Politics of Migration in the Era of Mass Deportation with Ana Lorena Delgadillo and Camilo Umaña

Event Description

This event will examine the systemic violence faced by migrants in the region, with a particular focus on Mexico and Central America, a key transit region where enforced disappearances, organized crime, and institutional impunity continue to threaten migrant populations. The discussion will explore the root causes of this violence and assess the mechanisms developed to address migrant disappearances, the identification of remains, and access to justice.

The keynote speaker will be Ana Lorena Delgadillo, a prominent Mexican human rights defender and a member of the UN Working Group on Enforced Disappearances. She will share insights into the work of the Fundación para la Justicia y el Estado Democrático de Derecho, which has pioneered transnational strategies for searching for missing migrants and seeking accountability. The discussion will also address the factors that enabled the creation of these mechanisms, the challenges they face, and their effectiveness in securing justice for victims and their families.

A key topic of discussion will be the recent General Allegation issued by the UN Working Group on Enforced Disappearances regarding short-term enforced disappearances in the United States, analyzing its implications for international human rights law and migrant protections.

The event will be moderated by Camilo Umaña, Cogut Visiting Professor and former Deputy Minister of Justice and Law in Colombia, who will guide a solutions-oriented dialogue on potential policy recommendations and advocacy strategies to mitigate violence against migrants and strengthen human rights protections in the region.

About the Speakers

Ana Lorena Delgadillo is a human rights lawyer with more than 25 years of expertise in women’s and migrants’ rights, disappearances, femicides, criminal system, independence of judiciary, militarization and citizen security. She worked at the National Commission to Prevent and Eradicate the Violence against Women in Ciudad Juárez and Chihuahua. Then, she joined the Argentinian Forensic Anthropology team (EAAF) to work on the project to identify women’s remains in Ciudad Juárez and Chihuahua. She participated in the case González et al. vs México (Cotton field case) before the Interamerican Court of Human Rights as an Affidavit witness. She was the Deputy Attorney General Office for Attention to Victims of Mexico City, where she advanced the measures for the search of missing and disappeared persons, protocols for attention of victims, and participated in the drafting of the Law of Access of Women to a Life Free of Violence. At the Border Project of the EAAF, she participated in the creation of the Forensic Data Bank of Missing Migrants in El Salvador and Oaxaca, México. She founded and was the Executive Director of the Foundation for Justice, a non-governmental organization, for 13 years, where the organization advocated for the creation of transnational mechanisms for searching migrants, identification of bodies and justice for families of migrants who disappeared or were murdered in their way to the United States. As an executive director of the Foundation for Justice, I have written and published more than 25 reports about human rights. This includes research on disappearances, migrants, impunity, justice system reform, militarization, independence of the judiciary, and transformation of the prosecutorial system in México, among others. She is a member of the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances.

Camilo Umaña is a legal scholar from Colombia and a former Deputy Minister of Justice and Law, where he led drug policy, the criminal justice system, and transitional justice programs. With expertise in human rights, criminology, and restorative practices, Dr. Umaña played an active role in Colombia's 2016 peace and reconciliation process. He has worked with the Colombian Truth Commission to address historical injustices and has served as a consultant for various UN agencies on related issues. Additionally, he is a professor at the Law School of Externado University in Bogotá.