Digital Mobilization and Politicization of El Caminata del Migrante

Abstract

Social media have become an important communication tool and backstage for the dissemination of information for Honduran migrants seeking political asylum and international refugee status in the United States at the Otay Mesa Port of Entry. This nonmainstream structure of communication can be conceived as a type of counterargument to international border policies. In this essay, I examine how Bartolo Fuentes’s Caminata del Migrante post digitally informed migrant decision making processes, enforced migrant solidarity, and spurred a digital heterotopia providing a back and forth sharing of opinions and information between migrants, political actors, advocacy groups, and the press.