"Caught in the Current: Mexico’s Struggle to Regulate Emigration, 1940-1980".
The Fantasy of Migration Control: Today's border debates focus on what the U.S. should do. But for decades, Mexico waged its own campaigns to keep its citizens home--and lost. In this revelatory study, Irvin Ibargüen uncovers a forgotten history: Mexican officials who believed they could turn migration on and off at will and the migrants who proved them wrong. From coercive crackdowns to generous incentive programs, every policy collapsed. Migrants resisted, the U.S. refused to cooperate, and Mexican authorities ultimately lost their nerve. What began as a problem to be managed became an unstoppable force. This is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand why "controlling the border" has always been a fantasy—on both sides.
Irvin Ibargüen is an assistant professor of history at New York University. His work has received support from the Mexican Government’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Harvard Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, the Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History, and the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies. At NYU, he teaches classes on Latino History, US History, and Immigration in the Modern World.
