Institute for Immigration Research (IIR) Graduate Research Assistant, Umida Hashimova article, “Central Asian migrants at the US-Mexico border: An exploration of causes", was published in the Asian and Pacific Migration Journal. This article explores the sudden surge of apprehensions of Central Asian asylum seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border in 2021 and 2022 and possible contributing factors. These factors include the 1) availability of well-paid jobs in the United States even for low-skilled jobs, such as truck drivers, 2) proliferation of multinational migrant smuggling networks that now include Russian-speaking communities, and 3) change of migration policies for apprehended migrants at the border that allowed an unlimited number of attempts to cross the border followed by increased apprehensions with the release of migrants after a short custody.
February 12, 2025