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Current Trends in Mexican Migration GLORIA CIRIA VALDÉZ-GARDEA In the summer of 2005, with the Immigration and Naturalization Service ’s (INS) Voluntary Repatriation Program in full swing,1 the U.S. Border Patrol operating in the Arizona desert detained 20,590 people, all of whom were deported to their places of origin. Of this total, 15,051 were men, 3,017 were women, and 2,522 were under the age of eighteen (Román 2005). According to Mexico’s National Migration Institute (INM), most of these deportees were from the states of Chiapas, Veracruz, Oaxaca, and Puebla. This information captures many of the current trends in Mexican migration, which, according to scholars, is characterized by the diversification of migration demographics and by a shift in flows towards the Sonora-Arizona border. Migrants, moreover, are now likely to co me from states that previously were fairly stable demographically, such as Veracruz, on Mexico’s Gulf coast. Finally, although the data remain somewhat unclear, women seem to represent a major component in the migratory phenomenon. Today’s Mexican migrant population is far more socially and culturally heterogeneous than in the past, and represents a greater diversity of circumstances leading up to the decision to move north. Such differences are strongly rooted in regional practices and bring changes in the cultural dynamics of host communities in both northwest Mexico and the United States. The current era of migration has its origins in rising levels of unemployment; 2 in the ongoing crisis in the agricultural sector—e.g., the abrupt downturn in Veracruz’s coffee and sugarcane sectors, and drought in several states, such as Zacatecas;3 as well as in generally increasing poverty levels. The dynamics of migration should, therefore, be assessed from a broader perspective, because we know that its effects now reach a much wider spectrum of society in the United States and Mexico. Demographic displacement does not affect only individuals; families, sending and receiving communities, and towns located along primary GLORIA CIRIA VALDÉZ-GARDEA is professor and researcher at El Colegio de Sonora, Hermosillo. Journal of the Southwest 51, 4 (Winter 2009) : 563–583 564 ✜ JOURNAL OF THE SOUTHWEST transit routes are all experiencing heavy impacts of migration, producing broad shifts in social organization (Santibañez 2004: 12). This dynamic is exacerbated by an utter lack of clarity in public policy, particularly when it comes to urban development and meeting the needs of a growing population in northwest Mexico’s cities and towns. On the one hand, we have large shortfalls in the provision of basic services for migrants in transit. On the other, migration combined with poor urban policy have produced sprawling informal sectors in communities that “nobody controls, nobody governs, and nobody orders” (Santibañez 2004: 5). Secrecy and illicit activity often characterize these receiving communities. In this paper I describe the contemporary characteristics of Mexican migration and examine some of its effects in terms of urban growth on the Mexico–U.S. border. Specifically, I illustrate the crucial role small communities such as Altar and Sasabe4—located in the mining, cattleranching , and agricultural region of northwest Sonora—play within current migratory dynamics. While clearly not an exhaustive survey of the topic, the paper does provide an overview necessary for contextualizing the migrant flows towards the northwest’s border towns and cities, which according to some authors, since the second decade of the 1990s have tended to retain far more migrants than in previous periods (Canales 1999; Mendoza 2004; Córdova 2005). CURRENT TRENDS This section highlights four important features that, based on recent research, I think define Mexican migration in the current context: (1) the redirection of flows to nontraditional crossing points; (2) the emergence of new sending states; (3) the feminization of migrant flows; and (4) government inefficiency in safeguarding migrants’ rights. One of the main characteristics of what some people call ”modern” migration is the change in migratory flows whereby the largest cities have become generally less attractive to migrants, while medium- and small-sized cities have become preferred destinations (Enríquez 2002; Canales 1999). One reason for this that the INS has effectively sealed off traditional crossing points in San Diego...

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