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This article considers diverse migrations from Mexico to the United States, driven by a range of factors, in the context of violence that circulates transnationally. Throughout Mexico violence and kidnappings, increasingly targeted at migrants or their family members, are motivating increased or new flows to the north. Meanwhile, in the United States, nativism is fostering anti-immigrant policies and practices – also framed by violence – aimed at “returning” Mexican nationals south. Such processes are resulting in a simultaneous blurring and reassertion of categories: distinctions between individuals with different motivations to migrate are not easily delineated, and in this case, individuals themselves often experience a form of “mixed migration”, with people migrating both for economic reasons and because they fear for their safety. Drawing on ongoing ethnographic research about migration and deportation, I outline recent experiences of transnational Mexicans to highlight contradictions within United States–Mexico migration and consider the implications for policy. In the current climate of United States immigration control, the possibility of claiming asylum within the United States is unlikely for nearly all Mexicans, underscoring the limitations of categorisation within refugee protection and immigration regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]