This book is the first to consider together three major, interconnected ways in which organized crime shapes migration in Mexico and Central America: as a driver of internal displacement and external migration, as a threat to migrants in transit, and as a facilitator of unauthorized migration through people-smuggling.

Organized criminal groups have been involved in the abuse of migrants and people-smuggling in Mexico for many years. A displacement crisis has emerged as people with different potential protection needs flee a complex mix of factors in Central America, from violence and threats from criminal gangs, persecution by state actors, gender violence, and hate crime to the impact of climate change, natural disasters, and entrenched inequality and poverty.

Drawing on original interview material with key informants speaking in their professional capacity and with migrants and refugees during their journey, the book analyzes organized crime’s role in provoking human displacement and the abuse of migrants, reflecting on state responsibility, the role of policy, corruption, and impunity in perpetuating abuse, and the implications for human rights. In doing so, it provides a new understanding of the likely consequences of implementing or externalizing migration policy in regions affected by endemic criminal violence and corruption globally.