Search

This article analyses the skills and competence acquisition of migration entrepreneurs in the H-2 visa programme, a U.S. temporary worker scheme. This programme, which nowadays largely recruits Mex...

Over the past 15 years, hundreds of thousands of children of immigrants and their families have moved from the United States to Mexico pushed by different legal and economic expulsion facto...

Chicana/o activists and artists in Greater Los Angeles have turned son jarocho, a traditional music genre from southeastern Mexico, into an organizing resource and a means to express the pl...

En este artículo se propone la conceptuación de la industria de la migración. La industria de la migración es el conjunto de empresarios, negocios e infraestructuras que, motivados por la búsqueda de ganancias económicas, prestan servicios que facilitan y sostienen la migración internacional. Aunque la industria de la migración ha estado presente y entretejida en la literatura sobre la movilidad humana internacional desde hace mucho tiempo, las teorías de la migración la han tratado como un objeto de estudio marginal y la han reducido a sus dimensiones de ilegalidad e informalidad. En este artículo se argumenta en favor de una conceptuación exhaustiva de dicha industria, en la que se incluyen las actividades legales, ilegales, formales e informales y la interacción y articulación de la industria de la migración con los actores clave del proceso social de la migración internacional: gobiernos, empleadores, migrantes y sus redes y organizaciones defensoras de migrantes.Abstract: This article proposes the conceptualization of the term migration industry. Migration industry is the set of entrepreneurs, businesses and infrastructures that, driven by financial gain, offer services which facilitates and support international migration. Even though the concept of migration industry has long been present and intertwined with the literature on international human mobility, migration theories have always treated it as a marginal object of study and have reduced it to its illegal and informal dimensions. This article gives arguments in favor of an exhaustive conceptualization of this industry, which includes legal, illegal, formal and informal activities, and the interaction and articulation of the migration industry with the key actors of the social process of international migration: governments, employers, migrants and their networks, as well as organizations that advocate the defense of migrants.Résumé : Cet article propose la conceptualisation du terme industrie de la migration. L’industrie de la migration est l’ensemble des entrepreneurs, des affaires et des infrastructures qui, motivés par l’obtention de profits économiques, offrent des services qui facilitent et soutiennent la migration internationale. Même s’il y a longtemps que le concept d’industrie de la migration est présent et entremêlé à la littérature sur la mobilité humaine internationale, les théories de migration l’ont toujours traité comme un objet d’étude marginal en le réduisant à l’illégalité et aux affaires informelles. Dans cet article on donne des arguments à faveur d’une conceptualisation exhaustive de cette industrie qui inclut les activités légales, illégales, formelles et informelles. On traite aussi de l’interaction et de l’articulation de l’industrie de la migration avec les acteurs clé du processus social de la migration internationale : les gouvernements, les employeurs, les migrants et leurs réseaux, et les organisations de défense des migrants.

Debates about United States border control policies have generally ignored the human costs of undocumented migration. We focus attention on these costs by estimating the number, causes and location of migrant deaths at the southwest border of the United States between 1993 and 1997. We document more than 1,600 possible migrant fatalities along the border in this period. More than 1,000 of these deaths were reported by United States data sources, and the remainder were Rio Grande drowning deaths reported by Mexican sources. Additional deaths may go unrecorded because the bodies of the decedents do not come to the attention of government officials. Deaths from hyperthermia, hypothermia and dehydration increased sharply from 1993 to 1997 as intensified border enforcement redirected undocumented migration flows from urban crossing points to more remote crossing areas where the migrants are exposed to a greater risk of death.