Navigating Return: Emotional Distress among Mexican Return Migrants

• In Event: International Migration Section Refereed Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): 13. Return migration / migration to Mexico

Abstract

The poor mental health of return migrants in Mexico is a significant problem of concern in the context of massive return migration and deportation to Mexico over the past two decades. We connect ideas about the voluntariness and preparedness of return migration to the stress and coping theory to analyze how the process of return affects the primary and secondary appraisals of the event, with important consequences for emotional distress. Analyzing data from interviews conducted with former U.S. migrants in Mexico City in 2019, we find that most former U.S. migrants, regardless of the process of their return, appraise return as stressful and specifically as a form of loss. While some returned as a way of coping with stressful circumstances in the United States, migrants nevertheless felt a loss associated with both the time and difficulty of return to Mexico, as well as with the impossibility of legal re-entry to the United States. The degree to which the loss of return translates into emotional distress depends on the migrant’s preparedness for return, specifically their tangible and intangible resources, which affect their coping mechanisms. Migrants who return with substantial resources, even if they were deported, experience less distress than those who return with few resources. Furthermore, the analysis reveals that the losses of return migration, including the extent to which migrants lose time, material resources, family ties, control over destiny, and a sense of self, undermines their emotional wellbeing.

Authors

• Yulissa Penaloza, University of California-Davis

• Erin R. Hamilton, University of California-Davis

• Claudia Masferrer, El Colegio de Mexico