us mexico migration case study

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Mexican immigration to the united states: continuities and changes.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 October 2022

This research note examines continuities and changes in the profile of Mexican migration to the United States using data from Mexico's Encuesta Nacional de la Dinámica Demográfica, the U.S. Census, and the Mexican Migration Project. Our analysis generally yields a picture of stability over time. Mexico-U.S. migration continues to be dominated by the states of Western Mexico, particularly Guanajuato, Jalisco, and Michoacán, and it remains a movement principally of males of labor-force age. As Mexico has urbanized, however, out-migration has come to embrace urban as well as rural workers; and as migrant networks have expanded, the flow has become less selective with respect to education. Perhaps the most important change detected was an acceleration in the rate of return migration during the early 1990s, reflecting the massive legalization of the late 1980s.

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• Volume 36, Issue 1
• Jorge Durand (a1) , Douglas S. Massey (a2) and René M. Zenteno (a3)
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0023879100018859

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• Mexican migration has changed America for the better

Remittances sent home have helped Mexico, too

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P EDRO MORALES , a 73-year-old retired farmer, sits at the table of his sparsely furnished house in Santa Rosa and flicks through faded pictures of José, one of his sons. In 1990 José, then just 19, left this small village two hours outside of Guadalajara, in the central Mexican state of Jalisco, where chickens still roam the streets. He crossed the border to the United States illegally, and has lived there ever since.

Some 3,000km (1,800 miles) away, José explains over breakfast in Los Angeles that he migrated north for “a better life and to help my parents”. It has been hard work, but he achieved both aims. With the money he earned through a series of construction jobs, he bought a house in California. He married Claudia, also an undocumented Mexican. Their 26-year-old daughter, Evelyn, is an American citizen.

José was not the only person from his family to make the journey. His brother Roberto lived in the United States for nine years until he was deported. One of Pedro’s grandsons, named after him, worked for four years legally in America before returning to Mexico at the start of the pandemic. Juan Carlos, another grandson, migrated north last year for six months on a visa for agricultural labourers.

One family, two countries—and a tangled web of legal statuses and experiences. The Morales family illustrates the vast and varied panorama of migration from Mexico to the United States, one of the largest movements of people from one country to another in the past 50 years. Since 1965 over 16m people have left Mexico to go north of the border.

Partly because so many Mexicans (and Central Americans) have moved illegally to the United States, immigration is an issue that haunts every American administration. President Joe Biden, for example, is under pressure to extend a policy known as Title 42, introduced under his predecessor Donald Trump. This policy, ostensibly adopted because of the pandemic, allows officials to turn away migrants at the border, including asylum-seekers, and is due to expire in May. But such squabbles over Mexican migration fail to capture its nuances. And they ignore how these migrants are shaping both their countries, mostly for the better.

The border between the two countries has always been porous. But the period of mass movement north dates to 1964, when the closure of the bracero seasonal work programme in the United States spurred many Mexicans to make the journey illegally. The number of migrants gathered pace in the 1980s and rocketed in the 1990s and early 2000s (see chart).

Las fronteras

Mexican migration is primarily driven by a demand for manual labour in the United States, says Jorge Durand of the University of Guadalajara. By one estimate 68% of California’s agricultural workers are Mexicans. “I knew there was work in the United States,” says José.

The first wave of migrants fitted squarely into this pattern. They were single young men from rural areas, according to Filiz Garip of Princeton University. They did not have documents and worked in agriculture. Later, however, they were joined by migrants from cities, who were richer and better educated than the average Mexican. Women started to make the journey. Migrants fanned out from California, Texas and Illinois to other parts of America. They stayed for longer, too.

The patterns of Mexican migration shifted again over the time that José was beginning to settle down in the United States. For a start, after a peak in 2007, fewer Mexicans have been making it over the border each year, not least as border security has been tightened by successive administrations. In the 2000s there were several years of negative net migration, because of a large number of deportations and a less buoyant jobs market caused by the Great Recession. The second trend is that since around 2017, there have been more legal than illegal Mexicans in the United States, estimates suggest.

The overall fall in the number of migrants also correlates with Mexico’s shifting demography. An average Mexican woman had 6.6 children in her lifetime in 1970 but only 2.1 in 2020; the country’s median age rose from 15 to 28 over the same period. Mexican migrants, in turn, have changed the United States. The country is home to around 11m migrants born in Mexico. They constitute around a quarter of the foreign-born population, and are increasingly a political and an economic force. Hispanic migrants are younger and, until recently, tended to have more children. According to the Pew Research Centre, some 17% of American women who gave birth in 2018 were of Hispanic origin, up from 10% in 2000. But Mexican migrants to the United States are having far fewer children than they used to: in 2000 they accounted for 42% of all births to women born abroad. By 2018 their share was half that.

Hope accompanies them

The newcomers changed where they lived, too. Almost half of the population of Los Angeles is Hispanic. Most are of Mexican heritage. In the neighbourhood where the Morales live, there are “lavanderias” (laundries), “tiendas” (shops) and “taquerias” (taco shops), not unlike back in Mexico. Claudia says when Evelyn was small she would panic about not being able to speak English in a medical emergency. Now Spanish-speaking doctors are plentiful. Mexican-Americans are creating new traditions, too. “On the one hand I have a sense of lost identity, but on the other we are creating our own culture,” says Evelyn.

The presence of Mexican labourers willing to work for less pay than Americans can push down wages. Research by economists such as Gordon Hanson of Harvard University and Giovanni Peri of the University of California suggests this affects only a small proportion of Americans. Mexican migrants boost the purchasing power of far more people by providing cheap childcare and the like. “Anyone who has bought a house or eats fruit and vegetables” has benefited, says Mr Hanson. However, other economists, such as George Borjas at Harvard University, think the number of poorly paid American workers affected may be higher.

Either way, most economists agree that immigration is good for the receiving economy over the long run. A model built by Mr Hanson and colleagues found that reducing immigration from Latin America by half led to a small decline in average real income. The decline was larger in places with many Hispanic immigrants, such as Los Angeles.

Moving north also improves the lives of Mexican migrants. Mr Hanson calculates that the income of those who move goes up between two-and-a-half and five times, even after adjusting for the higher cost of living in America. Pepe Zárate, a 41-year-old undocumented Mexican, could have earned a decent living at home as a doctor but still left for the United States two decades ago. He now makes around $4,000 a month as a construction worker. In Mexico he would struggle to earn an equivalent wage even as a doctor.

Evaluating migration’s impact the other way, on Mexico’s economy, is trickier. Economists reckon remittances have helped keep the economy relatively stable. They boost spending and are a big source of foreign exchange. Pedro’s house in Santa Rosa is modest compared to his son’s in Los Angeles, but far more luxurious than others in the area. With the money José sent him, he installed a toilet which flushes, for instance.

During the pandemic remittances have been particularly important. They rose by 27% between 2020 and 2021, reaching a high of $52bn, equivalent to 4% of Mexico’s GDP . In contrast, the government under Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the fiscally conservative president, has spent only 0.7% of GDP on direct aid.

But Mexico has failed to make the most of its migrants, says Tonatiuh Guillén, a former head of Mexico’s National Institute for Migration. Those with fluent English could work in call centres, so boosting the country’s nascent service industry. Migrants could also be tapped for investment. Mr López Obrador ended a programme in which municipal, state and federal governments could match gifts or contributions from hometown clubs of migrants in the United States to pay for roads and the like.

Today is all they have

Lately the number of Mexicans making the journey north has been climbing again. Last year US border patrol agents caught 655,594 Mexicans trying to enter America illegally. Numbers this year are already up by 44%. That includes some double-counting, but it still seems likely that the number of people crossing is rising sharply.

Mexico’s economy is 3.8% smaller than in 2019, and is not expected to reach its former size again until next year. Gang violence has not previously spurred migration, but that appears to be changing, too, reckons Stephanie Leutert of the University of Texas at Austin.

The political backlash to this will make the lives of those Mexicans who are already settled in the United States harder. According to Doug Massey at Princeton University, most studies suggest that Mexican migrants are becoming more like Americans, both financially and socially. But as so many are undocumented, they do not have access to services that could help them integrate further. Many live in fear of being booted out; few dare leave as a result. American immigration policy “has never really recognised that historically Mexicans didn’t want to settle [in the United States],” argues Mr Massey, but to “circulate and keep their home in Mexico”.

José, for example, has only visited his father once in the two decades since moving away. He and Claudia would return to Mexico permanently if they knew they could go back to see Evelyn in the United States. “This country has given us so many opportunities,” he says. “But I would like to be able to hug my brother on his birthday or share a family meal.” ■

This article appeared in the The Americas section of the print edition under the headline “The United States of Mexico”

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I study migrants traveling through Mexico to the US, and saw how they follow news of dangers – but are not deterred

Postdoctoral Fellow, Cornell University

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Angel Alfonso Escamilla García does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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The world awoke one morning in late March 2023 to the news that at least 38 Central and South American migrants had died in a fire in a migrant detention center in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico.

A widely circulated video from the closed-circuit cameras inside the detention center showed the building burning, with migrants trapped inside trying to break the metal bars of their cells – and detention center officers allegedly leaving them there.

The Mexican government has said the migrants themselves started the fire after learning they would be deported from Mexico – which is increasingly a destination for migrants and asylum seekers – back to their home countries.

The video spread quickly across social media, and many Mexican migrant advocacy groups and activists decried the event.

Another group also paid close attention to this tragedy – migrants who are in transit through Mexico.

As a sociologist , I have studied the impacts of violence against Central American migrants in Mexico for nearly a decade. I have considered questions like how migrants who are on their way to the U.S. react to news of violence against other migrants, and whether such news alters their plans.

My research has shown that migrants pay close attention to any information that can give them clues about the dangers that lie between them and the U.S.

Migrants have shared with me that they highly value information about any dangers ahead as they move north, whether it relates to criminal groups or U.S. immigration policy changes. Migrants use this knowledge to implement a variety of strategies to avoid, or at least prepare for, any suffering – and it can lead them to take different routes to the U.S. border.

Understanding migrants in Mexico

Hundreds of thousands of migrants from around the world transit through Mexico every year on their way to the U.S.-Mexico border. In April 2023 alone, the U.S. detained more than 211,000 migrants along that border. That statistic coincides with an overall rise in global migration and rise in migrants trying to reach the U.S.

The majority of migrants crossing the U.S. border come from Latin American countries other than Mexico , including Central American countries, but also Peru, Colombia, Venezuela and Cuba.

Most of these migrants are single adults , though a number of them are also families and children. People migrate through Mexico for many reasons, including political instability, lack of work opportunities and violence in their own countries.

My interviews with migrants moving through Mexico show that they tend to widely circulate tragic news, such as news of the June 2022 news of migrants found dead locked in a tractor trailer in San Antonio. Videos and photos of this and other tragic instances, like the Ciudad Juárez fire, provide real, vivid images of what can happen if migrants decide to pursue the same pathway.

And for these migrants, the images and news stories aren’t secondhand information that they can question or doubt – images can be interpreted as unchangeable truths.

How migrants get their news

Migrants don’t receive news from New York Times alerts or nightly news.

Their information-sharing largely occurs in an underground informal information exchange that circulates news and stories among migrants heading toward the U.S. through Mexico.

That information is shared, discussed, interpreted and commented on through social media platforms, chat groups and word of mouth. Within 24 hours of the Ciudad Juárez fire, every single social media outlet and migrant chat that I follow as part of my research, comprised of thousands of transit migrants moving throughout Mexico and Guatemala in real time, had posted and reposted the video and news of the incident.

Some comments and replies in social media and chat groups about the incident prayed for mercy and peace for the dead and their loved ones.

Others asked for a list of names of the dead, or about their places of origin, as people desperately sought to find out whether their family members and friends were among the dead and injured. Still others asked for tips and discussed ways to avoid suffering the same fate, such as asking about alternate routes to the border, or sharing ways to avoid ending up in Mexican migrant detention centers.

A shared response

Common among migrants’ reactions to the March 2023 fire was a deep sense of grief. Migrants recognized how close they are to those who lost their lives and expressed a sense of “that could have been me.”

And yet, in my field work, I have found that these horrific events do not deter migrants’ desire to reach the U.S. What they do is reset migrants’ expectations going forward.

Through my field work, I have heard migrants repeatedly tell stories about the dire conditions in detention centers in Mexico .

They report that these poor conditions – rotten food, fleas, lack of clothing or blankets for the cold weather – have triggered hunger strikes and protests.

Broader effects

Another of my main findings is that violent and tragic incidents tend to prompt migrants to avoid any interactions with police or any other officials, even under the guise of help or support.

For example, my research suggests that stories and images of violence like the Ciudad Juárez tragedy will generate a further lack of trust in the Mexican government. I believe that the incident will create certain expectations about the perils of spending time near the border. If they can, I think that migrants will likely avoid Ciudad Juárez and other areas where they feel they may be detained.

I believe the fire will also leave a symbolic scar on migrants in Mexico, who will collectively remember this event and construct their journeys around it.

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The Consequences of Migration to the United States for Short-term Changes in the Health of Mexican Immigrants

Noreen goldman.

Office of Population Research, Princeton University, Wallace Hall, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA

Anne R. Pebley

California Center for Population Research, University of California Los Angeles, CA. 90095, USA

Mathew J. Creighton

Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Departament de Ciències Polítiques i Socials, Barcelona, Spain

Graciela M. Teruel

Universidad Iberoamericana, AC and CAMBS, México D.F., México

Luis N. Rubalcava

Centro de Análisis y Medición del Bienestar Social, AC and CIDE, México D.F., México

Chang Chung

Although many studies have attempted to examine the consequences of Mexico-U.S. migration for Mexican immigrants’ health, few have had adequate data to generate the appropriate comparisons. In this article, we use data from two waves of the Mexican Family Life Survey (MxFLS) to compare the health of current migrants from Mexico with those of earlier migrants and nonmigrants. Because the longitudinal data permit us to examine short-term changes in health status subsequent to the baseline survey for current migrants and for Mexican residents, as well as to control for the potential health selectivity of migrants, the results provide a clearer picture of the consequences of immigration for Mexican migrant health than have previous studies. Our findings demonstrate that current migrants are more likely to experience recent changes in health status—both improvements and declines—than either earlier migrants or nonmigrants. The net effect, however, is a decline in health for current migrants: compared with never migrants, the health of current migrants is much more likely to have declined in the year or two since migration and not significantly more likely to have improved. Thus, it appears that the migration process itself and/or the experiences of the immediate post-migration period detrimentally affect Mexican immigrants’ health.

Introduction

Large-scale Mexican-U.S. migration has changed social, economic, and cultural life on both sides of the border. Migration to the United States can offer increased earnings and savings accumulation ( Gathmann 2008 ). However, it can also be a difficult experience for migrants because of the risks and costs of border crossing; poorly paying, irregular, and hazardous jobs; crowded housing; lengthy family separation; discrimination; and a politically hostile climate ( Hovey 2000 ; Massey and Sanchez 2010 ; Ullmann et al. 2011 ).

What are the consequences of the immigrant experience for immigrants’ health? The literature suggests that Mexican immigrants are positively selected for good health and healthy behaviors (the “healthy migrant effect”) but that living in the United States may lead to deterioration in both health and healthy behaviors of migrants ( Ceballos and Palloni 2010 ; Kaestner et al. 2009 ; Oza-Frank et al. 2011 ; Riosmena and Dennis 2012 ). However, the evidence for both parts of this scenario is often contradictory and limited by available data. A study based on Mexican longitudinal data found only weak evidence of positive health selection for migrants ( Rubalcava et al. 2008 ). However, studies using binational cross-sectional data to compare Mexican immigrants in the United States with Mexican residents have argued more strongly in support of positive health selection ( Barquera et al. 2008 ; Crimmins et al. 2005 ).

Research on the effects of life in the United States on immigrant health is also problematic. Studies comparing immigrant duration cohorts cross-sectionally in the United States have generally suggested that immigrant health and health behaviors deteriorate with longer durations of residence ( Abraído-Lanza et al. 2005 ; Lara et al. 2005 ). In contrast, some studies indicate that health trajectories are not monotonically related to time spent in the United States ( Jasso et al. 2004 ; Teitler et al. 2012 ).

Many of the limitations characterizing previous research on immigrant health result from reliance on cross-sectional data. These studies did not have adequate information on premigration health, making it impossible to determine when health deterioration began. In addition, cross-sectional comparisons involve cohorts of immigrants with different characteristics that arrived in different time periods with distinct political and economic climates; comparisons are further biased by selective attrition of return migrants, who, on average, are less healthy than the stayers (i.e., the “salmon bias”; Riosmena et al. 2013 ). Moreover, cross-sectional studies cannot assess whether the observed health trajectories of immigrants differ from those of nonmigrants. Alternative strategies that compare U.S. emigrants who have returned to Mexico with those who remained in their home communities are also problematic because of potential health-selective return migration.

In this article, we use data from the two waves of the Mexican Family Life Survey (MxFLS) to explicitly examine short-term changes in health status for current migrants in the United States compared with return migrants and never migrants. Because the richness of data in the MxFLS permits extensive controls for the potential health selectivity of migrants, this article provides a significantly clearer picture of the consequences of immigration for Mexican migrant health than previous studies.

The literature suggests several reasons why immigrant health may deteriorate in the United States. The first is inadequate access to health care, particularly for undocumented migrants ( Nandi et al. 2008 ; Prentice et al. 2005 ; Vargas Bustamante et al. 2012 ). Having health insurance is a key predictor of access to health care, particularly for immigrants ( Siddiqi et al. 2009 ).

A second explanation is the detrimental effects of acculturation on health behaviors (i.e., poor diet, a sedentary lifestyle, and substance abuse) through exposure to U.S. society. In recent years, the acculturation literature has been strongly criticized ( Carter-Pokras et al. 2008 ; Creighton et al. 2012 ; Hunt et al. 2004 ; Viruell-Fuentes 2007 ; Zambrana and Carter-Pokras 2010 ) for failing to take socioeconomic status seriously and for its limited theoretical grounding in the immigrant integration literature. A more nuanced interpretation of the acculturation hypothesis, drawn from the literature on segmented assimilation, suggests that Mexican immigrants may adopt the less healthy behaviors of lower-income Americans because many involuntarily join this social class upon entering the United States ( Abraído-Lanza et al. 2006 ).

Other hypotheses focus on social inequality as causes of declines in migrant health ( Viruell-Fuentes et al. 2012 ). For example, the acculturative stress hypothesis suggests that because U.S. society views Mexican-origin immigrants as low status, immigrants face discrimination and chronic stress ( Finch and Vega 2003 ). In addition, Mexican immigrants may live and work under unhealthy conditions that expose them to infectious disease, environmental toxins, injury, and other health risks ( Acevedo-Garcia 2001 ; Kandel and Donato 2009 ; Orrenius and Zavodny 2009 ).

A related stressor is the increasingly hostile political climate for recent immigrants in the United States, including stronger border enforcement, restriction of access to welfare and Medicaid, and state anti-immigrant efforts ( Cornelius 2001 ; Massey and Sanchez 2010 ). Discrimination, family cultural conflict and lengthy separation, a hostile political climate, loss of social support, and, after the 2008 economic crisis, fewer jobs are all likely to be stressful experiences, especially for undocumented immigrants, and are likely to have a more immediate impact on immigrants’ mental and physical health than poor access to health care or acculturation mechanisms.

Despite these findings, it is possible that emigration to the United States improves Mexican migrants’ health. Residence in the United States has a consistently positive effect on the wealth of middle-aged and older Mexican return migrants ( Wong et al. 2007 ), and income and wealth are strongly associated with better health ( Marmot and Bell 2012 ). Mexican migrants, particularly documented ones, may also experience better working and housing conditions than they would have in Mexico. Previous studies have found that health care use and self-perceptions of health may improve with duration in the United States ( Hummer et al. 2004 ; Lara et al. 2005 ) and that some health outcomes are better for immigrants who have resided in the United States for several years ( Riosmena et al. 2013 ; Teitler et al. 2012 ).

In this article, we examine whether the health of Mexican immigrants deteriorates or improves after migration to the United States. We explicitly compare changes in health status of recent immigrants with those of previous immigrants and with individuals who remained in Mexico. Because these three groups are likely to differ in initial health status (e.g., because of the healthy migrant effect and salmon bias), a critical part of this analysis is the introduction of extensive controls for baseline health status.

The Mexican Family Life Survey (MxFLS) has several advantages for this analysis: it interviews respondents at closely spaced waves that permit assessment of short-term changes in health for migrants to the United States and individuals who remain in or return to Mexico; it collects objective and subjective health assessments that provide controls for potential health selectivity of migrants; and it obtains detailed migration histories that allow us to distinguish among recent, earlier, and never migrants. The baseline survey in 2002 (MxFLS-1) interviewed all adult members residing in more than 8,440 households in 147 localities of Mexico ( Rubalcava and Teruel 2006 ). Respondents in the baseline survey were reinterviewed in 2005–2006 (MxFLS-2) and 2009–2012 (MxFLS-3). MxFLS followed individuals who left their household of origin, irrespective of destination, including movers to the United States: of those sampled in MxFLS-1, more than 90% were located and interviewed again in MxFLS-2 ( Rubalcava et al. 2008 ). This analysis is based on MxFLS-1 and MxFLS-2; MxFLS-3 is not yet available.

The sample includes respondents who are 20 years and older at baseline. Of the 19,132 age-appropriate respondents, one could not be matched to a municipality and was excluded. An additional 4,874 respondents did not report one or both of the health outcomes at follow-up. After exclusion of these respondents, the analytic sample comprises 14,257 adults.

In exploratory analyses, we estimated a logistic model of the probability that a respondent was missing either of the two health outcomes. The results indicate that individuals with no previous migration history, those with more education, men, and individuals in their 20s were more likely to be missing outcomes than others. However, with these variables in the model, there were no significant differences by self-reported health status at baseline.

Outcome Variables: Self-reported Health and Change in Health

Despite the frequent use of self-reports of overall health to compare the well-being of various immigrant and native-born groups (e.g., Finch and Vega 2003 ), comparisons may be biased by differences in choice of reference group, degree of acculturation, and language of interview ( Bzostek et al. 2007 ). Because this analysis examines changes in reported health for a given individual, such biases are likely to be substantially reduced. We consider two outcomes—self-rated health (SRH) and perceived change in health—each with five possible responses: “much better,” “better,” “the same,” “worse,” and “much worse.” The SRH question in MxFLS-2 for both Mexican residents and immigrants in the United States, is as follows:

If you compare yourself with people of the same age and sex, would you say that your health is (…)?

With controls for SRH at baseline, an analysis of SRH at follow-up implicitly examines change in the respondent’s health between interviews.

The second outcome is a direct assessment of change, based on different questions for respondents in the United States and in Mexico. Respondents in Mexico were asked:

Comparing your health to a year ago, would you say your health now is (…)?

Respondents interviewed in the United States were instead asked:

Comparing your health to just before you came to the United States, would you say your health now is (…)?

Calculations indicate that the average time since migration to the United States for current migrants is 1.6 years—only slightly longer than the explicit period of 1 year used in the Mexico interviews.

Because few respondents reported the extreme categories of “much better” or “much worse,” the five response categories were collapsed into three: “much better” and “better” were combined into a single category, as were “much worse” and “worse;” “same” health is the reference category.

Migrant Status

We categorize respondents as “current,” “return,” and “never” migrants. Current migrants migrated after the baseline survey and were interviewed in the United States in MxFLS-2. Return migrants were interviewed in Mexico at Wave 2 but had previous migration experience to the United States; they include long-term and temporary migrants as well as those who migrated to the United States between survey waves but returned to Mexico before the second interview. Never migrants reported no international migration experience by Wave 2.

Control Variables

To account for potential differences in the health status of migrants, return migrants, and nonmigrants at baseline that are not captured by SRH, we include four health variables in addition to SRH, all measured at Wave 1. Obesity, anemia, and hypertension are derived from assessments conducted in the home by a trained health worker. Obesity is defined as a body mass index (BMI) ≥30 based on height and weight measurements ( WHO 2000 ). Individuals are classified as anemic for the following hemoglobin (Hb) levels: Hb<130 g/L for males or Hb<120 g/L for females ( WHO 2000 ). Individuals with elevated systolic (mmHg≥140) and/or diastolic (mmHg≥90) blood pressure are considered hypertensive ( WHO 2000 ). The final health measure reflects whether the respondent had been hospitalized in the past year.

Two measures of socioeconomic status provide additional controls for potential selectivity of migrants: (1) years of schooling, and (2) log per capita household expenditure. The latter measure has been used to assess household economic well-being in a broad range of contexts, including Mexico ( Contreras 2003 ; Rubalcava et al. 2009 ; Xu et al. 2009 ). All models also control for sex and age (linear and quadratic terms).

Municipal Controls

Because the literature suggests that migration decisions depend on place of origin ( Rubalcava et al. 2008 ) and migration flows at the municipality level are likely to be related to unobserved characteristics (e.g., human capital) of residents, we include three variables at the municipality level. A municipality was coded as rural if there were fewer than 2,500 residents ( INEGI 2003 ). We also include two measures based on the 2000 Mexican Census: (1) a marginalization index derived from a factor analysis of municipal-level measures of education, housing, income, and schooling ( Luis-Ávila et al. 2001 ); and (2) a measure of migration intensity based on the number of return migrants, current migrants, and amount of remittances received by households ( Tuirán et al. 2002 ). Both measures are categorized as “low,” “medium,” and “high.”

As described earlier, we classify both health outcome variables (self-rated health at Wave 2 relative to someone of the same age and sex and perceived health change over the year prior to Wave 2) as better, same, or worse health. For each of the two health outcomes, we fit multinomial regression models, with “same” health as the reference category, to estimate relative risk ratios (RRRs) for worse relative to same health and RRRs for better relative to same health. We estimate a set of three models that sequentially includes (1) migrant status, baseline SRH, age and sex; (2) objective health measures; (3) socioeconomic status and municipal-level characteristics. The estimate of primary interest pertains to current migrants: that is, is health at follow-up or perceived change in health of current migrants better, worse, or the same as that of never or return migrants?

We use multiple imputation to estimate a response for explanatory variables with missing values (see Table 1 for the frequency of missing data). We create five imputed data sets. The imputation models include all covariates with complete information as well as a variable denoting household size (to improve overall model fit). The estimated RRRs in the results section are derived from average values of the coefficients across the five imputed data sets.

Description of the outcome and explanatory variables in the analytic sample

The sample is clustered at two levels: 14,257 adults are drawn from 7,200 households and 136 municipalities. To account for the dependence of observations, we use robust standard errors clustered at the household level to calculate variances under multiple imputation. The estimates are computed in Stata 12 using the mlogit command ( StataCorp 2011 ).

Descriptive statistics are presented in Table 1 . At each wave, about 60 % of respondents evaluate their overall health the same as someone of the same age and sex, and only about 8 % rate their health as worse. Almost twice as many respondents note an improvement as compared with a deterioration in health over the period. About 5 % of the respondents are current or return migrants.

The relative risk ratios (RRRs, or exponentiated coefficients) in Table 2 pertain to self-rated health at follow-up. Based on Model 3, the estimated RRR for current migrants is 1.7 ( p < .05) for worse compared with the same health and 1.3 ( p < .05) for better compared with the same health (relative to a never migrant). In other words, current migrants in the United States are less likely than never migrants to rate themselves as having the same health status as someone of their age and sex: they are more apt to rate their health both worse and better—but especially worse than their peers—at the second interview. The estimates for return migrants are not significantly different from those for never migrants. Estimates for the control variables generally conform to expectation.

Relative risk ratios (RRRs) and t statistics from multinomial logistic model of self-rated health status (SRH) relative to same age and sex at MxFLS-2

Notes: Based on five multiple imputations of missing values. Standard errors are adjusted for clustering at the household level.

Because RRRs are difficult to interpret, in upcoming Table 4 , we present predicted probabilities of worse, same, or better health at follow-up by migrant status. Each estimate was determined by setting all explanatory variables except migrant status at their observed values for each individual, setting migrant status to the same value for all individuals (never, return, or current migrant) and calculating the mean prediction from the model. The first panel, which shows predictions based on Model 3 in Table 2 , underscores the results noted earlier: at follow-up, current migrants are considerably more likely (by nearly 50 %) than never migrants to rate their health as worse than someone of the same age and sex and only slightly more likely (by about 13 %) to rate their health as better.

Average predicted probabilities of self-rated health status at Wave 2 a and perceived change in health status b by migrant status

Notes: Predicted probabilities were determined by setting all explanatory variables except migrant status at their observed values for each individual, setting migrant status to the same value for all individuals (never, return, current migrants), and calculating the mean prediction from the model.

The RRRs in Table 3 are based on respondents’ assessments of the change in their health status. Consistent with the previous estimates, the RRRs for deteriorating health are large and significant for current migrants (1.9 in Model 3). In contrast, the RRRs for improving health are not significantly different from one for current migrants. As with SRH, the RRRs for return migrants are not significantly different from one for either deteriorating or improving health. The predicted probabilities in the second panel of Table 4 indicate that the health of current migrants is about 60 % more likely than that of never migrants to have worsened in the recent past and only very slightly (and insignificantly) more likely to have improved.

Relative Risk Ratios (RRRs) and t-statistics from Multinomial Model of Perceived Change in Health Status Relative to Previous Year or Prior to Migration

Note: Based on five multiple imputations of missing values. Standard errors are adjusted for clustering at the household level.

The central question of this analysis has been whether migrants from Mexico to the United States experience changes in their health after they move. This simple question has not been adequately answered by prior research because of the dearth of appropriate data. However, through data collection efforts in Mexico and the United States at the second wave, and extensive baseline information on variables potentially related to the health selectivity of migrants, the MxFLS permits us to address this issue in a methodologically appropriate way.

Two outcome variables—SRH at the second wave and self-assessment of recent change in health status—provide insights into the changing health status of current migrants relative to others. Both measures indicate that current migrants are more likely to have experienced recent changes in health status—both improvements and declines—than either earlier migrants or nonmigrants. This is perhaps not surprising because migration to the United States is associated with changes in many of the determinants of health status, including access to health care, exposure to stressful experiences and health risks, and lifestyle. Moreover, the fact that some migrants report better health while others report worse health is consistent with the notion of multiple acculturative processes that ultimately lead to distinct mental and physical health outcomes ( Castro 2013 ).

An important question concerns the net change in health status: compared with residents in Mexico, was improvement in health as prevalent as deterioration in health among current migrants? Because migrants may use a different reference group to evaluate their health status in the United States than they used three years earlier in Mexico ( Bzostek et al. 2007 ), respondents’ direct assessments of changes in their recent health status may be more informative. Our results demonstrate that the net change across the sample of current migrants is a decline in their overall health relative to the other groups.

Although this finding is consistent with the large literature on deteriorating migrant health with length of residence in the United States, our study is the first (to our knowledge) to demonstrate that declines in self-assessed health appear quickly after migrants’ arrival in the United States. Most previous studies suggest that recent Mexican immigrants in the United States are in better health compared with longer-term migrants and the U.S.-born population. However, comparisons based only on U.S. residents miss an important part of the picture: they ignore changes in individual immigrant health in the year or so after migration (compared with migrants’ own health before migration and that of nonmigrants). Our results suggest that the migration process itself and/or the experiences of the immediate post-migration period detrimentally affect Mexican immigrants’ health.

The speed with which declines occur suggests that the process of acculturation, which tends to unfold over numerous years ( Antecol and Bedard 2006 ; Creighton et al. 2012 ), is unlikely to account for most of the decline in migrant health status. Instead, we speculate that the process of border crossing for undocumented immigrants—now more costly and dangerous than in the past ( Gathmann 2008 ; US GAO 2006 ) —combined with the physical and psychological costs of finding work and lodging in the United States, lack of health care, and the stress of undocumented status can cause rapid deterioration in immigrants’ physical and mental well-being and hence perceptions of their own health. Regardless of documentation status, many immigrants face extreme poverty, isolation from families, and harsh work conditions after arrival that may affect their health assessment.

Unfortunately, given the limited set of health questions asked of migrants at the second wave, we cannot provide a more nuanced analysis of how physical and mental well-being change. Moreover, the sample size of individuals who migrated between MxFLS-1 and MxFLS-2 is not sufficiently large to consider how working and housing conditions, diet, social interactions, lack of access to health care, financial stress, and other factors moderate the relationship between migration and health.

With the availability of the third wave of MxFLS, collected in 2009–2012, many such questions can be addressed in the future. Objective markers of health status collected in the third wave for migrants and nonmigrants alike will yield a more precise description of the ways in which health status has evolved. In addition, the inclusion of migrants between the second and third waves will not only yield a larger sample of migrants but will also permit an analysis of whether migrants who came to the United States during the past few years—a period with an especially hostile political climate and an economic recession—experienced even worse health outcomes than the migrants analyzed in this study.

Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge support for this project from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R01HD051764, R24HD047879, R03HD040906, and R01HD047522) and from CONACYT-SEDESOL (2004-01). We would like to thank Germán Rodríguez for statistical advice and Erika Arenas for assistance in data collection and preparation of the data set for this analysis.

Contributor Information

Noreen Goldman, Office of Population Research, Princeton University, Wallace Hall, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA.

Anne R. Pebley, California Center for Population Research, University of California Los Angeles, CA. 90095, USA.

Mathew J. Creighton, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Departament de Ciències Polítiques i Socials, Barcelona, Spain.

Graciela M. Teruel, Universidad Iberoamericana, AC and CAMBS, México D.F., México.

Luis N. Rubalcava, Centro de Análisis y Medición del Bienestar Social, AC and CIDE, México D.F., México.

Chang Chung, Office of Population Research, Princeton University, Wallace Hall, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA.

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Geography AS Notes

Mexico to usa migration.

By Alex Jackson

Last updated on September 13, 2015

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Migration from Mexico to the United States Of America primarily involves the movement of Mexicans from Mexico to the southern states of America which border Mexico. In order to gain access to America, Mexicans must cross the “Unites States-Mexico Border”, a border which spans four US states & six Mexican states. In America, it starts in California and ends in Texas (east to west). Due to their proximity to the border & the high availability of work in these states, the majority of Mexicans move to California followed by Texas. California currently houses 11,423,000 immigrants with Texas holding 7,951,000.

Many Mexicans from rural communities migrate to America, the majority being males who move to America and then send money back to their families in Mexico. Many of these immigrants enter the country illegally, which often requires them to cross a large desert that separates Mexico and America and the Rio Grande. These journeys are dangerous and many immigrants have died, or nearly died, trying to cross into America through these routes.

Reasons for Migration

Push factors.

There are incredibly high crime rates in Mexico, especially in the capital. Homicide rates come in at around 10-14 per 100,000 people (world average 10.9 per 100,000) and drug related crimes are a major concern. It is thought that in the past five years, 47,500 people have been killed in crimes relating to drugs. Many Mexicans will move out of fear for their lives and hope that America is a more stable place to live, with lower crime rates.

Unemployment and poverty is a major problem in Mexico and has risen exponentially in recent years. In 2000, unemployment rates in Mexico were at 2.2, however, in 2009, they rose by 34.43%, leaving them standing at 5.37 in 2010. A large portion of the Mexican population are farmers, living in rural areas where extreme temperatures and poor quality land make it difficult to actually farm. This is causing many Mexican families to struggle, with 47% of the population living under the poverty line. With these high unemployment and poverty rates, people are forced to move to America, where they have better prospects, in order to be able to support their families and maintain a reasonable standard of living.

The climate and natural hazards in Mexico could force people to move to America. Mexico is a very arid area which suffers from water shortages even in the more developed areas of Mexico. The country also suffers from natural disasters including volcanoes, earthquakes, hurricanes & tsunamis. Recent natural disasters could force people to migrate if their homes have been destroyed or made uninhabitable. People who live in danger zones could also migrate out of fear for their lives.

Pull Factors

There is a noticeable difference in the quality of life between America & Mexico. Poverty, as mentioned above, is a major issue in Mexico, with 6% of the population lacking access to “improved” drinking water. Mexico’s infrastructure is severely undeveloped when compared to America’s. Despite being the 11 th richest country in the World, Mexico also has the 10 th highest poverty. With America offering significantly better living standards and services, such as health care, people are enticed to move to America for a better life.

Existing migrant communities in states such as Texas and California help to pull people towards migration. Existing communities make it easier for people to settle once moved and family members & friends who have already moved can encourage others to move. People are also enticed to move in order to be with their families. Cousins and brothers will often move in with their relatives after they have lived in America for a while in order to be with their family.

86.1% of the Mexican population can read & write versus 99% of the population in America. In addition, the majority of students in Mexico finish school at the age of 14, versus 16 in America. These statistics show that there are significantly better academic opportunities in America than in Mexico, which can entice Mexicans to migrate for an improved education, either for themselves or, more likely, their future children, in order to give them more opportunities in the world and allow them to gain higher paying jobs.

Assimilation of Mexicans into American communities has been problematic. Many Mexicans can’t speak fluent English and studies show that their ability to speak English doesn’t improve drastically whilst they live in the US. This is largely due to them living in closed communities of other Mexican immigrants which reduces their need to assimilate with America. This can, in turn, create tension between migrants and locals which can, in extreme cases, lead to segregation, crime and violence.

There are concerns that immigrants are increasing crime rates in areas that they migrate to. Low income & poor education are factors which can lead to crime. In addition, as Mexico is a country associated with drug trafficking, there are concerns that Mexican migrants could be smuggling drugs into America, creating the problem of drug related crimes.

The introduction of Mexican cultural traditions to America, especially in states with large numbers of migrants, have helped to improve cultural aspects of those states. Mexican themed food has become incredibly popular in America with burrito and taco fast food shops opening up across the country. The new food & music has helped to improve the cultural diversity of America significantly.

With such a large number of Mexican migrants not speaking English fluently, it is now common for Spanish to be taught in American schools, widening the skill set of the younger population and improving the potential career opportunities that students may have. This also (slightly) helps ease social tensions caused by people speaking different languages which locals don’t understand.

With so many young people leaving Mexico, its developing an increasingly dependant population as the majority of people left are the elderly who can not work. Furthermore, the lack of young fertile couples is reducing the birth rate in Mexico, further increasing the dependency ratio as there is no workforce to pay taxes to support the elderly.

The majority of migrants leaving Mexico are males leaving a population with a high number of females. This is problematic as they are unable to find partners, get married and, in a mostly catholic country, have children (out of wedlock). This is, as mentioned above, reducing the birth rate and increasing the dependency ratio.

Mexican migrants often take low paying, menial jobs, which, while low paying, offer higher wages than what they’d earn in Mexico. This was, at first, advantageous, as many Americans did not want these low paying jobs but companies needed people to fill these jobs. Now, as unemployment rises in America, Americans want these menial jobs but many migrants already have taken the jobs. This can lead to increased social tension as Americans believe that their jobs are being taken.

Migrants work at incredibly low wages. Americans who are desperate for work are now often expected to work at these incredibly low wages too, which they can’t afford to do, leading to increased poverty in America. Many companies are now also replacing American labour with cheaper migrant labour, also increasing unemployment rates are people are forced out of their jobs.

While legal Mexican migrants are working & paying taxes, they often send money they earn back to their families in Mexico, rather than spending it in America, which can effect the country’s economy as there is less money being spent on products which are taxed in America. Conversely, the increased amount of money being sent back to Mexico is helping its economy greatly as people now have money to spend on goods and services.

As people move out of Mexico, pressure on land, social services and jobs is being relieved. Unemployment will fall and health services will no longer be over capacity as the population is reduced. The problem, however, arises when the young and skilled workforce leaves, resulting in a shortage of potential workers to fill these newly freed jobs and to work in these social services. A shortage of medically trained people, for example, could counteract the relieved health system.

Mexico’s population is very dependent on food grown in Mexico. Unfortunately, the majority of migrants come from rural areas, leaving a shortage of farmers and therefore the potential for food shortages in Mexico as the economically active people from rural areas leave.

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Mexico’s tactic to cut immigration to the US: wear out migrants

Yeneska Garcia, a Venezuelan migrant, cries into her hands as she eats at the Peace Oasis of the Holy Spirit Amparito shelter in Villahermosa, Mexico, Friday, June 7, 2024. Since the 23-year-old fled Venezuela in January, she trekked days through the jungles of The Darien Gap, narrowly survived being kidnapped by Mexican cartels and waited months for an asylum appointment with the U.S. that never came through. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

Mexico is busing migrants back to its southern border. Driven by mounting pressure from the U.S. to block millions of vulnerable people headed north, but lacking the funds to deport them, Mexican authorities are wearing migrants out until they give up. (June 7-10) (AP/Felix Márquez)

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Teenager migrants look at a map of Mexico at the Peace Oasis of the Holy Spirit Amparito shelter in Villahermosa, Mexico, on Friday, June 7, 2024. After the head of Mexico’s immigration agency ordered a halt to deportations in December, migrants have been left in limbo as authorities round up migrants across the country and dump them in the southern Mexican cities of Villahermosa and Tapachula. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

Venezuelan migrant Yeneska Garcia, second from left, sits with other migrants at the Peace Oasis of the Holy Spirit Amparito shelter in Villahermosa, Mexico, Friday, June 7, 2024. “I would rather cross the Darien Gap 10,000 times than cross Mexico once,” Garcia said. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

Josue Martinez serves juice to migrants during lunch at the Peace Oasis of the Holy Spirit Amparito shelter in Villahermosa, Mexico, Friday, June 7, 2024. “Mexico is the wall,” said Martínez, a psychologist at the only shelter in Villahermosa. "(The migrants) are trapped in the south,” referring to Mexican authorities’ tactic of wearing migrants out until they can no longer continue. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

Migrants eat lunch at the Peace Oasis of the Holy Spirit Amparito shelter in Villahermosa, Mexico, Friday, June 7, 2024. After the head of Mexico’s immigration agency ordered a halt to deportations in December, migrants have been left in limbo as authorities round up migrants across the country and dump them in the southern Mexican cities of Villahermosa and Tapachula. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

A Venezuelan migrant girl’s belongings lay on the floor at the Peace Oasis of the Holy Spirit Amparito shelter in Villahermosa, Mexico, Friday, June 7, 2024. After the head of Mexico’s immigration agency ordered a halt to deportations in December, migrants have been left in limbo as authorities round up migrants across the country and dump them in the southern Mexican cities of Villahermosa and Tapachula. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

Venezuelan migrant Anyeli Reyes makes a video call inside the Peace Oasis of the Holy Spirit Amparito shelter in Villahermosa, Mexico, Friday, June 7, 2024. After the head of Mexico’s immigration agency ordered a halt to deportations in December, migrants have been left in limbo as authorities round up migrants across the country and dump them in the southern Mexican cities of Villahermosa and Tapachula. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

Rosana Mercado, a Venezuelan migrant, bathes her daughter inside the Peace Oasis of the Holy Spirit Amparito shelter, in Villahermosa, Mexico, Friday, June 7, 2024. After the head of Mexico’s immigration agency ordered a halt to deportations in December, migrants have been left in limbo as authorities round up migrants across the country and dump them in the southern Mexican cities of Villahermosa and Tapachula. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

A young migrant runs through the Peace Oasis of the Holy Spirit Amparito shelter where migrants sleep on the floor on mats in Villahermosa, Mexico, late Friday, June 7, 2024. After the head of Mexico’s immigration agency ordered a halt to deportations in December, migrants have been left in limbo as authorities round up migrants across the country and dump them in the southern Mexican cities of Villahermosa and Tapachula. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

Venezuelan migrants pick out donated clothing at the Peace Oasis of the Holy Spirit Amparito shelter in Villahermosa, Mexico, Friday, June 7, 2024. After the head of Mexico’s immigration agency ordered a halt to deportations in December, migrants have been left in limbo as authorities round up migrants across the country and dump them in the southern Mexican cities of Villahermosa and Tapachula. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

Venezuelan migrant Keilly Bolaños stands outside the bus terminal where she is living with her children and other migrants in Villahermosa, Mexico, Saturday, June 8, 2024. The single mother and her four children have been returned back to southern Mexico six times. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

The Bolaños sisters from Venezuela, Kamila, left, and Brigitte, sleep on the ground outside a bus terminal where they are living with their single mother Keilly and two other siblings, alongside other migrants in Villahermosa, Mexico, Saturday, June 8, 2024. Their mother said she was seeking asylum hoping to treat her her four-year-old daughter, Brigitte, for leukemia, due to lack of access to medical care back in Venezuela. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

The Bolaños sisters, from Venezuela, sleep on the ground outside the bus terminal where they are living with their single mother Keilly and one other sibling, along with other migrants in Villahermosa, Mexico, Saturday, June 8, 2024. Their mother said that in Mexico’s northern state of Juarez she was beaten by the military in front of her children, loaded on a bus for two days, and left in Villahermosa. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

The Bolaños children, from left, Sebastian, Kamila and Miguel Angel, from Venezuela, watch videos on a mobile phone outside the bus terminal where they are living with their single mother Keilly and one other sibling, along with other migrants in Villahermosa, Mexico, Saturday, June 8, 2024. Their mother was captured in the northern state of Juarez, where she said she was beaten by the military in front of her children, loaded on a bus for two days, and left in Villahermosa. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

A migrant takes pictures of health studies and an appointment with human rights lawyers for migrants who say they were beaten weeks before by immigration authorities near Mexico’s northern border with the U.S., outside a bus terminal where migrants sleep in Villahermosa, Mexico, Saturday, June 8, 2024. After the head of Mexico’s immigration agency ordered a halt to deportations in December, migrants have been left in limbo as authorities round up migrants across the country and dump them in southern Mexican cities of Villahermosa and Tapachula. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

Venezuelan migrants walk after being returned to Villahermosa in southern Mexico by the National Migration Institute, Sunday, June 9, 2024. After the head of Mexico’s immigration agency ordered a halt to deportations in December, migrants have been left in limbo as authorities round up migrants across the country and dump them in southern Mexican cities of Villahermosa and Tapachula. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

An immigration checkpoint stands in Nuevo Teapa, southern Mexico, Saturday, June 8, 2024. Mexico is under pressure from the U.S. to block millions of migrants headed north. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

A National Migration Institute agent checks the documents of bus passengers at an immigration checkpoint in Nuevo Teapa, southern Mexico, Saturday, June 8, 2024. Mexico is under pressure from the U.S. to block millions of migrants headed north. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

Honduran migrant Alexander Amador hides on the side of the road from immigration agents in Nuevo Teapa, southern Mexico, late Saturday, June 8, 2024. Amador and his two travel companions had been walking for 10 hours after being returned twice to southern Mexico while traveling by bus. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

Fabiana Bellizar, a Venezuelan migrant, is detained with other migrants after being removed from a bus, at an immigration checkpoint in La Venta, Mexico, Saturday, June 8, 2024. After being taken off the bus, the group of migrants begged authorities not to release them, but to help them return to Venezuela. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

A National Guard officer ispects the interior of a passenger bus at an immigration checkpoint in Nuevo Teapa, southern Mexico, late Saturday, June 8, 2024. Mexico is under pressure from the U.S. to block millions of migrants headed north. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

A National Guard officer checks a vehicle at the immigration checkpoint in Nuevo Teapa in southern Mexico, Saturday, June 8, 2024. Mexico is under pressure from the U.S. to block millions of migrants headed north. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

Mexican and U.S. flags decorate the window of a passenger bus that serves southern Mexico that stopped at an immigration checkpoint for inspection in Nuevo Teapa, southern Mexico, Saturday, June 8, 2024. Mexico is under pressure from the U.S. to block millions of migrants headed north. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

VILLAHERMOSA, Mexico (AP) — “Here, again.”

Yeneska García’s face crumbled as she said it, and she pressed her head into her hands.

Since fleeing crisis in Venezuela in January, the 23-year-old had trekked through the Darien Gap jungle dividing Colombia and Panama , narrowly survived being kidnapped by a Mexican cartel and waited months for an asylum appointment with the United States that never came. She finally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in May, only to have American authorities expel her.

Now she was back in southern Mexico, after Mexican immigration bused her to sweltering Villahermosa and dropped her on the street.

“I would rather cross the Darien Gap 10,000 times than cross Mexico,” García said, sitting in a migrant shelter.

She clutched a crinkled Ziploc bag that held her Venezuelan ID, an inhaler and an apple — her few remaining possessions.

Venezuelan migrant Yeneska Garcia, second from left, sits with other migrants at the Peace Oasis of the Holy Spirit Amparito shelter in Villahermosa, Mexico, Friday, June 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

Driven by mounting pressure from the U.S. to block millions of vulnerable people headed north, but lacking the funds to deport them, Mexican authorities are employing a simple but harsh tactic: wearing migrants out until they give up.

That means migrants are churning in limbo here as authorities round them up across the country and dump them in the southern Mexican cities of Villahermosa and Tapachula . Some have been punted back as many as six times.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Monday that the policy protects migrants.

“We care a lot ... about keeping migrants in the southeast because crossing to the north is very risky,” López Obrador said in his morning press briefing, responding to a question from The Associated Press about busing migrants to southern Mexico.

But the moves have forced migrants, including pregnant women and children, into even more precarious situations. That’s likely to worsen under President Joe Biden’s new asylum restrictions, analysts say.

Mexico’s actions explain a plunge in arrivals to the U.S.-Mexico border, which dropped 40% from an all-time high in December and persisted through the spring. That coincided with an increase in migrants in Mexico without legal permission, data from the country’s immigration agency shows. U.S. officials mostly credit Mexican vigilance around rail yards and highway checkpoints.

Josue Martinez serves juice to migrants during lunch at the Peace Oasis of the Holy Spirit Amparito shelter in Villahermosa, Mexico, Friday, June 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

“Mexico is the wall,” said Josue Martínez, a psychologist at Villahermosa’s only migrant shelter, Peace Oasis of the Holy Spirit Amparito, which was bracing for a crush of people under Biden’s measure to halt asylum processing when U.S. officials deem that the southern border is overwhelmed.

The small shelter has been scrambling since Mexico’s government began pushing people back two years ago. Last month, it housed 528 people, up from 85 in May 2022.

“What will we do when even more people arrive?” Martínez said. “Every time the United States does something to reinforce the northern border, we automatically know tons of people are coming to Villahermosa.”

(AP Video/Felix Marquez)

Migrants here walk or take buses north toward Mexico City, where they can request an appointment to seek asylum over U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s app, CBP One. But most never make it far enough north for the app’s location requirement.

Checkpoints dot southern Mexican highways. Armed soldiers pull migrants off buses and round up those walking along roads and in surrounding mountains. Of two dozen migrants interviewed by the AP, all said they were extorted by law enforcement or Mexican migration officials to continue on their journeys. After dishing out hefty sums two or three times, families had nothing. They were then bused back south, where most were left on the streets.

Mexican authorities refer to the temporary detentions as “humanitarian rescues.”

The Bolaños children, from Venezuela, watch videos on a mobile phone outside the bus terminal where they are living with their single mother Keilly, and one other sibling, along with other migrants in Villahermosa, Mexico, Saturday, June 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

But Venezuelan Keilly Bolaños says there is nothing human about them. She and her four children have been sent to southern Mexico six times. The 25-year-old single mother wants asylum so her 4-year-old daughter can get treatment for leukemia, unavailable to her in Venezuela.

Days earlier, she was captured in the northern state of Chihuahua, where she said members of the military beat her in front of her crying children, then loaded them onto a bus for the two-day journey to Villahermosa.

“How can you run when you have four children? You can’t,” Bolaños said.

The family slept on cardboard boxes alongside other migrants outside Villahermosa’s bus terminal. Bruises still lined Bolaños’ legs. Yet she planned to take a seventh swing at heading north. She has nowhere else to go.

“I know that all this struggling will be worth it some day,” she added.

A National Migration Institute agent checks the documents of bus passengers at an immigration checkpoint in Nuevo Teapa, southern Mexico, Saturday, June 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

An immigration checkpoint stands in Nuevo Teapa, southern Mexico, Saturday, June 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

A National Guard officer checks a vehicle at the immigration checkpoint in Nuevo Teapa in southern Mexico, Saturday, June 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

Mexico’s tactics appear to be a way to appease the U.S., which has pressured Latin American nations to help slow migration while failing to overhaul its own immigration system that most Americans agree is broken. Panama’s incoming president has promised to block passage through the Darien Gap, while Biden eased criticisms of El Salvador’s president after he reduced migration .

When Biden announced his new restrictions last week, he said he “drastically” cut migration to the border “due to the arrangement that I’ve reached with President (López) Obrador.” He said he also planned to work with incoming President Claudia Sheinbaum on border issues.

But Michael Shifter, a senior fellow at the Inter-American Dialogue, said such measures are only short-term solutions that don’t address root causes of migration .

“They say this is a regional challenge we all have to face together, which is true,” Shifter said. “The problem is: if the U.S. can’t get its own house in order, that sends a signal to other governments asking: ‘Why should we work with them if the U.S. itself is not capable of dealing with the issue?’”

Some asylum seekers said they were ready to give up on their “American dream,” but can’t leave because they’re cut off from their consulate or are out of money.

After being taken off of a bus, one group of migrants begged authorities to help them get back to Venezuela shortly before being sent back south.

Fabiana Bellizar, a Venezuelan migrant, is detained with other migrants after being removed from a bus, at an immigration checkpoint in La Venta, Mexico, Saturday, June 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

“We just want to go to the embassy in Mexico City. To go back to Venezuela,” 30-year-old Fabiana Bellizar told officials, after being returned from northern Mexico a day earlier. “We don’t want to be here anymore.”

They started traveling the same route the next morning.

Others said they would try to find work and a place to sleep in the city before continuing on.

López Obrador on Monday said work is offered to migrants in the south, but the few lucky people face precarious conditions. One migrant was paid $25 a day for 12 hours of work under the beating sun on a mango farm. Another said employers tried to coerce her into sex work.

Others are forced to take more dangerous routes, and into the arms of mafias looking to kidnap migrants .

Honduran migrant Alexander Amador hides on the side of the road from immigration agents in Nuevo Teapa, southern Mexico, late Saturday, June 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

At the first sign of flashing lights, 27-year-old Honduran Alexander Amador dove behind a tree, scrambling for cover in the shadows cloaking the road between the Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco.

Amador and his two travel companions had been walking for 10 hours, running into the jungle to escape authorities trying to scoop them up along the highway. After being returned twice to southern Mexico while traveling by bus, it was the only thing the Hondurans could think of to continue onward.

But they were frightened, both of Mexican law enforcement and cartels. In the past year, security in southern Mexican states such as Tabasco and Chiapas has spiraled as cartels battle for control over lucrative migrant routes.

“Here, you can’t trust anyone. Everything is a danger to you,” Amador said, swinging his backpack over his shoulder and walking into the darkness.

Mexican and U.S. flags decorate the window of a passenger bus that serves southern Mexico that stopped at an immigration checkpoint for inspection in Nuevo Teapa, southern Mexico, Saturday, June 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

Associated Press journalist María Verza in Mexico City contributed to this report.

Mexico’s tactic to cut immigration to the U.S.? Wear out migrants

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“Here, again.”

Yeneska García’s face crumbled as she said it, and she pressed her head into her hands.

Since fleeing the crisis in Venezuela in January, the 23-year-old had trekked through the Darien Gap jungle in Panama, narrowly survived being kidnapped by a Mexican cartel and waited months for an asylum appointment with the United States that never came. She finally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in May, only to have American authorities expel her.

Now she was back in southern Mexico, after Mexican immigration bused her to sweltering Villahermosa and dropped her off on the street.

“I would rather cross the Darien Gap 10,000 times than cross Mexico,” García said, sitting in a migrant shelter.

She clutched a crinkled plastic bag that held her Venezuelan ID, an inhaler and an apple — her few remaining possessions.

Driven by mounting pressure from the U.S. to block millions of people headed north, but lacking the funds to deport them, Mexican authorities are employing a simple but harsh tactic: wearing migrants out until they give up.

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That means migrants are churning in limbo here as authorities round them up across the country and dump them in the southern Mexican cities of Villahermosa and Tapachula. Some have been punted back as many as six times.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Monday that the policy protects migrants.

“We care a lot ... about keeping migrants in the southeast because crossing to the north is very risky,” López Obrador said in his morning news briefing, responding to a question from the Associated Press about busing migrants to southern Mexico.

But the moves have forced migrants, including pregnant women and children, into even more precarious situations. That’s likely to worsen under President Biden’s new asylum restrictions, analysts say.

Mexico’s actions explain a plunge in arrivals to the U.S.-Mexico border, which dropped 40% from an all-time high in December and has persisted through the spring. That coincided with an increase in migrants in Mexico without legal permission, data from the country’s immigration agency show. U.S. officials mostly credit Mexican vigilance around rail yards and highway checkpoints.

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“Mexico is the wall,” said Josue Martínez, a psychologist at Villahermosa’s only migrant shelter, Peace Oasis of the Holy Spirit Amparito, which was bracing for a crush of people under Biden’s measure to halt asylum processing when U.S. officials deem that the southern border is overwhelmed.

The small shelter has been scrambling since Mexico’s government began pushing people back two years ago. Last month, it housed 528 people, up from 85 in May 2022.

“What will we do when even more people arrive?” Martínez said. “Every time the United States does something to reinforce the northern border, we automatically know tons of people are coming to Villahermosa.”

Migrants here walk or take buses north toward Mexico City, where they can request an appointment to seek asylum using U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s mobile app, CBP One. But most never make it far enough north for the app’s location requirement.

Checkpoints dot southern Mexican highways. Armed soldiers pull migrants off buses and round up those walking along roads and in surrounding mountains. Of two dozen migrants interviewed by the AP, all said they law enforcement or Mexican migration officials were extorting money from those seeking to continue on their journeys. After dishing out hefty sums two or three times, families had nothing. They were then bused south, where most were left on the streets.

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Mexican authorities refer to the temporary detentions as “humanitarian rescues.”

But Venezuelan Keilly Bolaños says there is nothing humane about them. She and her four children have been sent to southern Mexico six times. The 25-year-old single mother wants asylum so her 4-year-old daughter can get treatment for leukemia, unavailable to her in Venezuela.

Days earlier, she was captured in the northern state of Chihuahua, where she said members of the military beat her in front of her crying children, then loaded them onto a bus for the two-day journey to Villahermosa.

“How can you run when you have four children? You can’t,” Bolaños said.

The family slept on cardboard boxes alongside other migrants outside Villahermosa’s bus terminal. Bruises still lined Bolaños’ legs. Yet she planned to take a seventh swing at heading north. She has nowhere else to go.

“I know that all this struggling will be worth it some day,” she added.

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Mexico’s tactics appear to be a way to appease the U.S., which has pressured Latin American nations to help slow migration while failing to overhaul its own immigration system that most Americans agree is broken. Panama’s incoming president has promised to block passage through the Darien Gap, while Biden eased criticisms of El Salvador’s president after he reduced migration.

When Biden recently announced his new restrictions, he said he “drastically” cut migration to the border “due to the arrangement that I’ve reached with President [López] Obrador.” He said he also planned to work with incoming President Claudia Sheinbaum on border issues.

But Michael Shifter, a senior fellow at the Inter-American Dialogue, said such measures are short-term solutions that don’t address root causes of migration.

“They say this is a regional challenge we all have to face together, which is true,” Shifter said. “The problem is, if the U.S. can’t get its own house in order, that sends a signal to other governments asking: ‘Why should we work with them if the U.S. itself is not capable of dealing with the issue?’”

Some asylum seekers said they were ready to give up on their “American dream,” but can’t leave because they’re cut off from their consulate or are out of money.

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After being taken off a bus, one group of migrants begged authorities to help them get back to Venezuela shortly before being sent back south.

“We just want to go to the embassy in Mexico City. To go back to Venezuela,” 30-year-old Fabiana Bellizar told officials, after being returned from northern Mexico a day earlier. “We don’t want to be here anymore.”

They started traveling the same route the next morning.

Others said they would try to find work and a place to sleep in the city before continuing on.

López Obrador on Monday said work is offered to migrants in the south, but the few lucky people who find employment face precarious conditions. One migrant was paid $25 a day for 12 hours of work in the beating sun on a mango farm. Another said employers tried to coerce her into sex work.

Others are forced to take more dangerous routes, and into the arms of criminal gangs looking to kidnap migrants.

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May 9, 2024

At the first sign of flashing lights, 27-year-old Honduran Alexander Amador dived behind a tree, scrambling for cover in the shadows cloaking the road between the Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco.

Amador and his two traveling companions had been walking for 10 hours, running into the jungle to escape authorities trying to intercept them along the highway. After being returned twice to southern Mexico while traveling by bus, it was the only thing the Hondurans could think of to continue onward.

But they were frightened, both of Mexican law enforcement and cartels. In the past year, security in southern Mexican states such as Tabasco and Chiapas has spiraled as cartels battle for control over lucrative migrant routes.

“Here, you can’t trust anyone. Everything is a danger to you,” Amador said, swinging his backpack over his shoulder and walking into the darkness.

Janetsky and Marquez write for the Associated Press. AP journalist María Verza in Mexico City contributed to this report.

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Migration in Mexico: complexities and challenges

September 21, 2022.

Mexico has one of the most complex migratory contexts in the world, one that is marked by high levels of emigration and increasingly large numbers of forcibly deported returnees, people in transit, migrants, asylum seekers, refugees and internally displaced people.

Although these flows are increasing, Mexico still lacks a coordinated policy to fully integrate new arrivals into the daily life of the country. Given this context, this paper reviews the recent history of migration in the country, with a special emphasis on the policy responses that have emerged in recent years.

It does so by conducting an exhaustive analysis of the available primary and secondary data, drawing on local and federal legal and public policy frameworks, various studies and analyses by academics or civil society organizations and public opinion on the subject.

The text argues that although the current context in Mexico might be considered favourable to migration, the lack of a coherent, coordinated migration and integration policy is generating conditions that favour the exclusion of those attempting to settle in the country or transit through it.

This jeopardizes social cohesion and increases the vulnerabilities of the population in movement. The paper concludes with a series of recommendations.

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Mexico's tactic to cut immigration to the US: wear out migrants

Mexican authorities are using a simple but harsh tactic to deal with migrants trying to get to the U.S. They're wearing them out until they give up

VILLAHERMOSA, Mexico -- VILLAHERMOSA, Mexico (AP) — “Here, again.”

Yeneska García’s face crumbled as she said it, and she pressed her head into her hands.

Since fleeing crisis in Venezuela in January, the 23-year-old had trekked through the Darien Gap jungle dividing Colombia and Panama , narrowly survived being kidnapped by a Mexican cartel and waited months for an asylum appointment with the United States that never came. She finally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in May, only to have American authorities expel her.

Now she was back in southern Mexico, after Mexican immigration bused her to sweltering Villahermosa and dropped her on the street.

“I would rather cross the Darien Gap 10,000 times than cross Mexico,” García said, sitting in a migrant shelter.

She clutched a crinkled Ziploc bag that held her Venezuelan ID, an inhaler and an apple — her few remaining possessions.

Driven by mounting pressure from the U.S. to block millions of vulnerable people headed north, but lacking the funds to deport them, Mexican authorities are employing a simple but harsh tactic: wearing migrants out until they give up.

That means migrants are churning in limbo here as authorities round them up across the country and dump them in the southern Mexican cities of Villahermosa and Tapachula . Some have been punted back as many as six times.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Monday that the policy protects migrants.

“We care a lot ... about keeping migrants in the southeast because crossing to the north is very risky,” López Obrador said in his morning press briefing, responding to a question from The Associated Press about busing migrants to southern Mexico.

But the moves have forced migrants, including pregnant women and children, into even more precarious situations. That’s likely to worsen under President Joe Biden's new asylum restrictions, analysts say.

Mexico's actions explain a plunge in arrivals to the U.S.-Mexico border, which dropped 40% from an all-time high in December and persisted through the spring. That coincided with an increase in migrants in Mexico without legal permission, data from the country's immigration agency shows. U.S. officials mostly credit Mexican vigilance around rail yards and highway checkpoints.

“Mexico is the wall,” said Josue Martínez, a psychologist at Villahermosa's only migrant shelter, Peace Oasis of the Holy Spirit Amparito, which was bracing for a crush of people under Biden’s measure to halt asylum processing when U.S. officials deem that the southern border is overwhelmed.

The small shelter has been scrambling since Mexico's government began pushing people back two years ago. Last month, it housed 528 people, up from 85 in May 2022.

“What will we do when even more people arrive?” Martínez said. “Every time the United States does something to reinforce the northern border, we automatically know tons of people are coming to Villahermosa."

Migrants here walk or take buses north toward Mexico City, where they can request an appointment to seek asylum over U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s app, CBP One. But most never make it far enough north for the app's location requirement.

Checkpoints dot southern Mexican highways. Armed soldiers pull migrants off buses and round up those walking along roads and in surrounding mountains. Of two dozen migrants interviewed by the AP, all said they were extorted by law enforcement or Mexican migration officials to continue on their journeys. After dishing out hefty sums two or three times, families had nothing. They were then bused back south, where most were left on the streets.

Mexican authorities refer to the temporary detentions as “humanitarian rescues.”

But Venezuelan Keilly Bolaños says there is nothing human about them. She and her four children have been sent to southern Mexico six times. The 25-year-old single mother wants asylum so her 4-year-old daughter can get treatment for leukemia, unavailable to her in Venezuela.

Days earlier, she was captured in the northern state of Chihuahua, where she said members of the military beat her in front of her crying children, then loaded them onto a bus for the two-day journey to Villahermosa.

“How can you run when you have four children? You can’t,” Bolaños said.

The family slept on cardboard boxes alongside other migrants outside Villahermosa’s bus terminal. Bruises still lined Bolaños' legs. Yet she planned to take a seventh swing at heading north. She has nowhere else to go.

“I know that all this struggling will be worth it some day,” she added.

Mexico's tactics appear to be a way to appease the U.S., which has pressured Latin American nations to help slow migration while failing to overhaul its own immigration system that most Americans agree is broken. Panama's incoming president has promised to block passage through the Darien Gap, while Biden eased criticisms of El Salvador’s president after he reduced migration .

When Biden announced his new restrictions last week, he said he “drastically” cut migration to the border “due to the arrangement that I’ve reached with President (López) Obrador.” He said he also planned to work with incoming President Claudia Sheinbaum on border issues.

But Michael Shifter, a senior fellow at the Inter-American Dialogue, said such measures are only short-term solutions that don't address root causes of migration .

“They say this is a regional challenge we all have to face together, which is true,” Shifter said. "The problem is: if the U.S. can’t get its own house in order, that sends a signal to other governments asking: ‘Why should we work with them if the U.S. itself is not capable of dealing with the issue?’”

Some asylum seekers said they were ready to give up on their “American dream," but can't leave because they're cut off from their consulate or are out of money.

After being taken off of a bus, one group of migrants begged authorities to help them get back to Venezuela shortly before being sent back south.

“We just want to go to the embassy in Mexico City. To go back to Venezuela,” 30-year-old Fabiana Bellizar told officials, after being returned from northern Mexico a day earlier. “We don’t want to be here anymore.”

They started traveling the same route the next morning.

Others said they would try to find work and a place to sleep in the city before continuing on.

López Obrador on Monday said work is offered to migrants in the south, but the few lucky people face precarious conditions. One migrant was paid $25 a day for 12 hours of work under the beating sun on a mango farm. Another said employers tried to coerce her into sex work.

Others are forced to take more dangerous routes, and into the arms of mafias looking to kidnap migrants .

At the first sign of flashing lights, 27-year-old Honduran Alexander Amador dove behind a tree, scrambling for cover in the shadows cloaking the road between the Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco.

Amador and his two travel companions had been walking for 10 hours, running into the jungle to escape authorities trying to scoop them up along the highway. After being returned twice to southern Mexico while traveling by bus, it was the only thing the Hondurans could think of to continue onward.

But they were frightened, both of Mexican law enforcement and cartels. In the past year, security in southern Mexican states such as Tabasco and Chiapas has spiraled as cartels battle for control over lucrative migrant routes.

"Here, you can't trust anyone. Everything is a danger to you," Amador said, swinging his backpack over his shoulder and walking into the darkness.

Associated Press journalist María Verza in Mexico City contributed to this report.

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• How Americans View the Situation at the U.S.-Mexico Border, Its Causes and Consequences

2. What Americans say is causing a migration surge at the U.S.-Mexico border

Table of contents.

• How is the U.S. government doing in handling the situation at the border?
• Wide age, partisan differences in attention to border situation
• Does the migration surge have an impact on crime in the U.S.?
• Republican, Democratic views of the reasons for the migration surge
• Conservative Republicans, liberal Democrats diverge on reasons for the migrant surge
• Republican and Democratic views of immigration policy proposals
• 4. In their own words: Americans’ concerns, feelings about U.S.-Mexico border situation
• Acknowledgments
• The American Trends Panel survey methodology

Americans see several factors as reasons why there are so many people seeking to migrate to the United States at the southwestern border.

Large bipartisan majorities point to economic factors as major reasons for the surge, with 75% of Americans saying bad economic conditions in migrants’ home countries are a major reason, and 71% saying the same about good economic opportunities in the U.S.

Smaller majorities also say violence in migrants’ home countries (65%), and migrants’ belief that U.S. policies allow for them to easily stay once they arrive (58%) are major factors. But there are wide partisan differences in views about the importance of these two factors.

Less than half of adults (44%) view greater political freedoms in the U.S. as a major reason for why people are seeking to migrate to the U.S.

Very few Americans say any of these factors is not a reason at all – fewer than two-in-ten say this about any of the five reasons asked about in the survey.

U.S. immigration policy

Roughly three-quarters of Republicans and GOP leaners (76%) point to a belief among migrants that U.S. immigration policies will make it easy to stay in the country as a major reason for the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border. Of the five reasons asked about in this survey, this ranks highest among Republicans.

By contrast, a far smaller share of Democrats (39%) point to this as a major reason for the large number of migrants seeking to enter at the U.S.-Mexico border. It is the lowest-ranked item among Democrats.   

Still, an additional 39% of Democrats say this is a minor reason. Another 21% say it is not a reason (compared with just 7% of Republicans).

Violence in home countries

Nearly eight-in-ten Democrats (79%) say violence in migrants’ home countries is a major reason for the number of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border. This is among the top reasons (alongside economic factors) Democrats see for the migration surge.

Republicans are far less likely to see this as a major factor for the surge in migrants, though about half (49%) say that it is.

Economic factors

Large majorities in both parties identify good economic opportunities in the U.S. and bad economic conditions in migrants’ home countries as major reasons for the migrant situation at the border.

Democrats are slightly more likely than Republicans to say each of these are major reasons.

Political freedoms

About four-in-ten Republicans (41%) and nearly half of Democrats (47%) view greater political freedoms in the U.S. as a major reason for why large numbers of people are seeking to migrate to the U.S. at the southwestern border. More than a third in both parties view this as a minor reason.

Conservative Republicans (81%) overwhelming say that migrants’ beliefs that U.S. policy will make it easy to stay in the country once they arrive is a major reason for the large number of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border.

A smaller – though still substantial – majority of moderate and liberal Republicans (67%) also see this as a major reason for the buildup of migrants.

But Democrats – particularly liberal Democrats – are not nearly as likely to see the belief that U.S. immigration policy is loose as a factor. Just 29% of liberal Democrats say it is a major reason why migrants are seeking to enter, while another 42% say it is a minor factor. Nearly three-in-ten (28%) say this is not a reason at all.

By comparison, more than eight-in-ten liberal Democrats point to violence in the countries migrants are coming from as a major reason for their migration.

About three-quarters of conservative and moderate Democrats (73%), and roughly six-in-ten moderate and liberal Republicans (58%) also view violence as a major factor behind why migrants are coming to the U.S.

But conservative Republicans are less likely to see this as a significant contributing factor: 44% say it is a major reason why migrants at the southwest border seek to enter the U.S., while another 42% say it is a minor reason.

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U.s. christians more likely than ‘nones’ to say situation at the border is a crisis, migrant encounters at the u.s.-mexico border hit a record high at the end of 2023, americans remain critical of government’s handling of situation at u.s.-mexico border, republicans and democrats have different top priorities for u.s. immigration policy, most popular, report materials.

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2024 KIDS COUNT Data Book

2024 state trends in child well-being.

The 35th edition of the Annie E. Casey Foundation's KIDS COUNT ® Data Book examines the unprecedented declines in student math and reading proficiency brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic's effect on education . The latest data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress reveals that between 2019 and 2022, fourth-grade reading and eighth-grade math scores plummeted, representing decades of lost progress. This alarming trend underscores the urgent need for action to address the growing academic disparities among U.S. students.

Today's students, who will comprise America's future workforce, are ill-prepared for the high-level reading, math and problem-solving skills required in a competitive global economy. The failure to adequately prepare our children will have dire consequences for their futures and for the economic vitality of our nation.

Learn more about pandemic learning loss and Casey's recommendations to ensure student success

National Trends in Child Well-Being

In 2022, as COVID-19 restrictions eased, the impact of the pandemic on child well-being became evident. Six indicators worsened between 2019 and 2022, including educational achievement and the child and teen death rate. Between 2019 and 2021, the percentage of children scoring proficient or above in reading and math declined sharply. While this trend may have stabilized in 2022, the data indicate a significant setback in educational attainment. The child and teen death rate also remained elevated in 2022, with 17.0 deaths per 100,000 children and adolescents, compared to 14.7 in 2019.

However, some positive trends emerged:

• Parents' economic security improved significantly, with 62.4% of children living in economically secure homes in 2022, compared to 58.4% in 2021.
• The child poverty rate decreased from 17.2% in 2021 to 15.9% in 2022, returning to pre-pandemic levels.

Health and Family

Positive trends were also observed in the family and community domains. Fewer children lived with parents lacking a high school diploma, and the number of children living in high-poverty communities decreased. The teen birth rate reached a record low in 2021 and remained stable in 2022 at 14 births per 1,000 teen females.

These positive changes demonstrate how effective policies that address the root causes of challenges can contribute to significant improvements and create a brighter future for young people.

Trends in Racial Inequities

Racial inequities in America persist, with American Indian/Alaska Native, Black and Latino children facing significant disparities. Nearly all well-being indicators show disparate outcomes by race and ethnicity, with American Indian/Alaska Native children and Black children experiencing the lowest well-being levels.

Generations of inequity and discrimination contribute to these disparities. Black children have higher rates of single-parent households and poverty, while American Indian/Alaska Native children are more likely to lack health insurance and live in resource-limited neighborhoods. Latino children have higher rates of obesity and live in households where the head may lack a high school diploma.

And despite overall better outcomes for Asian and Pacific Islander children, disaggregated data reveal significant disparities within this population. Burmese, Mongolian and Thai children experience higher rates of poverty and lack of high school diplomas in their households. Today, children of color constitute the majority of the nation's children, highlighting the importance of ensuring their success for the future of America.

Data Book Extras

• 2024 KIDS COUNT Data Book Interactive
• National News Release
• Comunicado de prensa nacional en español
• State News Releases
• Auxiliary Data Tables
• Copyright Information
• Other reports in this series

State Data Profiles on Child Well-Being

View the national data profile or download your state's data profile as a PDF below:

• Connecticut
• Massachusetts
• Mississippi
• New Hampshire
• North Carolina
• North Dakota
• Pennsylvania
• Puerto Rico
• Rhode Island
• South Carolina
• South Dakota
• Washington, D.C.
• West Virginia

State Data Profiles on Child Well-Being in Spanish

View the 2024 national data profile in Spanish or download your state's data profile as a PDF below:

• Distrito de Columbia
• Nuevo Hampshire
• Nueva Jersey
• Nuevo México
• Carolina del Norte
• Dakota del Norte
• Pensilvania
• Carolina del Sur
• Dakota del Sur
• Virginia Occidental

State Trends in Overall Child Well-Being

The Foundation calculates a composite index of overall child well-being for each state by combining data across four domains: (1) Economic Well-Being, (2) Education, (3) Health and (4) Family and Community. These scores are then translated into state rankings. Explore overall child well-being in the interactive KIDS COUNT Data Book .

Northeast States Rank High for Overall Well-Being

Distinct regional patterns emerge from the state rankings. Five of the top 10 states in terms of overall child well-being are in the Northeast — Vermont (fourth), New Jersey (sixth) and Connecticut (eighth).

Household Income Has a Direct Effect on Well-Being

States in Appalachia, as well as the Southeast and Southwest — where families have the lowest levels of household income — populate the bottom of the overall rankings. In fact, except for Alaska, the 15 lowest-ranked states are in these regions.

Some States' Rankings Vary Dramatically

Although most state rankings did not vary dramatically across domains, there are a few exceptions. For example, North Dakota ranks 40th in Education but first for Economic Well-Being. New York ranks 44th in Economic Well-Being and 8th for Health. For all states, the index identified bright spots and room for improvement.

Economic Well-Being

To help children grow into prepared, productive adults, parents need jobs with family-sustaining pay, affordable housing and the ability to invest in their children’s future. Explore economic well-being in the interactive KIDS COUNT Data Book .

The Child Poverty Rate Has Improved

Nationally, 16% of children (11.6 million) lived in families below the poverty line. The child poverty rate has improved since 2019 (17%).

When parents are unemployed or earn low wages, their access to resources to support their kids’ development is more limited, which can undermine their children’s health and prospects for success in school and beyond. The negative effects of poverty on kids can extend into their teenage years and young adulthood, as they are more likely to contend with issues such as teen pregnancy and failing to graduate from high school.

Parental Employment Instability Returned to the Pre-Pandemic Rate

In 2022, 26% or 18.6 million children lived in families where no parent had full-time, year-round employment. The large increase seen between 2019 and 2021 in parental employment instability was erased by the economic recovery the country experienced in 2022. The rate in 2022 returned to the pre-pandemic rate.

Secure employment is a key contributor to families' financial stability and well-being. The COVID-19 pandemic pushed the unemployment rate to near-record highs and caused millions to leave the labor market. In 2022, job openings reached a record high as the labor market recovered. Even so, employment insecurity is a reality for more than a quarter of families living in the United States. It disrupts daily living and relationships and limit families’ access to resources to invest in their children’s development, which can, in turn, diminish children’s achievement in school and chances of future success.

High Housing-Cost Burden Remains Unchanged

In 2022, 30% of children (21.8 million) lived in families with a high housing cost burden. The rate remained unchanged since 2019.

Housing is typically one of the largest family expenses. High housing costs weigh more heavily on low-income families, who are more likely to struggle with finding affordable housing, often spending more than 30% of pretax income on a home, whether they rent or own. Paying too much for housing limits the resources families have for other necessities such as child care, food, health care and transportation as well as their ability to save and achieve financial stability.

The early years of a child’s life lay the foundation for lifelong success. Establishing the conditions that promote educational achievement for children is critical. Explore educational well-being in the interactive KIDS COUNT Data Book .

Low-Income Families Continue to Lack Access to High-Quality Early Education

During 2018–2022, 4.3 million children, ages 3 to 4 were not in school. That accounts for more than half of all children in that age group (54%).

High-quality preschool programs for 3- to 4-year-olds help set the stage for future skill development, well-being and learning, particularly for those from low-income households. These programs play an important role in preparing children for success and lead to higher levels of educational attainment, career advancement and earnings. Although Head Start and the expansion of state-funded programs since the 1990s have increased access to preschool and kindergarten, many kids — especially 3-year-olds and children living in low-income families — continue to be left out, exacerbating socioeconomic differences in educational achievement.

Improvements in Fourth-Grade Reading Mastery Erased by Pandemic

Sixty-eight percent of fourth graders in public schools were not proficient readers in 2022, an alarming rate that increased from 2019, when 66% were not proficient. Any improvement made over the past decade was erased by the pandemic.

Reading proficiency by the end of third grade is a critical marker in a child’s educational development. By fourth grade, children use reading to learn other subjects. Therefore, reading mastery at this level becomes important for students to keep up academically. Children who reach fourth grade without being able to read proficiently are more likely to struggle academically and eventually drop out of school. Low reading proficiency also can reduce earning potential and chances for career success as adults. Although there have been some improvements since the early 1990s, progress has been slow on literacy gains, and racial and income disparities remain. Unfortunately, the pandemic has erased progress made in reading proficiency levels.

Match Achievement Worsened Across Eighth Grade Groups

Eighth-grade math achievement worsened across all racial and ethnic groups between 2019 and 2022. The largest percentage point drops in proficiency were seen among white and multiracial students.

As technology continues to transform the economy, the demand grows for a workforce with aligned math and science skills and training that can keep pace with technological advancement. Students with strong math and science skills are more likely to graduate from high school, attend and complete college, earn higher incomes and take advantage of future opportunities. Even for young people who do not attend college, basic math skills and numerical literacy help with everyday tasks and personal financial management and improve employability. Ensuring kids have early and ongoing access to high-quality math education is critical for their success in school and life.

Children’s good health is fundamental to their overall development, and ensuring kids are born healthy is the first step toward improving their life chances. Poor health in childhood affects other critical aspects of children’s lives, such as school readiness and attendance, and can have lasting consequences on their future health and well-being. Explore health indicators in the interactive KIDS COUNT Data Book .

The Rate of Low Birth-Weight Babies Increased

Nationally, low birth-weight babies represented 8.6% of all live births in 2022. An increase from 2019 (8.3%). This is the highest rate witnessed in the last decade.

Birth weight is an important indicator of an infant’s health. Babies born at a low birth weight (less than 5.5 pounds) have a high probability of experiencing developmental problems and short- and long-term disabilities. They also are at greater risk of dying within the first year of life. Infections, multiple births, obesity, poor nutrition, poverty, smoking, stress and violence can increase the chances of a baby being born at a low birth weight. Compared with other affluent countries, the United States has among the highest percentage of babies born at a low birth weight, right behind Japan, Greece and Colombia.

Close to Four Million Children Lacked Health Insurance

Across the nation, 5% of children aged 18 and under (3.9 million) lacked health insurance in 2022.

Children with health insurance are more likely to have a regular source of health care they can access for preventive care services and developmental screenings, to treat acute and chronic conditions or to address injuries when they occur. Children without coverage are less likely than insured children to receive care when they need it. Having health insurance can protect families from financial crisis when a child experiences a serious or chronic illness and can help kids remain active, healthy and in school ready to learn.

Child and Teen Mortality Rate Increase Stalled

In 2022, 23,137 children and youth ages 1 to 19 died in the United States, which translates into a mortality rate of 30 deaths per 100,000 children and teens. After seeing a 20% increase between 2019 and 2021, the child and teen mortality rate increase stalled in 2022.

Accidents, primarily those involving motor vehicles, were the leading cause of death for children and youth, accounting for 28% of all deaths among children ages 1 to 14.46 As children move further into their teenage years, they encounter new, and potentially deadly, risks. In 2022, accidents, homicides and suicides accounted for 76% of deaths for teens ages 15 to 19.47. For the second year, in a row firearm-related deaths are the leading cause of death among teens.

Family and Community

Children who live in nurturing families and supportive communities have stronger personal connections and higher academic achievement. Explore familial and community well-being in the interactive KIDS COUNT Data Book .

The Percentage of Children in Single-Parent Families Did Not Change

The percentage of children living in single-parent families remains unchanged between 2019 and 2022, at 34%. In 2022, 23.3 million children lived in single-parent families.

Even with the best efforts of parents, children growing up in single-parent families typically have access to fewer economic resources and valuable time with adults than children in two-parent families in which child-raising responsibilities can be shared. For example, in 2022, 28% of single-parent families had incomes below the poverty line, compared with 6% of married couples with children. The effects of growing up in single-parent families go beyond economics, increasing the likelihood of children dropping out of school, being disconnected from the labor market and becoming teen parents.

The Rate of Parents Who Lacked a High School Diploma Improved

In 2022, 11% of children lived in households headed by an adult without a high school diploma. This is a slight improvement from 2019, where the rate was 12%. While this is only a slight improvement, the rate has been cut in half since 1990, when 22% of children lived with parents who lacked a high school diploma.

Children growing up in households with highly educated adults are better positioned for future success. These parents often are better able to provide the financial stability and security they need to foster their children’s development. Higher levels of parental education are strongly associated with better outcomes for children, including kids’ own higher educational attainment and achievement.

Fewer than 10% of Children Lived in High-Poverty Areas from 2018–2022

During the period from 2018–2022, 8% of children lived in high-poverty areas, representing a total of 5.7 million children.

High-poverty neighborhoods — where poverty rates for the total population are 30% or more — come with several challenges that affect the children and families who live there. Residents of these neighborhoods contend with poorer health, higher rates of crime and violence, poor-performing schools due to inadequate funding and limited access to support networks and job opportunities. They also experience higher levels of financial instability. These barriers make it much harder for families to move up the economic ladder.

Additional Resources on Child Well-Being

• About KIDS COUNT
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• The KIDS COUNT Data Center

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