The city under constraint: International migrants’ challenges and strategies to access urban resources in Mexico City

Abstract

New migration configurations, particularly regarding access to resources for arriving migrants in urban contexts, have emerged in Mexico. As a destination for newly arrived international immigrant populations, Mexico City has become especially important. Stranded migration situations have produced fragmented journeys for Latin American migrants who are on their way to the United States. With the strengthening of immigration containment policies and the insecurity in Mexico, the complexity of immigrant journeys has led to new ways of settling in the country, temporarily or permanently. This paper is based on empirical elements to analyze the experiences of migrants who have recently arrived in Mexico City using a perspective centred on their everyday practices in the urban space. It highlights the different tactics and strategies that migrants develop depending on the characteristics of their migration process and their need for access to resources, like housing, employment, health care, and education. We point out that, in a context of restricted access to resources or an immigration status, utilizing alternate and informal strategies in micro‐local spaces is common in the city and part of a negotiated urbanity in an unknown metropolitan environment. We argue that, despite the local intercultural policy implemented by the government of Mexico City, situations of legal precariousness and transitoriness that characterize the urban practices and patterns of incorporation into the city constrain international migrants’ access to their rights.