The Politics of Passage: Understanding Migrant Caravans Through Mexico's Shifting Immigration Environment

Abstract

Challenging common understandings of migration as a purely individual act, migrant caravans have emerged as strategies of collective migration through Mexico in response to the country’s increased interior immigration enforcement and precarious transit conditions. This thesis uses comparative case studies of caravans between April 2017 and April 2024 to examine variations in caravan outcomes, assessing how shifting conditions within Mexico’s immigration environment have either facilitated or impeded their journeys to the U.S. border. This thesis argues that the extent to which caravan agency is facilitated depends on the interactions between caravans, federal and state responses, and the degree of civil society support available. Over time, continued pressure to align with U.S. immigration interests, and diminishing facilitation across all levels of government and civil society have led to caravans’ diminishing success. By applying collective action theories to immigration studies, this thesis ultimately contributes to an understanding of migration as a dynamic process whose outcomes are a result of the interactions between structure and agency; it emphasizes the violence that immigration enforcement creates.