Migration and Society: Advances in Research 3 (2020): 1–16 © Berghahn Books doi:10.3167/arms.2020.111403 From Ecuador to Elsewhere The (Re)Configuration of a Transit Country Soledad Álvarez Velasco  ABSTRACT: Unlike other transit countries, Ecuador’s position as a transit country has just begun to be publicly addressed, having been more of a strategic public secret than a topic of public interest. Based on 12 months of ethnographic feldwork conducted between 2015 and 2016, this article discusses the dynamics of the (re)confguration of Ecuador as a transit country used by both immigrants and Ecuadorean deportees mainly from the United States to reach other destinations. It argues that this process should be inter- preted in light of a series of historical and political elements in tension. Te article sug- gests that the subtle presence of the United States’ externalized border, together with national political inconsistencies, have a repressive as well as a productive efect, which has functioned to produce a systemic form of selective control of transit mobility.  KEYWORDS: externalized border policies, freedom of movement, irregularized transit migration, postneoliberal lefist regimes, universal citizenship Ecuador has a complex history with respect to the movement of people across its borders. For at least the past fve decades, irregularized Ecuadoreans have been emigrating abroad, mainly to the United States of America (henceforth US). 1 Likewise, during the past three decades, the country has received immigrants and refugees (mostly Colombians), while being a transit coun- try used by immigrants on their way to other destinations, and by Ecuadorean deportees mainly from the US to recommence their transit north. In consonance with its own migratory history and with the advent of a lefist new regime— the Citizens’ Revolution (CR) government—in 2008, Ecuador embraced one of the most pro- gressive constitutions worldwide in migratory matters. Its constitutional principles of “universal citizenship and free mobility,” of “equality between foreigners and nationals,” its commitment to safeguard “the right to seek asylum,” and to meet the “gradual elimination of the diference between nationals and foreigners” (Articles 40, 41, and 416), were consistent with a turn toward a “postneoliberal” regime. Afer coming to power, the CR government also adopted a frm national sovereign rhetoric, rejecting any possible US interference in national matters (Pugh 2017), and a frm stance against the global border regime is refected in its constitutional principles. Te adoption of the cutting-edge constitution was not matched, however, by correspond- ing changes in migration law. Ecuador’s 1971 migratory law, issued under a dictatorial regime, remained in efect until January 2017. In fact, the ambiguous coexistence of a reformist consti- tution with a repressive law, together with the mismatch of corresponding progressive policy implementation, has directly augmented the rate of irregularized migration in Ecuador. Te constitution’s promise of “free mobility” and “universal citizenship” has attracted immigrants