This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
Dr. Jason De Leon (University of Washington) will undertake research on the relationship between shifts in recent United States Border Patrol security measures, changes in undocumented migration streams into southern Arizona, and the unique material goods and economic systems associated with desert migration. Populations of interest are migrants preparing to cross into the United States through the desert, vendors in the town of Altar, Mexico, who specialize in migrant provisions, and undocumented migrants who use temporary campsites on Ironwood Forest National Monument lands in Arizona.
This study addresses three primary sets of questions: 1) How have recent increases in border security in the El Paso region impacted the flow of undocumented migrants into Altar, Mexico, and southern Arizona? 2) What are the demographic characteristics (e.g., age, gender, nationality) of migrants who are currently crossing the Sonoran Desert and using lay-up sites in Ironwood Forest National Monument? 3) How has the local economy of Altar, Mexico, been impacted by recent changes in U.S. Border policies?
This exploratory research applies a unique combination of ethnographic, archaeological, and ethnoarchaeological methods and theories to understand multiple components of undocumented migration. This includes examining the immediate impacts that changes in U.S. Border Patrol have on migration streams, as well as studying the specialized economic systems that have arisen in northern Mexico to deal with the increasing number of migrants attempting desert crossings. Additionally, this project is the first detailed analysis of the temporary migrant campsites that dot the American southwest. This research is not only an innovative approach to studying migration, it will also provide new demographic and economic data on understudied sub-populations of undocumented migrants (i.e., women, children, and the elderly). This combination of ethnographic, archaeological, economic, and demographic research will greatly contribute to the growing field of migration studies and to understanding the interlinked effects of border policy changes.
