Mexico and Turkey as Transit Countries

Through presenting the cases of Tijuana in Mexico and Istanbul in Turkey this chapter explores the local processes triggered by the discourse on transit migration and the dispositif (Foucault, 1980) it activated at the urban level in two so called ‘transit countries’.
Although the presence of foreign residents is hardly acknowledged and the challenges it poses to existing urban social, spatial and economic assets are not problematized, both cities multiplied their efforts to fight irregular immigration by introducing repressive measures and tight controls.
By enlarging the picture to the two macro-regional contexts, i.e. US-Mexico and EU-neighboring countries, the chapter read such contradiction as a consequence and side-effect of the politicization of transit migration, to be thus considered as not just an important feature of modern human mobility but rather a political construction designed to frame the issue according to western countries point of view and aimed at leading the so called ‘transit countries’ to collaborate in a global strategy of repressive migration management.
It concludes that international geopolitical interests are affecting the way in which cities of the so called ‘transit countries’ frame and govern the presence of international migrants and, as a consequence, the emergence of unconventional modes of incorporation and belonging into the urban socio-economic and spatial fabric which mainly occur within the informal spheres.