Migration from Mexico and Central America to the United States: Human Insecurities and Paths for Change

Abstract

Globalization has created new service activities, novel technologies and consumption preferences. In the most economically advanced countries labour demands have shifted patterns and opened up new opportunities for less privileged inhabitants in regions of the South. The necessary legal, social and political instruments to protect migrant workers’ rights nonetheless do not (yet) exist. This has led to an increase in human insecurity, especially among those who have dared to take the chance and emigrate from one country to another outside institutional frameworks. The main dilemma that potential migrants confront is between scarcity or low quality of jobs at home and better opportunities in a foreign country but with unknown or unforeseen danger, insecurities and exploitation. How and why have these contradictions come about? How has a protection system for people become a menace and even a dangerous element for many of them? What processes or changes have been taking place in some countries to offset these trends?