Life in the U.S.

We recently began a mini study on risks involved with living in the U.S. The goal is to try to see if people select their locations based on any foreseen knowledge of the quality of life where they are going. I did 17 short interviews one night and had some important insights into the ways in which the entrapment processes are working in the U.S. and what people are doing to avoid them.

The only person that had not heard of raids occurring in the U.S. was a young man that had never been to the U.S. before and had been trying to meet up with his father in New York City. It actually surprised me that, while migrants often know very little about the crossing experience prior to attempting it, they know much more about how to avoid risks within the U.S. Many of them insinuated having moved from a different area that was worse, having found a different U.S. city that offers more protection from deportation. Although this information is purely based on social networks and therefore relies on a mixture of information about the availability of work and the risks involved in living in that area. Understanding exactly how this relationship works will more require time and research, but I can explain a few of the insights into the various consequences of different risks to migrants. The most common fear raised by the people I interviewed (for this project, as well as with the other projects) was the constant threat of apprehension that would lead to deportation and therefore failure to earn enough money. This fear was manifested in concerns about the border patrol coming to immigrant communities to arrest you for being latino, the lack of a driver’s license so any driving infraction can result in an arrest and deportation, and having bosses that refuse to pay, or lower the wages, threatening to call the border patrol if the migrants do not accept the new terms.

A man named Gilberto was apprehended in Redding Pennsylvania when the border patrol went door to door in his all latino apartment complex, demanding identification. He was subsequently deported to Mexico and has tried several times to get back with no success even though his wife and children are still there.

The lack of driver’s licenses pose a specific threat to migrants because any roadblock or traffic citation has extreme consequences. A 44 year old man from Oaxaca told me that he never did anything but drive from work to home, and he was terrified each time. States such as New Mexico allow people without legal status to obtain drivers license, but the lack of profitable work in there probably detracts from it's generally attractive nature as a sanctuary state.

The inability to collect wages owed is a big problem for migrants. One man told me that he was owed $8,000 USD in back wages by an employer. He was injured on the job using a jackhammer to break up concrete and that boss refused to pay for his medical bills and withheld his wages. After another failed attempt to get back to his family in Oklahoma he is going to head back to Mexico where they will hopefully join him soon.

Other people mentioned the violence and the gangs that run the areas where they live in the U.S. They said that the assassins and drug dealers make them pay a toll for living there. It is important to note that the marginalization, vulnerability and violence associated with undocumented migration does not end at the border. It transcends space creating a complicated web of oppression that is interlaced with macro-economic policy.