Geographic Entrapment or Aging in Places? How Immigration Status Impacts Where Older Mexican Immigrants Age

• In Event: Return Migration in the Era of Enforcement: Uncertainty and Transnational Lives

Abstract

Immigration scholars have widely debated whether Mexican immigrants, especially undocumented individuals, will stay in the U.S. or return to Mexico in late adulthood. This article contributes to this literature by theoretically bridging migration research with life course/aging in place theories. Empirically, the experiences of Mexican older immigrants serve as a case study to understand how life course/aging and immigration status complicate our understanding of aging-in-place. Using 102 semi-structured interviews with Mexican older immigrants (aged 50+) residing in the U.S. and returnees, this study introduces the concept of geographic entrapment to explain how immigration policies (including immigration status) shape who can age in place, age transnationally, or return. It identifies three domains that matter for aging in place or aging transnationally/return migration: individual, place, and social networks. Then, within these domains, further mechanisms are revealed, like financial and material resources, healthcare access, health status, housing opportunities, legal residency-based restrictions, proximity to family, friends, and community members, and administrative burdens. I argue that legal immigration status promises geographic mobility but, in practice, produces entrapment or what I call geographic entrapment — a dynamic that is more severe for undocumented older immigrants. I compare the experiences of undocumented and documented older immigrants aging in place and aging transnationally (return migrants) to reveal the mechanisms that shape entrapment or mobility.

Author

• Isabel Garcia Valdivia, University of Oregon