Compelled return due to structural constraints

The decision to return for people in this category is driven by structural reasons related to governmental policies or the consequences of those policies. It is defined by the presence of physical, psychological, or material pressure on the migrant by the state or host society. In total, 13 of my participants came under this category; most of whom were from the urban site and included an equal number of women and men. Reasons for compelled return due to structural reasons included: joining a ‘significant other’ who had been deported; fear of deportation; being unable to access university education; and feeling discriminated against as a consequence of their undocumented status, being a migrant, and/or Mexican.

An interesting element present in many of the cases under this category is multi-causality, in other words, interviewees presented me with various motives or causes for their return. I believe that this aspect was not present in the forced return category because multi-causality is closely related to the degree of agency that participants felt they had in their decision- making process. With regard to the first motivation for return mentioned above, Claudia (MC, 43) recounted her circumstances as follows,

While in detention my husband told me “Claudia, I am paying taxes and I have invested money in this country, they have no right to treat me like this...I will never come back [to the USA]”. Many times I begged him to come back [after he was deported to Mexico], but he refused. So I thought “my place is with him, I am his wife, he was the one who had bad luck but it could have been me; now I have to be with him, I need to support him”. That is why I decided to come back to Mexico.

Family reunification is identified in the literature as one of the most common reasons for Mexican migrants to return to their country of origin (Arriola-Vega 2014; BBVA and CONAPO 2015; González-Barrera 2015; Papail and Arroyo 2004; Pries 2004). While several authors have looked at this aspect of return, their focus has been on reunification with family members who remained in Mexico. Thus far, I have not been able to find literature that focuses on family reunification as a consequence of the forced return of a family member. Angeles (MC, 62), Arturo (MC, 36), Claudia (MC, 43) and Lulú (MC, 23) were motivated to return because a close family member was deported. Lulú was 17 years old when her mother was deported and, due to her young age, she reports a lack of space for negotiation and feeling compelled to join her mother back in Mexico. Contrary to Lulú’s case, Angeles, Arturo and Claudia mentioned that they had a certain degree of agency while making their

decision but they all decided to return because they felt “the moral duty” to support their loved ones (son, wife and spouse, respectively) in Mexico. Claudia, for example, said that “I did not want to do it, and now I even regret my decision. But at that time I felt that in the eyes of God (and my children), I would be abandoning my husband, and that felt wrong.” As we will examine later in this chapter, the pressure that Claudia felt to conform to gendered moral norms and social expectations represented a push factor for many other women, limiting their autonomy to take decisions based on their own needs and life expectations.

De Genova (2002) defines ‘deportability’ as undocumented migrants’ awareness that they could be deported at any time. He states that this awareness reduces migrants’ capacity to challenge exploitative labour conditions and, as will be seen in the case of Janet (MC, 35), puts them in an extremely vulnerable position. Janet was 20 years old and had lived in the USA for five years without documents when she became pregnant. Due to the nature of her job, she and her spouse worked and lived at their employer’s house. Janet mentioned being very unhappy with her work conditions and feeling afraid of her employer, describing her as abusive and dishonest. Upon her baby’s delivery, Janet felt extremely vulnerable due to her ‘deportability’ and therefore decided to go back to Mexico in order to avoid the risk of being deported and separated from her child. These narrations help us to expand our understanding of forced return, considering how it mobilises not only the individuals who were removed but also their families and those who are ‘at risk’ of being deported. Moreover, through their narratives these participants bring the phrase voluntariamente a fuerza (forced willingness) to life, showing how it felt as though they had little room to exercise their autonomy within the current immigration context in the USA, especially when coupled with the need to conform to the gendered moral responsibilities (of being a good mother) that they had towards their loved ones.

Another significant group compelled to return due to structural reasons are ‘los otros

dreamers’ (the other dreamers). In the USA, the political term ‘DREAMer’ was conceived in

2001 to identify those undocumented youth and young adults (considered part of the 1.5 generation) who would become direct beneficiaries of the DREAM Act80_{. In Mexico, authors} and activists (see Anderson and Solis 2014; Landa 2014) have coined the term ‘los otros

dreamers’ to refer to young adults who were born in Mexico, migrated and were raised in

the USA, and who returned to Mexico either ‘voluntarily’ or were deported.

80 _{The DREAM Act aimed to provide temporary protection from deportation for those who entered}

The narrations of Carlos (MC, 35), Damián (MC, 23), Elba (MC, 23), Luis (MC, 32) and Natalia (MC, 28) are helpful in illustrating the convoluted process of a ‘voluntary’ return in the cases of undocumented migrants of the 1.5 generation. While these participants’ returns were motivated by their need for personal and professional development, they were triggered by their inability to access university in the USA due to the restrictive policies at that time (prior the approval of the DREAM Act in 2012), or the realisation that despite their education, they will never be able to access formal employment. These participants decided to return to Mexico rather than live with an uncertain future and face the risk of being expelled from the USA.

As was introduced in the last chapter with the cases of Luis (MC, 32) and Natalia (MC, 28), the inclusion of young undocumented migrants into public schooling has been considered by Gonzales (2011) as a state of ‘suspended illegality’, which is characterised by the lack of realisation of the full implications that their undocumented status would have for their futures. The transition to adulthood for migrants from this 1.5 generation is characterised by their inability to continue with their education, obtain a drivers’ licence, or to find the job that they expected to. Natalia’s experience is one example of many for whom this clash between their scholarly ambitions and their undocumented status becomes a turning point which triggered their ‘voluntary’ return, “I continued with my [college] education and worked in the afternoons but I realised that as long as I remained undocumented, I would never be able to move on…I would always have the same shitty jobs.”

Many of the 1.5 and second generations of certain immigrant groups are in reciprocal financial relationships with their parents, often supporting them (Rumbaut and Komaie 2010) and/or the entire household. As a result, they do share a good proportion of the stresses and responsibilities of adult roles. Luis viewed his move to Mexico as an opportunity to continue with his higher education and achieve a more promising career than that of his father but also as an opportunity to achieve autonomy, in other words, an independent life far from his gendered role as the eldest son (second breadwinner of the family) and what he considered to be ‘unbalanced’ responsibilities between him and his siblings:

During that time, I was studying [at community college] during the day, and working at nights. Once I finished college it did not make much sense to continue working with my dad. All the money that my father and I were making in our (very informal and rudimentary) [cleaning] company was used to pay our rent, and later the mortgage and food, in general, family expenses […] At a point I thought it was unfair; first, I did not receive any salary, and second, I did not want to be the one responsible for ‘feeding’ my siblings anymore. Additionally, I did not want to work as a janitor for

the rest of my life, I had bigger plans for myself… that is when I seriously considered coming back to Mexico. “OK if I cannot join a university here [the USA], in Mexico I would be able to do so, after all, I am Mexican, over there they cannot reject me” … I thought.

Despite the passing of the DREAM Act in 2012, many young migrants like Charlie (MC, 22) do not qualify for regularisation and are faced with the same challenges as any other undocumented migrant. Moreover, given the present government’s stand on immigration, the future of DACA and the 750,000 young immigrants currently protected from deportation is at stake. These Dreamers’ narratives help us to expand our understanding of the ways in which the draconian structures in place affect members of the 1.5 generation who, through their incorporation into the cultural, educational and social spheres in the USA, have developed dreams and expectations of a better life and are then faced with the need to return to Mexico (the exact place where their parents did not have access to opportunities) in order to try to fulfil those dreams and regian autonomy.

Some other participants voiced their need to interrupt their migration cycle due to tiredness and disillusionment regarding their lives in the USA (Cassarino 2016). Patricia (MC, 38), Juan (H, 49) and Javier (H, 42) experienced situations that caused them to leave the USA with a feeling of bitterness. Due to political problems, Patricia lost her organisation and her job, and Javier and Juan grew tired of being (mis)treated due to their status as ‘undocumented Mexican migrants’. Patricia is one of the few participants that became a USA citizen but that was not enough to make her feel that she “belonged”. Either documented or undocumented, the three of them managed to build lives in the USA for a long time, during which they fantasised about their return to their ‘homeland’. In this regard, as Lulle (2017) asserts, the difficulties of being accepted in a new place may create a pull towards ‘home’, a place which may become idealised as a place of ‘refuge’ where one can really belong (see also Cassarino 2004).