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Research Article
Open Access

Crossing the Mexico-U.S. Border: Illegality and Children’s Migration to the United States

Katharine M. Donato, Samantha L. Perez
RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences July 2017, 3 (4) 116-135; DOI: https://doi.org/10.7758/RSF.2017.3.4.07
Katharine M. Donato
aDonald C. Herzberg Professor of International Migration and director of the Institute for the Study of International Migration at Georgetown University
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Samantha L. Perez
bDoctoral student in the Department of Sociology at Vanderbilt University
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Abstract

Recent public debates reveal that the experiences of child migrants are not well understood. This study is a child-centered analysis of Mexican migration. We examine whether and how conditions in origin communities, and the attributes of children and parents, affect the propensities that children undertake a first migrant trip to the United States. From event history and other multivariate models used to assess children’s undocumented migration and how conditions in origin and sending communities explain its variation, our findings reveal close links between violence in Mexico and unauthorized child migration, and important variation in children’s likelihoods to initiate migration related to parents’ migration, origin migrant networks, and period of U.S. entry.

  • children
  • unauthorized migration
  • illegality
  • Mexico-U.S. migration
  • © 2017 Russell Sage Foundation. Donato, Katharine M., and Samantha L. Perez. 2017. “Crossing the Mexico-U.S. Border: Illegality and Children’s Migration to the United States.” RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences 3(4): 116–35. DOI: 10.7758/RSF.2017.3.4.07. This paper was presented at Undocumented Immigration and the Experience of Illegality, a conference held at the Russell Sage Foundation in October 2015. We are grateful to Steven Raphael and Roberto Gonzales, and to two anonymous reviewers, for their helpful comments. We also thank the Russell Sage Foundation and the College of Arts and Science at Vanderbilt University for their generous support of this project. Direct correspondence to: Katharine M. Donato at kmd285{at}georgetown.edu, Edmund Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, 3300 Whitehaven Rd., Washington, D.C. 20007; and Samantha L. Perez at samantha.l.perez{at}vanderbilt.edu, Department of Sociology, Vanderbilt University, PMB 351811, Nashville, TN 37235.

Open Access Policy: RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences is an open access journal. This article is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

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RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences: 3 (4)
RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences
Vol. 3, Issue 4
1 Jul 2017
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Crossing the Mexico-U.S. Border: Illegality and Children’s Migration to the United States
Katharine M. Donato, Samantha L. Perez
RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences Jul 2017, 3 (4) 116-135; DOI: 10.7758/RSF.2017.3.4.07

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Crossing the Mexico-U.S. Border: Illegality and Children’s Migration to the United States
Katharine M. Donato, Samantha L. Perez
RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences Jul 2017, 3 (4) 116-135; DOI: 10.7758/RSF.2017.3.4.07
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  • Article
    • Abstract
    • VIOLENCE, FAMILIES, AND ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY
    • SHIFTING U.S. CONTEXT FOR CHILD MIGRATION
    • EXPECTATIONS
    • DATA AND METHODS
    • CHILDREN MAKING A FIRST U.S. TRIP
    • UNAUTHORIZED CHILD MIGRATION ARRANGEMENTS
    • DISCUSSION
    • Acknowledgments
    • FOOTNOTES
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Keywords

  • children
  • unauthorized migration
  • illegality
  • Mexico-U.S. migration

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