Perpignan – In his photo series "The Two Walls", Venezuelan photographer Alejandro Cegarra documents the plight of migrants trying to reach the US from Mexico’s border and the impact of the increasingly tough immigration policies enforced by the neighbouring countries.
Alejandro Cegarra inititated his project called "The Two Walls" in 2018 and spent six years documenting it.
"There is the wall we already know in Ciudad Juarez and Tijuana that separates Mexico and the United States. But there's also a wall that is Mexico itself," he told RFI at France's annual Visa pour l'Image Festival, in Perpignan.
The 35-year-old photographer says that Mexico once had a reputation of welcoming asylum seekers but since 2019 immigration policies have completely shifted.
"Mexico has thousands of officers trying to stop the flow of migrants towards the United States."
"When I realised that Mexico was part of the 'organisation' to deny asylum and to stop migrants going to the United States, I started this project," he explains.
Over the last six years, Mexico has cooperated with the US to tighten up the immigration measures.
Immigration remains a hugely divisive issue for many Americans ahead of November's presidential election, in which former leader Donald Trump is running against Vice President Kamala Harris.
Trump, who is running as the Republican candidate again, made the border wall with Mexico a major element of his first campaign.
"I would like to call on Mexicans, on citizens to vote for authorities that actually defend the rights of migrants, because I feel the borders right now are so far away from human rights," Cegarra says.
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For Cegarra, documenting his project was a process of learning, empathy and humanity.
"It was incredibly hard when I started to hear my own Venezuelan accent in the people I was photographing," adds Cegarra, who left his native Venezuela to Mexico in 2017.
Cegarra won the 2024 World Press global award for long-term project for North and Central America.
► Visa pour l'Image runs from 31 August to 15 September 2024.
