Hamilton Erin R, Hale Jo Mhairi
Department of Sociology, University of California, Davis, One Shields Ave., Davis, CA, 95616, USA.
Demography. 2016 Oct;53(5):1429-1451. doi: 10.1007/s13524-016-0505-7.
Historically, undocumented Mexican farm workers migrated circularly, leaving family behind in Mexico on short trips to the United States. Scholars have argued that border militarization has disrupted circular migration as the costs of crossing the border lead to longer stays, increased settlement, and changing transnational family practices. Yet, no study has explored changes in the transnational family structures of Mexico-U.S. migrants that span the era of border militarization. Using data from the National Agricultural Workers Survey, we document a dramatic shift away from transnational family life (as measured by location of residence of dependent children) among undocumented Mexican farm workers and a less dramatic shift among documented Mexican farm workers in the United States between 1993 and 2012. These trends are not explained by changes in the sociodemographic characteristics of farm workers or by changing demographic conditions or rising violence in Mexico. One-half of the trend can be accounted for by lengthened duration of stay and increased connections to the United States among the undocumented, but none of the trend is explained by these measures of settlement among the documented, suggesting that some Mexican farm workers adopt new family migration strategies at first migration. Increases in border control are associated with lower likelihood that children reside in Mexico-a finding that holds up to instrumental variable techniques. Our findings confirm the argument that U.S. border militarization-a policy designed to deter undocumented migration-is instead disrupting transnational family life between Mexico and the United States and, in doing so, is creating a permanent population of undocumented migrants and their children in the United States.
从历史上看，没有合法身份的墨西哥农场工人进行循环迁移，在短期前往美国时会把家人留在墨西哥。学者们认为，边境军事化扰乱了循环迁移，因为穿越边境的成本导致停留时间延长、定居增加以及跨国家庭模式的改变。然而，尚无研究探讨跨越边境军事化时代的墨西哥-美国移民跨国家庭结构的变化。利用全国农业工人调查的数据，我们记录了1993年至2012年间，没有合法身份的墨西哥农场工人的跨国家庭生活（以受抚养子女的居住地点衡量）发生了巨大转变，而在美国有合法身份的墨西哥农场工人的转变则不那么显著。这些趋势无法通过农场工人社会人口特征的变化、墨西哥人口结构的变化或暴力事件的增加来解释。一半的趋势可以归因于停留时间的延长以及没有合法身份者与美国联系的增加，但有合法身份者的这些定居措施无法解释任何趋势，这表明一些墨西哥农场工人在首次移民时采用了新的家庭移民策略。边境管控的加强与子女居住在墨西哥的可能性降低相关——这一发现经得起工具变量技术的检验。我们的研究结果证实了这样一种观点，即美国边境军事化——一项旨在阻止非法移民的政策——反而扰乱了墨西哥和美国之间的跨国家庭生活，并且这样做正在在美国创造一个由非法移民及其子女组成的永久人口。
