionales, 71–72, 77;
153; of destination states, 2; for enforcing H-2A guest worker program, 25, 34, 44, 57,
rights beyond the workplace, 107–15, 121; 125, 126, 141, 160; legal services, 83, 85, 86,
established destination states and, 116–18; 88; Mexico-Canada Seasonal Agricultural
immigrant advocates and voices, 119–20; Workers Program, 27, 45, 127, 144–45;
invisible labor of, 153–57; labor advocacy organized labor and, 32, 58, 71–72, 77, 89, 136,
for, 79, 155; Labor Rights Week and, 56, 139–40, 143; right to organize, 6; sustainable
62; media campaigns for, 126; of Mexican development, 122, 128; transnational labor
consular network, 101–20; of Mexico to solidarity, 32, 333; transnational networks
emigrant workers, 4, 31, 45, 63, 79, 97–120, and, 128, 129, 131–32; unionization efforts, 98;
160–61; newer destination states and, 118–19; United Farm Workers, 58, 73, 136, 143; US
of regulatory agencies, 5; role of place in, labor standards for, 23; workplace abuses, 125
116–19, 157; of sending states, 2, 8–10, 17, alt-labor groups, 68, 71, 73, 98, 101, 153, 158
97–120, 165; “soft law” and, 7; transnational antidiscrimination protections and advocacy, 22,
advocacy pressure for, 69, 114–15, 121, 122, 32, 56, 57, 64, 108, 142. See also discrimination
126, 129, 131, 141, 142–45, 147 antiretaliation protections, 5, 22, 26, 35, 145,
Advisory Board of the IME, 29fig., 30fig., 37–39, 171n4
99, 103–5, 107, 154, 155, 162 Argentina, 30fig., 41, 67
Affordable Care Act, 164 arrangement establishing understanding (AEU),
Afghanistan, 160 29fig., 40, 56
AFL-CIO, 71–72, 74–75, 78, 127, 129, 130, 138–39, arreglos de entendimiento, 29fig., 40, 56
141, 143, 146 Article 123 (Mexican constitution), 8, 32–33, 100,
agriculture, 2, 3, 13; California Rural Legal 170n6
Assistance and, 83; in California’s Central Asociación Nacional de Empresas
Valley, 58, 88, 157; consular network and, Comercializadoras de Productores del
26, 57–59, 89, 93, 98, 104, 119; COVID-19 Campo (ANEC), 139–40
pandemic and, 162; disinvestment, 124; Au Pair program, 126
213
214    Index

Authentic Workers’ Front / Frente Auténtico del diaspora rights beyond the workplace,
Trabajo, 33, 130–31, 136–37, 139, 143 107–15; key patterns in, 153–62; Mexican
Ayres, Ian, 67, 170n4 evolution of, 98–101; place and, 116–19, 157–58
clientelism, 32, 90
Bank of Mexico, 19–20 coalition-building, 137–45
Basic Consular Information Binder / Carpeta co-enforcement, 63–66; assessments of, 94–96,
Informativa Básica Consular, 47 170n4; choosing relevant partners, 157; civil
Basok, Tanya, 35 society and, 10, 12, 24, 68–71, 161; consular
Berg, Laurie, 7 network and, 17, 82–96, 117, 166; critics of, 35;
Biden, Joe, 54, 166 cross-border approach to, 21, 66–68; labor
bilateral collaboration, Mexico-US: timeline of organizations and, 71–92; labor outreach
key events, 29–30fig. and, 103; legal services and, 82–96;
bilateral rights framework, 123–24 “side-to-side” versus “up-and-down” models,
Binational Health Week, 29fig., 30fig., 49, 154 67; Trump administration and, 166; wage
Bloemraad, Irene, 70, 173n3 theft as target of, 14. See also Labor Rights
Bolivia, 29fig., 30fig., 41, 67 Week; tripartite model of co-enforcement
border cities and towns, 10, 48, 53, 111–12 Colectivo Migraciones para las Américas
borders: buildup, 39, 132, 135; control, patrol, (COMPA), 142
and security, 8, 39, 48, 54, 135, 137–38; collective bargaining, 7–8, 22, 32, 34, 56, 59–60,
cross-border advocacy, 3–4, 122, 125, 138; 64, 70, 72, 74, 121, 123, 130–31, 136, 149, 157,
cross-border approach to co-enforcement, 177n1
21, 66–68; cross-border humanitarian Comité Fronterizo de Obrer@s (CFO), 136–39
immigration work, 140–45; cross-border Community Outreach and Resource Planning
labor solidarity, 46, 128–29, 130–33, 137–38; Specialists (CORPS), 24, 69, 152, 166
cross-border power imbalances, 9; crossings Compa, Lance, 31
and crossing points, 90, 128, 132, 135, 167, Confederación de Trabajadores de México
177n2; deaths at, 39, 132; “double divide,” 146; (CTM), 32–33, 99, 129, 138
militarization of, 39, 96, 124, 132, 134, 135 Confederation of Mexican Workers /
border wall, 54 Confederación de Trabajadores de México,
Bracero Program and braceros, 27, 35, 53, 66, 124, 32–33, 99, 129, 138
127, 131, 154, 160, 162 Consejo Consultivo del IME (CCIME), 29fig.,
Braithwaite, John, 67, 170n4 30fig., 37–39, 99, 103–5, 107, 154, 155, 162
Bush, George W., 26, 41 consular network. See Mexican consular network
Consular Partnership Program, 30fig., 39, 45, 47,
Campbell’s Soup farmworkers campaign, 32, 129 58, 69
Carpeta Informativa Básica Consular corporatism, 32
(CIBAC), 47 COVID-19 pandemic, 162–64; budget and
Center for Assistance and Information to resource challenges, 49, 50; consular network
Mexicans / Centro de Información y and, 77, 163; health and economic impacts
Asistencia a Mexicanos, 30fig., 51, 163 on migrant workforce, 162–64; impact on
Centro de Información y Asistencia a Mexicanos migrants, 3; relief programs, 6; Semana de
(CIAM), 30fig., 51, 163 Derechos Laborales (Labor Rights Week)
Centro de los Derechos del Migrante (CDM), and, 56–57; testing and vaccinating worker
30fig., 44, 45, 122, 125–27, 135, 139, 141–44, 164 populations, 95
Change to Win coalition, 74
Chao, Elaine, 29fig., 39, 41 debt and indenture, 33, 127, 160
charismatic leaders, 156 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals
charlas (talks), 16 (DACA), 3, 53–54, 57, 83, 91, 112, 134, 156
civil rights, 7, 22, 38, 58, 75 de Graauw, Els, 70, 173n3
civil society: consular offices and, 158; diversity Délano Alonso, Alexandra, 2, 9, 154, 165
of, 161–62 Departamento de Documentación, 36, 48
civil society-state relations: accountability and, Departamento de Protección y Asistencia
119–20; conflicted consular relations, 101–7; Consular, 36, 49–53, 78, 105, 107, 152, 155, 158
 Index    215

Department of Documentation, 36, 48 food sovereignty, 140, 159

Department of Fair Employment and Housing, Fox, Vicente, 29fig., 37, 39, 115, 137, 171n17
California, 59, 84 Frente Auténtico del Trabajo (FAT), 33, 130–31,
Department of Labor (DOL), 29fig.; advocacy 136–37, 139, 143
pressure on, 167; Bureau of International Frente Indígena de Organizaciones Binacionales,
Labor Affairs, 40, 47, 152; complexity and 71–72, 77
oversight of, 165–66; Consular Partnership
Program, 30fig., 39, 45, 47, 58, 69; CORPS General Directorate for the Protection of
program, 24, 69, 152, 166; Joint Declaration Mexicans Abroad, 35–36, 49–50, 51, 56
(2004), 23, 29fig., 39–42; LABORAL gig economy, 2, 163
call center, 30fig., 51, 158; memorandum Global Compact for Migration: approval of,
of understanding on worker rights 1; national sovereignty and, 1, 7, 177n2;
(2008), 8, 40, 64, 122, 153–54; MOUs with provisions and objectives of, 1; United States
Department of Homeland Security, 26; withdrawal from, 177n2
Trump administration, 166; Wage and Hour Global Workers Justice Alliance (later known
Division, 21–24, 39–42, 47, 55, 69, 74, 152, 165; as Justice in Motion), 45, 122, 126, 129, 139,
workers’ fears of, 103. See also Labor Rights 141–43
Week; Occupational Safety and Health Golash-Boza, Tanya, 32
Administration (OSHA) González, Gilbert, 53, 98
Department of Legal Protection and Consular González Araiza, Luis Enrique, 8
Assistance, 36, 49–53, 78, 105, 107, 152, 155, 158 grasstops groups, 9, 115, 120
Derbez, Ernesto, 39, 41 Great Depression, 32
diaspora diplomacy, 61, 69 Great Recession, 20, 34
Diplomatic Civil Service, 46 Guatemala, 29fig., 30fig., 41, 54, 74, 118, 138, 140,
Dirección General de Protección a Mexicanos en 142, 145
el Exterior (DGPME), 35–36, 49–50, 51, 56 guest worker programs, abuse of, 126–37
discrimination: antidiscrimination protections Guía de Procedimientos de Protección Consular,
and advocacy, 22, 32, 56, 57, 64, 108, 142; 50–51
consular labor intake and, 52fig., 59, 60;
gender- and sex-based, 32, 122, 164; labor and H-2A guest worker program, 25, 34, 44, 57, 125,
employment law, 70; legal service providers 126, 141, 160
for, 83; by Mexican consulates, 82; H-2B guest worker program, 34, 44, 57, 126, 141
national-origin, 40; racial, 3, 170n3 Hamlin, Rebecca, 160
double divide, 146 health care and health insurance: Affordable
drug trafficking, 179n2 Care Act, 164; Binational Health Week,
drug wars and violence, 134, 141 29fig., 30fig., 49, 154; Seguro Popular, 20,
29fig., 30fig., 119; for undocumented and
Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights Project / unauthorized workers, 20, 30fig., 164
Proyecto de Derechos Económicos, Sociales Hirschman, Albert O., 101
y Culturales, 45, 108, 127, 139, 140–41, 143–44 Hispanic Contractors of America, 39
economies of scale model, 5 Honduras, 29fig., 30fig., 41, 54, 74, 118, 142, 145
El Campo No Aguanta Más, 139 hotlines, 49, 51, 55, 65, 74, 84, 86–87,
El Salvador, 29fig., 30fig., 41, 54, 74, 118, 136, 108–10, 158
142, 145 human rights, 5, 6, 8, 34, 50, 54, 75, 86, 111, 121,
Employment, Education and Outreach 126–30, 133–35, 139–42, 146, 150, 160
(EMPLEO), 29fig., 51, 58–59, 158
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE),
(EEOC), 21, 22, 23, 40, 42, 43fig., 64, 68, 74, 26, 85, 103
107, 119, 152 immigration enforcement: raids, 25, 26, 75, 152;
US labor standards and, 25–27
Finance Ministry, 48–49, 165 Independent Trade Union of Workers of “La
Fine, Janice, 67 Jornada,” 46
Flores Magón brothers, 3 indigenous organizations, 112–14
216    Index

Institute of Mexicans Abroad, 29fig., 36, 37–39, as influential conveners, 74; immigrant
49, 73, 99, 104, 154 advocacy history, 71–73; Labor Rights Week
Institutional Revolutionary Party, 32, 99, 115, 144 and, 70, 72–73; Mexican union membership,
Instituto de los Mexicanos en el Exterior 100; US union membership, 71, 100, 101
(IME), 29fig., 36, 37–39, 49, 73, 99, 104, Labor Rights Week, 56–59, 92, 103, 107, 111,
154; committee structure, 38; jornadas 154; consular labor intake statistics, 59–60;
informativas, 30fig., 37–39. See also Consejo goal of, 156; key themes and actors, 56–59;
Consultivo del IME (CCIME) legal services and, 82, 85, 87, 89, 92; local
Instituto Nacional de Migración, 160 stakeholders, 58; media and, 16, 43fig., 57, 60,
Instituto Nacional de Transparencia, Acceso 64, 81, 89; origins and early history of, 38,
a la Información y Protección de Datos 55–56; outreach summary, 43fig., 155; pilot
Personales (INAI), 49, 152, 166 programs, 9, 38, 39, 55, 76; significance of,
Inter-American Court of Human Rights, 6–7 55–56; yearly themes, 57fig.
Inter-American System for the Protection of League of United Latin American Citizens
Human Rights and Migrant Worker (LULAC), 55
Rights, 31 Lee, Min Sook, 35
International Labour Organization (ILO), 1; Legal Assistance Program to Mexicans by
Comité Fronterizo de Obrer@s (CFO) Attorneys in the United States, 51, 53, 86
and, 136, 138; Freedom of Association legal services: benefits of legal service
and Protection of the Right to Organise provider-consulate collaboration, 88–92;
Convention (No. 87), 34; Free Trade challenges to legal service provider-consulate
Agreements and, 123; Migrant Workers collaboration, 92–94; consular network and,
(Supplementary Provisions) Convention 85–88; Labor Rights Week and, 82, 85, 87, 89,
(No. 143), 7, 123; Migration and Employment 92; significance for worker rights, 82–85
Convention (No. 47), 7, 123; North American letters of agreement (LOAs), 23, 39–41, 61
Agreement on Labor Cooperation and, 33; Lipsky, Michael, 5, 21
procedures for lodging complaints with, 147; Lombardo Toledano, Vicente, 3
Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining López, Esther, 38, 39, 73
Convention (No. 98), 131; testimonios in López Obrador, Andrés Manuel, 48, 54, 131,
litigation brought before, 144; United States 169n2, 178n24
Mexico Canada Agreement and, 149; on
workplace fatalities, 4 matrícula consular (consular ID), 47–48, 60,
90–91, 104, 108, 115
J-1 guest worker program, 34, 126 media: consular networks and, 36, 64–65; Labor
Justice in Motion (formerly known as Global Rights Week and, 16, 43fig., 57, 60, 64, 81, 89;
Workers Justice Alliance), 122, 126, 129, 139, Mexican government and, 179n2; resources
141–43 and reach, 110–11; Spanish-language, 36, 75;
transnational migrant rights groups and,
Keck, Margaret E., 31, 122, 159, 171n7 114, 126
Medina, Eliseo, 38, 39, 73
Labor Affairs Window Program, 30fig., 57, 61, 154 Medina Mora, Eduardo, 27, 30fig.
Labor Commission, California, 24, 84, 157 memoranda of understanding (MOUs), 23,
labor enforcement, models of: deterrence 26–28, 35, 39–42, 56; 2004 MOU, 39–41;
oriented, 152; “fire alarm” approach, 5; 2008 MOU (Labor Rights Week), 40, 42, 44;
generalist, 22; specialized, 22 Labor Rights Week outreach, 43fig.; signing
labor intake statistics, 59–60 ceremonies, 58–59
labor movement: benefits of labor-consulate Mexican Action Network Confronting Free
collaboration, 77–79; challenges to labor- Trade / Red Mexicana de Acción Frente al
consulate collaboration, 79–82; consular Libre Comercio, 128, 131, 136–37
network and, 73–77; consular offices Mexican consular network: abogados consultores,
as captive audience outreach, 74–75; 53, 158; accountability of, 101–20; Chicago
consulates as regional actors, 75–76; consuls office, 27, 53, 55–58, 72–77, 81, 155, 162, 163;
 Index    217

conflicted relationships, 101–7; COVID-19 Empresas Comercializadoras de Productores

pandemic and, 162–64; diaspora needs del Campo, 139–40
beyond the workplace, 107–15; evolution of National Council of La Raza, 55
state-society relations, 98–101; expansion National Immigration Institute, 160
of, 19–20; functions and resources, 47–50, National Institute of Transparency, Information
64; labor advocacy and, 46–55; labor cases Access and Private Data Protection /
intake, 52fig.; labor outreach and diplomatic Instituto Nacional de Transparencia, Acceso
neutrality, 53–55; labor protection services, a la Información y Protección de Datos
50–53; Labor Rights Week and, 55–62, 64; Personales, 49, 152, 166
local context and, 116–19; Marcelo Ebrard, National Labor Relations Act, 32
160; matrícula consular (consular ID), 47–48, National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), 21, 22,
60, 90–91, 104, 108, 115; media presence, 36, 23, 29fig., 32, 40, 42, 43fig., 64, 74, 152
64–65; noninterventionist stance of, 26, 53; National Safety Council, 39
organizational structure, 10; staff, 46; US nation building, 1
consulates, 11fig. neoliberalism, 32, 33, 64, 128, 134, 139, 161, 167
Mexican migrants in US, 19–21; demographic NGOs, 29fig., 140–42; binational agreements
profile, 10–13; labor precarity of, 13–15; and, 44; boomerang effect and, 122, 171n7;
percentage identifying as Mexican, 12fig.; Central American, 137; consular advocacy
percentage Mexican born, 11fig.; percentage and, 68; consular labor protection services
noncitizens, 13fig.; percentage with and, 53; as consulate contractors, 158; donor
low-wage jobs, 14. See also undocumented relationships, 146; NAALC and, 124; security
and unauthorized workers concerns, 159; transnational networks and,
Mexican migrant worker engagement and 129–30, 136–37
protection: Board of Conciliation and North American Agreement on Labor
Arbitration, 32–33; labor regimes, 32–34; Cooperation (NAALC), 9, 28, 29fig., 30fig.,
shift in focus of, 34–36; supranational legal 31, 33, 35, 44, 45, 122–25, 130, 143–44, 148,
framework, 27–32 155, 158
Mexican Revolution, 32, 99 North American Free Trade Agreement
Mexico-Canada Seasonal Agricultural Workers (NAFTA), 6, 16, 18, 28, 29fig., 33–34, 46,
Program, 27, 45, 127, 144–45 114–15, 122–32, 136–40, 148–51, 155, 164
Migrant Rights Center / Centro de los Derechos
del Migrante, 30fig., 44, 45, 122, 125–27, 135, Obama, Barack, 26, 27, 41, 42, 51, 75, 134–35, 152
139, 141–44, 164 Occupational Safety and Health Administration
(OSHA), 4, 22, 29fig., 39–42, 43fig., 47, 55, 59,
Migration Collective for the Americas / Colec- 68, 74, 77, 107, 117, 152, 165
tivo Migraciones para las Américas, 142 Oswalt, Michael M., 67–68
militarization, 39, 96, 124, 132, 134, 135
minimum wage, Mexico, 32, 131, 138, 140, 149 Paisano Program, 37
minimum wage, US: in California, 24, 85; pandemic. See COVID-19 pandemic
enforcement, 64; labor advocacy and, 72; Partido Acción Nacional (PAN), 115, 144
regulations, 22; right to, 5; stagnation of, 23; Partido Revolucionario Democrático (PRD), 144
violations, 9, 14, 170nn8 Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), 32,
Ministry of Foreign Affairs. See Secretaría de 99, 115, 144
Relaciones Exteriores patronage, political, 32
peasant social movements, 139
Ministry of Labor. See Secretaría del Trabajo y Peña Nieto, Enrique, 53, 87, 142
Previsión Social Philippines, 30fig., 31, 40, 41, 42, 126, 158
Piore, Michael J., 156
multiscalar approach, 4–5, 10 Plazas Comunitarias, 36, 103, 109
polarization, political, 20
National Association of Marketing Companies portable rights model, 3–5, 18, 115, 125, 129, 142,
of Rural Producers / Asociación Nacional de 145, 149–50, 155, 158–61, 177n4
218    Index

poverty, 20, 34, 81, 83, 98, 112, 124–25, 145 a Mexicanos en el Exterior (DGPME),
presidential election of 2016 (US), 16fig. 35–36, 49–50, 51, 56; Fortalecimiento para la
Prevención, Capacitación y Defensa del Atención a Mexicanos en Estados Unidos,
Migrante (PRECADEM), 141 49; functions of, 27–28, 35, 39, 48, 155–56;
Programa de Asistencia Jurídica a Personas Instituto de los Mexicanos en el Exterior
Mexicanas a través de Asesorías Legales (IME), 29fig., 36, 37–39, 49, 73, 99, 104,
Externas en los Estados Unidos de América 154; labor intake database, 14, 59; Labor
(PALE), 51, 53, 86 Rights Week and, 56–57, 60; organizational
Programa de Asistencia Jurídica Telefónica structure and staff, 46–50; Programa de
Gratuita (JURIMEX), 51, 86 Asistencia Jurídica a Personas Mexicanas
Programa Paisano, 37 a través de Asesorías Legales Externas en
Programa para las Comunidades Mexicanas en los Estados Unidos de América (PALE),
el Extranjero (PCME), 37 51, 53, 86; Programa para las Comunidades
Program for Mexican Communities Abroad / Mexicanas en el Extranjero (PCME), 37
Programa para las Comunidades Mexicanas Seguro Popular, 20, 29fig., 30fig., 119
en el Extranjero, 37 Semana Binacional de Salud, 29fig., 30fig.,
Proyecto de Derechos Económicos, Sociales 49, 154
y Culturales (ProDESC), 45, 108, 127, 139, Semana de Derechos Laborales. See Labor
140–41, 143–44 Rights Week
Serna de la Garza, José María, 1, 31
RADAR, 127 Service Employees International Union (SEIU),
Red Mexicana de Acción Frente al Libre 38, 39, 58, 71–73, 77, 78, 80–81
Comercio (RMALC), 128, 131, 136–37 Services Immigrant Rights and Education
Refugee Convention, 179n3 Network (SIREN), 84
refugees, 118, 140, 150, 160, 166, 179n3 Servicio Exterior Mexicano (SEM), 46
Regional Initiative on Labor Mobility sexual harassment, 3, 21, 57, 68, 83, 170n3
(INILAB), 142 Sikkink, Kathryn, 31, 122, 159, 171n7
remittances: collective remittances, 61, 100, 161; Sindicato Independiente de Trabajadores de La
family remittances, 19–20, 39, 66, 96, 100, Jornada (SITRAJOR), 46
132, 154, 170–71n1 Social Security, 32, 50
responsive regulation, 65, 67 Social Security number, 26, 75
retirement programs, 20 “soft laws,” 1, 7, 31, 121, 123, 173n2
“right to stay home,” 100, 133, 139, 155, 159 Solana, Fernando, 37
Roosevelt, Franklin, 32 Southern Poverty Law Center, 83, 125
Rosado Marzán, César F., 67–68 sovereignty, 18; consular network and, 82; food,
Ryder, Guy, 4 140, 159; guest worker programs and, 148;
migrant-refugee binary and, 160; UN Global
Salinas de Gortari, Carlos, 37, 161 Compact for Migration and, 1, 7, 177n2
Sassen, Saskia, 32 state-civil society relations. See civil
Schrank, Andrew, 156 society-state relations
Second World War, 27, 35 street-level bureaucracy, 5, 20–21, 23, 156
Secretaría de Hacienda y Crédito Público
(SHCP), 48–49, 165 Teamsters, 75, 80, 81, 136
Secretaría del Trabajo y Previsión Social Temporary Protected Status (TPS), 3
(STPS): binational agreements and, 44–45; TN (Trade NAFTA) visa program, 125
Coordinación General del Servicio Nacional trafficking, drug, 179n2
de Empleo, 44; functions of, 27–28; labor trafficking, human, 8, 26, 41, 52fig., 59, 69, 84,
attaché, 30fig., 35 127, 170n7
Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores (SRE): transnational immigrant advocacy, 114–15
binational agreements with US, 8, 9, 16–17, transnational labor advocacy, models of:
23, 27–28, 39, 61–62, 64, 69, 95, 153–54; boomerang effect, 31, 122, 159, 164, 171n7;
budget, 48–49; COVID-19 pandemic and, dual-target campaigns, 122; two-way
162; Dirección General de Protección dynamic, 31
 Index    219

transnational networks: agriculture and land, United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers
131–33; capacity and funding disparities, of America (UE), 46, 77, 130, 136
145–47; coalitional frictions, 145–48; United Food and Commercial Workers
coalition-building, 137–45; creation of, International Union (UFCW), 38, 39, 46, 55,
135–37; future of, 148–50; human rights, 58, 71–81, 127, 142, 144, 149
133–34; organizing challenges and uneven United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement
power, 147–48; origins and history of, (USMCA), 164
128–30; rights of families and children, UNITE-HERE!, 71, 73
134–35; sectoral dynamics of, 130–35; Univisión, 36
workers’ rights across borders, 130–31 Uruguay, 30fig., 41, 136
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, 4 US immigration policy, 6, 12–13, 53–54, 166
triangulation, 151 US labor standards enforcement, 21–22;
tripartite model of co-enforcement, 8, 17, 18, claims-driven worker regulation, 21–22,
32–33, 61, 67, 170n4; assessing, 94–96; 24–25; immigration enforcement and,
boomerang effect and, 122; goals of, 5–6; 25–27; labor inspection, 22; overlapping
Mexican history of, 100; NAALC and, 124; jurisdictions, 23–24; siloed issue arenas,
organized labor and, 99, 100; possibilities 22–23
and limits of, 155–57
Trump, Donald, 16fig., 26, 53, 74, 87, 112, 134, Ventanilla de Salud, 40, 49, 119, 163
164, 166 Ventanilla Laboral (Labor Affairs Window
Program), 30fig., 57, 61, 154
undocumented and unauthorized workers: Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, 25,
Affordable Care Act exclusions for, 164; 28, 120
claims-driven worker regulation and, 21–22, visas, US: T visa, 26, 57, 84; U visa, 26, 57, 84
24–26; CMW on, 6–7; consular network and, voice after exit, 154
78, 87, 89, 101, 102, 110, 111; in gig economy, 2; Vosko, Leah, 7–8, 35
health services for, 20, 30fig., 164; international
labor law and, 7; legalization program for, wage theft, 146; complaints and cases, 13, 59;
135; legal services for, 83–85, 87, 89; matrículas consular labor protection, 51, 52fig., 53, 59,
and, 108; organized labor and, 71–72, 78; 60; “Down with Wage Theft” campaign,
rights of, 123, 125; temporary guest worker 72; Labor Rights Week activities, 57; legal
programs and, 126; union organizing of, 139; services for, 84; LOAs and MOUs, 40, 41;
US rights of, 5–7; US statistics and trends, 12, prevalence of, 14; prevention programs,
14, 31, 34–35, 120, 125, 175n77; vulnerability of, 170n9; sanctuary cities and, 6
4, 21–22, 24, 25–26; wage and hour violations Wagner, Ines, 8
and, 8, 170n3; workplace protections for, 2–3 worker centers, 15, 25, 73, 90–91, 95, 98, 101–8,
UnidosUS, 55 110, 113–19, 136, 147, 150, 153
UN International Convention on the Protection workplace fatalities, 4, 57
of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and World Health Organization (WHO), 7
Members of Their Families (CMW), 6–8, 31,
123, 177n2 Zapatista movement, 3, 33, 132
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 6×9 SPINE: 0.561 FLAPS: 0

GLEESON
BADA
International migrants’ home countries often play an integral part in protecting
SCALING

HOW ADVOCATES COLLABORATE AND CONTEST STATE POWER

SCALING MIGRANT WORKER RIGHTS
their citizens’ labor and human rights abroad. At the same time, institutions such
as labor unions, worker centers, and legal aid groups are among the most visible
actors holding governments of immigrant destinations accountable. Focusing on
Mexico and the United States, Scaling Migrant Worker Rights analyzes how these
organizations pressure governments to defend migrants. The result is a multi- MIGRANT WORKER
layered picture of the impediments to migrant worker rights and the possibilities
for their realization.

“Highly original and timely, this book shines a light on underexplored actors in the labor rights
and protection enforcement process.” —LEAH F. VOSKO, author of Disrupting Deportability:
RIGHTS
Transnational Workers Organize

“A very robust and nuanced empirical analysis documenting how co-enforcement mecha- HOW ADVOCATES COLLABORATE AND CONTEST STATE POWER
nisms across transnational civil society, consulates, and national governments work to imple-
ment existing labor rights protections.” —ALEXANDRA DÉLANO ALONSO, author of Mexico
and Its Diaspora in the United States: Policies of Emigration since 1848

“This important and innovative work provides a nuanced, rich, and detailed meso-analysis of
institutions and institutional collaboration in Mexico and the US.” —NANCY PLANKEY-VIDELA,
author of We Are in This Dance Together: Gender, Power, and Globalization at a Mexican Gar-
ment Firm

XÓCHITL BADA is Associate Professor of Latin American and Latino Studies at the University of
Illinois Chicago. She is author of Mexican Hometown Associations in Chicagoacán: From Local
to Transnational Civic Engagement.
SHANNON GLEESON is Professor of Labor Relations, Law, and History at the School of Indus-
trial and Labor Relations at Cornell University. She is author of Precarious Claims: The Promise
and Failure of Workplace Protections in the United States.

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS   [Link]

A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos,

University of California Press’s Open Access publishing program. ISBN: 978-0-520-38445-3
Visit [Link] to learn more.
Cover illustration: U.E.-F.A.T. Hands in Solidarity, Hands of Freedom. Mural at the
United Electrical Workers union hall in Chicago, Illinois. The mural was painted 9 780520 384453
in 1997 by Daniel Manrique, a Tepito Arte Acá muralist from Mexico City, as part
of a crossborder mural project between the United Electrical Workers union
and Frente Auténtico del Trabajo in Mexico City. XÓCHITL BADA AND SHANNON GLEESON