Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing? What Central American Unaccompanied Minors Know About Crossing the US-Mexico Border

ABSTRACT

This paper examines what Central American unaccompanied minors know about the unauthorized journey to the US and protective US immigration laws. I find that, contrary to policymakers’ assumptions, children know little about US immigration laws, but they are well aware of the dangers of the journey. I argue that the composition of migrant networks and the strength of ties shape how children acquire information and resources indispensable to plan unauthorized trips to the US, for which most respondents relied on smugglers. Unaccompanied minors who had “strong” ties to parents in the US had more access to information and resources than those with “weak” ties to non-parent relatives. Yet even “strong” ties deteriorated after years of family separation imposed by US immigration policy, undermining communication in families across borders, with implications for how trips were organized and what children knew. These findings extend adult-centric migration theories by centering the experiences of children.

KEYWORDS:

• Unaccompanied minors
• migrant networks
• migration industry
• smuggling
• information
• asylum

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Pursuing internal migration prior to migrating to the US was not common among my research participants (only Matias pursued this). For research examining internal migration as an alternative pathway for Central American youth, see Escamilla García (2021).

2 Categorized as having “full and accurate information” in Table 2.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by John Randolph and Dora Haynes Foundation; National Science Foundation.