Security issues and immigration flows: Drug-violence refugees, the new Mexican immigrants

Mexican immigration figures have reached its lowest point since 2000. Yet, even if as a whole the US is receiving less Mexican migrants, the opposite is true for cities at the border. In this paper, I present evidence to show that this sui generis migration pattern cannot be understood only using traditional explanations of migration dynamics. Instead, Mexicans are migrating because of security issues, fearing drug-related violence and extortion, which has spiked since 2008. I estimate that a total of 264,693 have migrated fearing organized crime activities. By doing so, I combine the literature of migration dynamics with the one of violence and crime in Latin America, pointing towards ways in which non-state actors shape actions of state members. ∗Paper presented at Violence, Drugs and Governance: Mexican Security in Comparative Perspective Conference, Stanford University. October 3-4, 2011 (Palo Alto, CA)