The Insecure Migrant

Abstract

For many Hondurans fleeing poverty, political corruption, violent crime, and climate change-induced disasters and seeking settlement in the United States, insecurity is a lived condition throughout the non-linear migratory journey. Add to that an ever-expanding surveillance infrastructure and thickening of the securitized US–Mexico border, and the very act of leaving arguably becomes political in its assertion of the right to dignified life. In this article I examine how undocumented Honduran migrants living in New Orleans rationalize the levels of risk they have faced during their migration and residency in the city. By focusing on violence—potential and actual—from petty criminals, gangs, traffickers, and law enforcement, I argue for heightened attention to how insecurity is an ongoing, cumulative, and transnational process that migrants face in their search for the good life.