Changes in the Transnational Family Structures of Mexican Farm Workers in the Era of Border Militarization

• In Event: 462 - Section on Children and Youth Paper Session. Immigrant Children and Children of Immigration: New Perspectives on Children's Experiences in a Changing Policy Environment

Abstract

Historically, Mexican undocumented migrant farm workers migrated circularly, leaving family behind in Mexico. Scholars have argued that border militarization has disrupted circular migration, causing migrants to bring families to the United States in lieu of long separations, but there are no existing studies of changes in the transnational family practices of Mexico-U.S. migrants in the era of border militarization. Using data from the National Agricultural Workers Survey, we document a dramatic shift in the location of residence of dependent children of undocumented Mexican farm workers between 1993 and 2012 away from transnational family life. A similar, but less dramatic, shift occurs for documented Mexican farm workers. The trends are not explained by changes in the socio-demographic characteristics of farm workers, farm work conditions, economic conditions in Mexico and the United States, or by demographic conditions in Mexico. The trend is highly correlated with increases in the number of agents employed in the Southwest Sector of the U.S. Border Patrol. Our findings suggest that border militarization, a policy designed to deter undocumented migration, is instead disrupting transnational family life between Mexico and the United States and, in doing so, creating a permanent population of undocumented migrants and their children in the United States.

Authors

• Erin R. Hamilton, University of California-Davis

• Jo Mhairi Hale, University of California-Davis