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The fragile nature of the state had turned emigration into a major feature of Haitian life even before the earthquake displaced hundreds of thousands of people.

This chapter explores the paradigmatic case of Michoacan, Mexico, a model transnational state with intense social and economic interconnections with the United States suffering very high levels of violence. It investigates how insecurity resulting from criminal-related activities and the concomitant reaction on the part of the Mexican state and self-defense groups has forcibly displaced thousands of people, critically reshaping the state’s migration patterns, such as with the rise of internal displacement. Relying on interviews with migrant authorities and representatives of civil society both in Mexico and the United States, this chapter traces the effect that violence is having on traditional migration patterns showing how an important number of uprooted Michoacanos have attempted to migrate north using existing transnational migration networks. The analysis thus underscores the complex intermestic dimension that human mobility is attaining in the North American corridor.