For almost 30 years, various works and investigations have shown the need for Mexico to prepare itself to be a territory of transit for migrants seeking to reach the United States.The deterioration of living conditions in the countries of the region, the excess of labor (and the lack in the United States) and the mechanisms of control on the border made it increasingly evident that Mexico would be the way to the north of a growing number of migrants.Several of the related actors were preparing.The airlines and bus lines established almost exclusive routes for migrants passing through the country, service providers enlisted.All except the Mexican government.Nothing was done, leaving the free play of market forces to govern this transit.The results have been catastrophic and have overtones of tragedy.Until the early 1990s, the overwhelming majority of migrants seeking to enter the United States through its southern border were Mexicans, and although Central American migrants and those of other nationalities began to appear, their mass migration began later and for very different reasons.While the migration of Mexicans was essentially economic-labour, in search of development opportunities, family reunification, some say "voluntary", Central and South American migration and subsequent ones reflect a process of fleeing from countries in conditions of war, violence and unsafety.That is why there are those who refer to it as “forced”.Many of them seek asylum or refuge in the United States, something that the immigration policy of that country allows, that is, in the strict sense they are not “illegal”.The successive governments in Mexico accommodated the migration of Mexicans quite well and that is why they did nothing about it.Manpower was leaving that Mexico could not absorb, thus reducing the social and economic pressure of having millions more unemployed in the country and they would also send remittances.Nor why get involved.However, by incorporating the migrant transit dimension as or more importantly than the exit dimension, the problem is very different.The vulnerability of a migrant in transit is much greater than that of an outgoing one, they do not know the territories through which they travel, the local authorities abuse them more, sometimes they speak another language or with a distinguishable accent that exposes them more to abuse already extorted and on the run, he doesn't have the option of going back if something goes wrong.The horror stories of what was happening to them began to be known, of the sadly famous “the beast”, the train that many of them boarded and in which they were subjected to multiple violations of their most basic rights.The women, certain that they would be raped, took birth control pills before leaving their places of origin.Authorities at almost every level not only did nothing, they became part of the problem.Those authorities detained the migrants and "sold" them to criminal organizations who, in order to "recover their investment," asked their relatives in the United States for money.Perhaps that explains why states like Chiapas receive so many remittances.If that money did not arrive then they were forced to participate, as "cannon fodder", in their criminal acts.Thus came the tragedy of San Fernando in Tamaulipas in 2010, where local police arrested and handed over 72 migrants to a criminal group who, by not paying and refusing to participate, were murdered.In parallel, for other reasons that have nothing to do with transit migration, but that have a considerable impact, the Mexican State and its institutions were ceding the government of a large part of Mexican territory, at the local level, to criminal groups who They became owners of everything that passed through that territory, in particular the transit of migrants that began to leave considerable profits for these groups.Haitians, Caribbeans, Nicaraguans, Brazilians, non-regionals, and now Venezuelans have joined the Central Americans of the 1990s, fleeing their countries in their thousands and knowing that it will be difficult and expensive to travel through Mexico, but in the end it will be possible or, in any case, better than staying in Venezuela.I have a hard time accepting that there are no authorities involved in this transit.I do not understand how thousands of Venezuelan migrants, in large groups, arrive from Venezuela to Piedras Negras in Coahuila and nobody sees them.And the worst thing is that we find out about their existence until the Texan governor sends them to New York.Perhaps that is the reason for the announcement a few days ago, according to which the navy will take over the immigration inspection at the Mexico City airport and no longer the National Migration Institute.Beyond the legality of the measure, something has been rotten in that institute for a long time and the issue has not been resolved by handing over its functions to the armed forces.It seems that this and listening to Chico Che are the only two solutions that this government knows.Jorge Santibáñez is president of the Mexa Institute