Mexico

Migrants moving from Mexico to the United States represent the world's largest migration corridor, and the two countries have a long, complicated history with respect to immigration. Previously a country of emigration, Mexico increasingly has been experiencing new roles: as a country of transmigration and increasingly of settlement. The research here examines Mexico's relationship with its vast diaspora in the United States; the economic, insecurity, and other factors that have led to sizeable emigration; and the country's evolving policymaking with respect to migration.

Featured

MPI en Español

MPI publishes its content most on point to migration policies, trends, and immigrant populations in Latin America and Spain in Spanish. You can access all of our Spanish-language content, including reports, commentaries, multimedia, and press releases, here, as well as sign up for updates when we publish Spanish-language content and learn more about our Latin America and Caribbean Migration Portal.

Recent Activity

Articles April 25, 2018 National Guard Heads to Southern Border Amid Differing Reality from Earlier Deployments By Muzaffar Chishti, Sarah Pierce, and Austin Rose	Reports November 2020 Immigration Data Matters By Jeanne Batalova, Andriy Shymonyak and Michelle Mittelstadt
Articles March 7, 2018 Connecting the Dots: Emerging Migration Trends and Policy Questions in North and Central America By Claudia Masferrer, Víctor M. García-Guerrero, and Silvia E. Giorguli-Saucedo	Articles February 8, 2018 Frequently Requested Statistics on Immigrants and Immigration in the United States By Jie Zong, Jeanne Batalova, and Jeffrey Hallock
Reports January 2018 Trump’s First Year on Immigration Policy: Rhetoric vs. Reality By Sarah Pierce, Jessica Bolter and Andrew Selee	Multimedia August 31, 2017 La Situación de Cambio Constante entre EE UU y México: Tendencias y Políticas de Migración, Incluyendo Menores No Acompañados
Reports July 2017 Strengthening Mexico’s Protection of Central American Unaccompanied Minors in Transit By Rodrigo Dominguez-Villegas	Multimedia May 4, 2017 Recognizing Changing Enforcement and Crossing Trends at the U.S.-Mexico Border

Pages

Reports April 2008 A New Citizenship Bargain for the Age of Mobility? Citizenship Requirements in Europe and North America By Randall Hansen	Reports April 2008 Dual Citizenship in the Age of Mobility By Thomas Faist and Jürgen Gerdes
Fact Sheets September 2007 Variable Impacts: State-level Analysis of the Slowdown in the Growth of Remittances to Mexico By Aaron Terrazas	Policy Briefs June 2007 Leveraging Remittances for Development By Dilip Ratha
Policy Briefs April 2007 Circular Migration and Development: Trends, Policy Routes, and Ways Forward By Dovelyn Rannveig Mendoza and Kathleen Newland	Reports September 2006 Remittances and Development: Trends, Impacts, and Policy Options, A Review of the Literature By Dovelyn Rannveig Mendoza
Reports September 2006 From A Zero-Sum to a Win-Win Scenario? Literature Review on Circular Migration By Dovelyn Rannveig Mendoza	Reports June 2006 America's Emigrants: U.S. Retirement Migration to Mexico and Panama By David Dixon, Julie Murray and Julia Gelatt

Pages

Feature

February 1, 2007

Migration and Development: Lessons from the Mexican Experience

Mexico has often been cited as a successful example of the positive relationship between migration and development. But Raúl Delgado-Wise and Luis Eduardo Guarnizo show why Mexico's model is unsustainable.

Top Ten

December 1, 2006

All about the Border

The border between the U.S. and Mexico and the water dividing Europe and North Africa continue to be the world's main fronts in the fight against illegal immigration.

Feature

September 1, 2006

Mexico's Presidential Election: Implications for U.S. Immigration Policy

Both of the leading presidential candidates said during the campaign that Mexico needed to create more and better jobs to stem migration - but their approaches to the problem differ. Susan Gzesh of the University of Chicago reports.

Feature

September 1, 2006

America's Emigrants: U.S. Retirement Migration to Mexico and Panama

Little is known about Americans who have retired to Latin America. MPI's David Dixon, Julie Murray, and Julia Gelatt examine the U.S. retiree population in Mexico and Panama by looking at census and visa data as well as by interviewing American retirees in various communities.

Feature

June 1, 2006

The U.S.-Mexico Border

With so much political attention focused on the southern border, the MPI staff has updated this guide to regional population numbers, border crossings, border enforcement, and the economic ties between the United States and Mexico.

Recent Activity

Articles

March 27, 2024

The Limits of the Go-It-Alone Approach: U.S. Migration Management Increasingly Requires Other Countries’ Cooperation

The U.S. immigration enforcement system increasingly depends on other countries to help halt irregular movements through the Americas and accept the return of unauthorized migrants. Foreign governments play a crucial and yet underappreciated role in migration management, and can either aid or frustrate U.S. border-control aims, as this article explores.

Reports

January 2024

Migration at the U.S.-Mexico Border: A Challenge Decades in the Making

Unauthorized migration at the U.S.-Mexico border has been a high-profile and politically divisive issue for decades. But as the nature of migration at the border has changed profoundly, U.S. policy responses have struggled to keep up. This report explores the changing nature of migration flows and migration policy at the border from the early 1990s until today, highlighting key lessons for contemporary policy-making.

Reports

January 2024

Shifting Realities at the U.S.-Mexico Border: Immigration Enforcement and Control in a Fast-Evolving Landscape

All eyes are on the U.S.-Mexico border, where shifting migration trends and record migrant arrivals have stretched the U.S. border management system beyond its capabilities. As the Biden administration continues to implement its new regime of incentives for orderly arrivals and disincentives for unauthorized crossings, this report analyzes the rapidly changing policy and migration realities and outlines recommendations for a more effective, durable system of border control.

Commentaries

October 2023

Shifting Patterns and Policies Reshape Migration to U.S.-Mexico Border in Major Ways in 2023

There is a deeper story behind the U.S. government's fiscal 2023 border encounters numbers than that the year marked a new record high. The pivot from the pandemic-era Title 42 expulsions policy and sharp diversification in nationalities have reshaped migrant arrivals unlike any year before. This commentary goes beyond the headlines to focus on the more enduring—and challenging—realities occuring at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Reports

October 2023

Un camino sinuoso hacia la integración: Regularización de migrantes venezolanos y perspectivas del mercado laboral

El desplazamiento de venezolanos ha llevado a países de toda América Latina y el Caribe a poner en marcha políticas y programas para registrar, regularizar y apoyar la integración de los venezolanos. Sin embargo, la medida en que la regularización ha ayudado a los venezolanos a encontrar trabajo ha variado de un país a otro, como se analiza en este informe.

Reports

October 2023

A Winding Path to Integration: Venezuelan Migrants’ Regularization and Labor Market Prospects

Venezuelan displacement has prompted countries across Latin America and the Caribbean to launch policies and programs to register, regularize, and support the integration of arriving Venezuelans. However, the extent to which regular status has helped Venezuelans find work has varied from country to country, as this report discusses.

Commentaries

September 2023

A Turning Point for the Unauthorized Immigrant Population in the United States

The unauthorized immigrant population in the United States stood at approximately 11.2 million people in mid-2021, with larger annual growth than at any point since 2015, according to MPI's latest estimates. Even as the Mexican unauthorized immigrant population continued its decade-long decline, there were new entrants from a growing array of other countries.

Reports

June 2023

Migration Narratives in Northern Central America: How Competing Stories Shape Policy and Public Opinion in Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador

El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras have long histories of emigration, but are seeing increasing transit and return migration as well. This report explores the stories told within these three countries about migration in all its forms, how these narratives intersect with (and at times, contradict) each other, and how they influence policy decisions and public opinion.

Programs

Topics see all >

Regions see all >

Data

Featured Publication

Programs

You are here

Mexico

Recent Activity

Pages

Pages

Pages

Recent Activity

Pages