What is it about?
We used survey data to track movements of nearly 50,000 people from rural areas of Mexico between 1992 and 2018. We combined these movements with daily weather data. We found that people were more likely to migrate to the United States without documents when their communities experienced an extremely dry corn season. We also observed that undocumented migrants were less likely to return when their communities had an extremely dry or wet season.
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Why is it important?
Over two million people from Mexico or other countries tried to cross the southern border of the United States without documents in fiscal year 2022 alone. Many of them put their lives at risk. We show that extreme weather - along with other economic and social conditions - is linked to this clandestine mobility. Extreme weather is also connected to how long migrants remain in the United States. Undocumented migrants seem to delay their return to Mexico when extreme weather persists there. This pattern has the potential to transform temporary mobility into permanent settlement.
Perspectives
Crossing a border without documents is perhaps one of the hardest decisions an individual can make. It involves leaving family behind and risking one's life. When livelihoods depend on weather-dependent agriculture, and when droughts decimate the crops, this decision can become the only option. When extreme conditions persist, the decision can turn permanent. We need to recognize this weather-driven mobility and settlement which can increase with anthropogenic climate change.
Filiz Garip
Princeton University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Weather deviations linked to undocumented migration and return between Mexico and the United States, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, November 2024, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2400524121.
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