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This piece considers the deseos -- wants, desires, needs -- and dolores -- pain or sorrow -- of individuals in US-Mexico transnational partnerships. For transnational Mexicans, 'desire' manifests as diverse, even contradictory, expressions of emotion. Migration is intertwined with multiple desires within intimate relationships, but is also tied to suffering across borders. Conflicting articulations of deseos y dolores reveal gender politics as well as the broader socioeconomic inequalities that drive migration and result in the transborder movement that separates couples and family members in a transnational space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

This paper considers the deportation of Mexican nationals from the United States, focusing on migrants with ties to a small, rural community in the Mexican state of San Luis PotosI and several locations throughout the U.S. West and Southwest. I trace the imagined futures of deportees, situating their forced removal within past returns and contemporary transnational lives. The narratives of deportees and those close to them repeatedly focus on uncertainty and insecurity: "¿Quien sabe? [Who knows?]" is a common refrain among deportees, family and friends of those deported, and undocumented migrants fearing deportation. While the U.S. state deports Mexican nationals with a sense of finality, those affected by deportation, including even deportees themselves, have few options outside of future migration to the United States. Agricultural hardship in home communities, a global economic crisis, and increasing violence throughout Mexico are likely to link the trajectories of deportees to continued transnational movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]