From transit to waiting: the role of migrant houses in Mexico in the trajectories of Central American migrants

Between 150,000 and 400,000 migrants from Central America, mostly from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, cross Mexico annually in their attempt to reach the US. With the objective of reducing the vulnerability and the precarity faced by these migrants in Mexico, a network of civil society organizations assists them by providing various services including housing, food, sanitary services and health care. Our analysis examines the role of the "casas del migrante" (migrants' shelters) as "waiting places" that allow migrants to make a stop on their route toward the north ("pa'el norte"). Based on 66 interviews conducted between 2013 and 2015 with Central American migrants and 31 workers from various civil society organizations that assist migrants, we show how the shelters participate in migration management through the regulation of "waiting times" along migrants' trajectories. When providing services, shelters contribute in facilitating mobility, shaping and influencing migrants' trajectories.