Cities as Migration Industry Hubs: Monterrey, Mexico, and the H-2 Visa Program

• In Event: Migration and Place

Abstract

The city of Monterrey is the preeminent hub of the brokerage apparatus managing the H-2 visa temporary migrant labor program, the largest of its kind funneling workers from Mexico to the United States. Framed conceptually by studies on the migration industry and infrastructures and research on transnational cities, this article examines how and why Monterrey became a central hub for the H-2 visa migration industry; how the city’s role as a key site for the management of the H-2 visa program has impacted the urban landscape and economy; and how the convergence of brokers in Monterrey has created a web of national and transnational linkages connecting this city to rural and urban areas in Mexico and the United States. Empirically, this article draws from ethnographic, qualitative and quantitative data collected from 2013 to 2025, a period of heightened growth of the H-2 visa program, including observations and interviews with recruiters, document processing agencies, transporters, labor organizers, humanitarian actors, and consular officials; semi-structured interviews and surveys of H-2 workers in sending communities and in Monterrey while in transit to the United States; and labor certification and visa statistics from the U.S. Department of Labor and U.S. Department of State.

Authors

• Ruben Hernandez-Leon, University of California-Los Angeles

• Efren Sandoval, CIESAS-Noreste