As insecurity in Central America persists and avenues for asylum in the U.S. constrict, migrants are exploring options in Mexico—to seek humanitarian relief or to bide time as they consider whether to continue north, settle, or return. Based on interviews with migrants and shelter staff at the Mexico-Guatemala border in the summer of 2017, this article applies contingency logics (Bledsoe 2002) to analyze how proximate social ties, accumulated experiences, and harsh ordeals inform how migrants make decisions, change their minds, and re-envision destinations amid uncertainty. Complicating tensions between mobility/immobility and settlement/transit, we demonstrate how decisions to settle, seek protection, or wait in Mexico may be socially understood as fostering migrants’ larger goals to continue their journeys and pursue their migratory aspirations. However, given Mexico's expanding deportation apparatus and the unpredictability of options in Mexico, such forms of waiting also risk consigning migrants to indeterminate waiting, vulnerability, and entrapment.

中文翻译：

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通往北方的门户？墨西哥-危地马拉边境的特遣队旅程

由于中美洲的不安全局势持续存在，而美国的庇护渠道也在缩小，移民们正在墨西哥探索各种选择——寻求人道主义救济，或者在考虑是否继续向北、定居或返回时等待时间。本文基于 2017 年夏天在墨西哥-危地马拉边境对移民和收容所工作人员的采访，运用权变逻辑 (Bledsoe 2002) 分析了密切的社会联系、积累的经验和严酷的磨难如何影响移民如何做出决定、改变他们的生活。在不确定性中重新设想目的地。使流动性/固定性与定居/过境之间的紧张关系复杂化，我们展示了如何在墨西哥定居、寻求保护或等待的决定可能被社会理解为促进移民的更大目标，以继续他们的旅程并追求他们的移民愿望。