© Yara Amparo López López and Iván A. Sanchís Pedregosa
Report on Binational Migrant Education in the Mexico-U.S. Border Region (2005-2025)
Estudios del Observatorio/Observatorio Studies. 097-06/2025EN
ISSN: 2688-2949 (online) 2688-2965 (print) doi: 10.15427/OR097-06/2025EN
Instituto Cervantes at FAS - Harvard University
© Instituto Cervantes at the Faculty of Arts and Sciences of Harvard University
097-06/2025EN
*
ISSN 2688-2949 (online)
ISSN 2688-2965 (print)
Report on Binational Migrant Education in the Mexico-U.S.
Border Region (2005-2025)
Yara Amparo López López
Baja California Department of Education
Iván A. Sanchís Pedregosa
Universidad Autónoma de Baja California
Abstract: This report addresses the need to provide assistance to the international migrant population located at the
Mexico-United States border—a population that by all indications has not received sufficient support from either the
Mexican or the U.S. departments of education. This research project employs a method of theoretical and conceptual
review to establish an analysis of a program that aims to integrate minors upon their return to, or initial arrival at,
Mexican and U.S. schools. This program’s nearly two decades of historical development allows us to assess both the
numbers of students in migratory transit and their respective nationalities, and to use this data to inform approaches
to training teachers. It also allows us to identify what schools have the greatest number of migrant students, and to
inform intergovernmental collaborations involving civil society, United Nations agencies, and academia. It is important
to keep in mind that current government administrations are promoting six strategic projects for Mexico’s Department
of Public Education (Secretaría de Educación Pública, or SEP), one of which involves addressing the needs of
international migrants. This report should therefore be understood as a contribution to an analysis of the transborder
mobility of migrant minors, paying special attention to the states of California and Baja California, which have the
highest concentration of these cross-border interactions. Furthermore, our findings suggest educational inclusion as
an effective means for integrating migrant youth into schools.
Key words: transnational students, Mexican and U.S. schools, “the students we share,” bilingual teachers, student
migration
* Editors’ note: This is an English translation, provided by the Observatorio, of the author’s original text in Spanish (see 097-06/2025SP).