The Binational Migration Institute, Mexican American Studies Dept & The Chicano Hispano Student Center
Presents:
(In)security and Violence on the Border
Wave II of the Migrant Border Crossing Study
Thursday, October 25th, 3:30 pm
Chavez, 205
A Migration Research Dialogue with:
Daniel E. Martinez*, Jeremy Slack**, and Scott Whiteford***
* Ph.D. candidate, Department of Sociology, University of Arizona
** Graduate Student, School of Geography and Development, University of Arizona
*** Professor, Center for Latin American Studies, University of Arizona
Abstract
A recent report by the Pew Hispanic Center describes net migration from Mexico to the United States having slowed to zero (Passel Cohn and Gonzalez-Barrera 2012). However hundreds of thousands of unauthorized Mexican migrants continue to be apprehended by U.S. authorities along the southwestern border and in the interior of the country (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement 2012), and thus, as a group, continue to come in contact with U.S. authorities on a regular basis. Does the treatment of unauthorized Mexican migrants vary at the Border Patrol sector-level in addition to the individual-level once in U.S. custody? We draw on a new and unique data set of surveys with 1,217 unauthorized migrants collected in five cities across the border and Mexico City between 2009 and 2012 to begin to examine this important question. In addition, we compare preliminary descriptive statistics from this second wave of surveys to those from a first wave we carried out between 2007 and 2009. Preliminary results suggest the demographic profile of repatriated migrants remains strikingly consistent in some regards, but diverges in other important ways; particularly in the extent of close ties to the United States. This speaks largely to the increase in formal removals from the interior U.S. resulting from federal initiatives such as “Secure Communities” that have terrorized immigrant communities around the country.