Accountability across Borders: Migrant Rights in North America ed. by Xóchitl Bada and Shannon Gleeson (review)

Reviewed by: Accountability across Borders: Migrant Rights in North America ed. by Xóchitl Bada and Shannon Gleeson Ruth Murcia (bio) Xóchitl Bada and Shannon Gleeson, eds., Accountability across Borders: Migrant Rights in North America. University of Texas Press, 2019. Pp. 352. Accountability across Borders: Migrant Rights in North America, edited by Xóchitl Bada and Shannon Gleeson, offers an insightful collection of eleven qualitative case studies that examine the central role of migrant-led collectives in pressuring states' responsibility to promote and guarantee immigrants' rights in North America. At its core, the volume emphasizes migrant-led efforts in determining policy development and implementation of migrants' rights in origin and destination countries. The "multisited and multiscalar" approach employed in this book is a welcome contribution as it elevates the advocacy of migrant rights by questioning which and how countries and institutions are accountable for migrants at home, in transit, and abroad. The volume is structured around the concept of "migrant civil society," which, as Jonathan Fox and Gaspar Rivera-Salgado explain in chapter 1, consists of "immigrant-led membership organizations and public institutions" (25), including autonomous public spaces, migrant-led NGOs, and migrant-led media. This theoretical framework is important because it recognizes migrant-led collectives' civic, social, and political participation in the public conversation about immigration often overlooked by scholars, politicians, and mass media. As such, "migrant civil society" differentiates "migrant-led" from "pro-migrant" groups that are led by nonmigrants. Contributors suggest that the recognition of this bottom-up migrant movement equalizes representation amidst the public debate over immigration policy in the US and generates "more balanced coalition building" with potential allies in positions of power (27). They also maintain that migrant movements are strengthened by shared spatial and political contexts, identities, interests, and agendas, but warn readers that the sole attention to migrants' organizing capacity is not enough to understand the way dominant public institutions treat migrants. [End Page 179] The rest of the volume is divided into four parts, each focusing on migrants' rights initiatives in a particular geographical context—North America as a whole, Canada, Mexico, and the US. Part 1 discusses the multilateral mechanisms governing migrants within the three major nations of North America—Mexico, the US, and Canada. In chapter 2, José Ma. Serna de la Garza examines the multilateral regimes that dictate migrants' rights. He contrasts "soft laws" and "hard laws." Soft laws do not guarantee migrants' rights because they are nonbinding, but are the most preferred by governments because they facilitate states' entry into international regimes such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). "Hard laws," on the other hand, are binding and preferred by nongovernmental actors wishing to ensure the enforcement of migrant' rights. In chapter 3, Xóchitl Bada and Shannon Gleeson recount the efforts of a transnational coalition of organizations that, through petitions to the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (NAALC), pressured US and Mexican labor standards agencies to improve the conditions of temporary migrant workers. Part 2 focuses on Mexico's contradicting efforts to improve migrant rights. In chapter 4, Adriana Sletza Ortega Ramírez highlights the advances and limitations work of Oficinas Estatales de Atención a Migrantes (OFAMs, State Migrant Assistance Offices). OFAMs have advanced to adopt transnational migrants' rights advocacy by attending mostly their state's émigrés in the US and Canada. However, most OFAMs systematically disregard the crimes and violations against non-Mexican migrants en route through their territory. In chapter 5, Ana Lorena Delgadillo, Alma García, and Rodolfo Córdoba Alcaraz, based on their working experience with migrants, recount the excessive violence against Central American migrants in Mexico and highlight the transnational efforts by families of victims to gain government support. In Mexico, these efforts have resulted in the creation of the federal Forensic Commission, charged with searching for the remains of missing immigrants in Mexican territory. In chapter 6, Mónica Jacobo-Suárez examines the bureaucratic barriers US-born children face as they seek education, health care, and employment assistance in Mexico after being deported from the US along with their undocumented parents. Part 3, which focuses on Canada, examines the intrinsic flaws in existing...

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