Sources of Mexico's Migration Stream: Rural, Urban, and Border Migrants to the United States

There are three distinct sources of Mexico-U.S. migration flow: the oldest stream from rural communities in central western Mexico, an incipient stream from interior urban areas, and a small but steady stream from Tijuana, a northern border city. Using the Mexican Migration Project data with expanded geographic coverage, I identify these streams and examine how differences in the origin community in terms of family-based migration-related social capital, internal migration experience, and labor force participation shapes the likelihood that men in the community initiate and continue migratory trips. I find four patterns of Mexican migration that make up the flow from central Mexico to northern Mexico and the U.S.: (1) the well-established flow of mostly undocumented low-skill agricultural labor migrants originating in the rural areas of central western Mexico and moving directly to the U.S.; (2) a newer stream of mostly undocumented U.S.-bound migrants from urban interior communities with a greater range of human capital; (3) internal migrants who move to Tijuana as a final destination, and (4) career migrants who make Tijuana a home base for making repeated, mostly undocumented, trips to the U.S.