Book Review: Ambivalent Humanitarianism and Migration Control: Colonial Legacies and the Experiences of Migrants in Mexico

 

This book is not scholarship. It is ideological self-flagellation dressed in academic robes, another brick in the cathedral of leftist grievance studies. Ambivalent Humanitarianism and Migration Control claims to analyse Mexico's treatment of migrants through the lens of “colonial legacies”, a euphemism for blaming Western civilisation, again, for everything from border enforcement to the weather. Let’s decode that title: “Ambivalent” means Mexico enforces its borders sometimes. “Humanitarianism” means NGOs want to stop it. “Migration Control” is recast as a moral failing. “Colonial legacies” is code for “It’s the West’s fault, always.” The author’s core thesis, that modern immigration policy in Mexico is just a new face of colonialism, is not only tired, it’s dishonest. The book pretends to be a serious critique of state policy but is, in truth, a hit job on sovereignty. The real villain here, according to the author, isn’t the criminal cartels, the human traffickers, or the collapsing border infrastructure, it’s the nation-state’s very existence. It is borders themselves. The prose is peak academic obfuscation, every paragraph saturated with postcolonial jargon, footnoted apologies, and intersectional handwringing. The book has no interest in actual policy complexity, economic constraints, or moral trade-offs. It cherry-picks suffering and filters it through an anti-Western, anti-state, anti-reality lens. At heart, this is a Trojan horse: it pretends to care about migrants, but really it’s about undermining national borders, Western legitimacy, and any attempt to distinguish between citizen and foreigner. In the name of “care,” it would dismantle the very systems that make care possible. This is not justice. This is anarcho-nihilism, smuggled in by an NGO-funded narrative machine. Verdict: A sop to leftist academics and open-borders ideologues. If you’re looking for policy insight, moral clarity, or serious thought, look elsewhere. This is an apology tour masquerading as research.