In late 2021, the Mexican government made a controversial announcement that many of the country’s major infrastructure projects, most notably the Tren Maya project being built across the Yucatán Peninsula, were now a matter of “national security.” Among other things, the announcement meant that the nearly 200 billion peso ($9.6 billion) railway project could bypass a lot of red tape, allowing construction to progress faster than ever. Claims that a tourist train line was a matter of national security proved divisive in the Mexican media, and environmental and human rights activists expressed c…