Several academic studies have examined the dangers facing unauthorized migrants at the borders. But the border zone represents only one segment of a long and dangerous journey for Central American migrants, who face increasing criminal violence along clandestine routes through Mexico. Meanwhile, internal policing within the United States and Mexico augments border patrol. These new immigration enforcement strategies target the arteries of the migration system crisscrossing nation-states, not just their frontiers. Along these migratory routes, immigration enforcement has transformed migration practices, but it has not eradicated the informal institutions and practices that facilitate undocumented migration.
This dissertation research analyzes how intensified policing transforms migration practices, and how it affects migrants along the Central American routes through Mexico to the United States. To this end, the study involves U.S.-based ethnographic interviews, mapmaking workshops, and participant observation with Central American migrants at various stages in their journeys.
Broader Impacts The public has shown great interest in immigration reform, both efforts to curtail the arrival of undocumented migrants, as well as efforts to make the process of migration more humane. The intended and unintended consequences of border control and policing mechanisms has sparked considerable public debate. This study seeks to inform our understanding of how to balance the need for national security with the need to ensure social and political stability in sending countries as well as the safety and welfare of migrants (including limiting their exposure to violence and exploitation).
Intellectual Merit Several academic studies have examined the dangers facing unauthorized migrants at the borders. But the border zone represents only one segment of a long and dangerous journey for Central American migrants, who face increasing criminal violence along clandestine routes through Mexico. Meanwhile, internal policing within the United States and Mexico augments border patrol. These new immigration enforcement strategies target the arteries of the migration system crisscrossing nation-states, not just their frontiers. Thus, migrants confront conditions of intensified uncertainty and risk during their journey. This dissertation research analyzes recent changes in migration practice along the Central American routes through Mexico to the United States. It asks what migrants know about violence in transit, how they come to know it and the broader implications of that knowledge. To this end, the study involved ethnographic interviews, mapmaking workshops, and participant observation with Central American migrants at various stages in their journeys. This study shows how the sustained practice of migration informs behavior along a dangerous route, not only through social networks, but also by carving a transit political economy and transnational imagination of the route. It argues that migration decisions are rational, but must be viewed as an ongoing learning process constituted by information gathering, imagination and improvisation en route. Thus, the ethnographic framework of this dissertation elucidates the decision-making process under conditions of extreme uncertainty and insecurity. In so doing, it contributes to our understanding of human security more broadly. Broader Impacts The public has shown great interest in immigration reform, both efforts to curtail the arrival of undocumented migrants, as well as efforts to make the process of migration more humane. The intended and unintended consequences of border control and policing mechanisms has sparked considerable public debate. This study informs our understanding of how to balance the need for national security with the need to ensure social and political stability in transit and sending countries as well as the safety and welfare of migrants (including limiting their exposure to violence and exploitation).
