The New System of Mexican Migration: The Role of Entry Mode–Specific Human and Social Capital

Abstract

Between 2000 and 2020, undocumented migration declined, temporary labor migration rose, and legal permanent residents arrived at a steady pace—together creating a new system of Mexico–U.S. migration based on the circulation of legal temporary workers and permanent residents. Drawing on data from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Mexican Migration Project, we specify multinomial event-history models to predict the likelihood of departure on first and later trips via four entry categories: no documents, noncompliant tourist visas, temporary work visas, and legal residence visas. The models reveal how the accumulation of entry mode–specific social and human capital powered a system of undocumented migration that emerged between 1965 and 1985, and how that system deteriorated from 1985 to 2000. After 2000, employers took advantage of new visa categories to recruit legal temporary workers, leading to the accumulation of migration-related human and social capital specific to that mode of entry and the emergence of a new system of Mexico–U.S. migration.

The Tradeoff of Temporariness: Economic and Social Impacts of H-2A Status on Mexican Migrant Men

“…Between 1999 and 2018, Mexicans received between 72 and 93 percent of all H-2 visas (Moorefield 2019, 244). IRCA also divided the program into two discrete entities corresponding to the H-2A and H-2B visas (Martin 2017 a ; Moorefield 2019; Wassink and Massey 2021). The former deals specifically with temporary agricultural labor, and the latter deals with temporary non-agricultural labor, including landscaping, forestry work, construction, and seafood processing (Griffith 2006; Moorefield 2019; Wassink and Massey 2021).…”

“…IRCA also divided the program into two discrete entities corresponding to the H-2A and H-2B visas (Martin 2017 a ; Moorefield 2019; Wassink and Massey 2021). The former deals specifically with temporary agricultural labor, and the latter deals with temporary non-agricultural labor, including landscaping, forestry work, construction, and seafood processing (Griffith 2006; Moorefield 2019; Wassink and Massey 2021). Both visas contractually link a migrant to an employer and, in some circumstances, can be extended for up to three years, contingent on the approval of employers and the US Department of Labor (Pren and González-Araiza 2019; US Citizenship and Immigration Services 2020).…”

“…3 With net unauthorized migration from Mexico teetering between zero and negative since 2008 (Massey, Durand and Pren 2016), the H-2A visa program has become the most important means through which agricultural employers supplement a dwindling and aging workforce (Martin 2017 a ; Portes 2020). H-2A visas now play a central role in what Wassink and Massey (2021) call the “new system of Mexican migration”—a system increasingly composed of undocumented families remaining in place on either side of the border and mobile documented workers able to move between the two countries (see also Massey, Durand and Pren 2015).…”

“…Over the past two decades, the United States has witnessed a dramatic expansion of its temporary worker program for manual labor jobs (Moorefield 2019; Portes 2020; Wassink and Massey 2021). The United States is not alone in expanding avenues for legal, temporary migration (Cook-Martín 2019).…”

“…While previous studies have assessed temporary migrants' economic standing in the United States (Massey and Brown 2011;Apgar 2015;Pren and González-Araiza 2019), this article is the first quantitative study to both consider the H-2A visa in isolation, rather than collapse it into a broader category of temporary documentation, and examine the social impacts of H-2A status relative to undocumented migration. Studying the H-2A program in isolation allows for a nuanced and specified analysis of the program as it grows in stature and significance (Portes 2020;Wassink and Massey 2021). Moreover, extending the analysis beyond the realm of the economic and into the realm of the social offers insight into the role that social isolation plays in H-2A, a subject that has, thus far, only been explored qualitatively (Griffith 2006;Griffith 2007;Izcara Palacios 2012).…”