Caught in the Current: Mexico's Struggle to Regulate Emigration, 1940–1980 is a pioneering analysis of Mexico’s efforts to curb the outflow of its citizens to the United States. It spotlights the miscalculation of Mexican authorities, who believed they could restrain migration at will—particularly when it provoked social chaos, drained the domestic labor pool, or produced egregious cases of migrant abuse. Mexico’s counter-migratory policies, both those based on coercion and incentives, repeatedly collapsed. Mexican migrants resisted restrictions, U.S. authorities refused to cooperate, and Mexican officials ultimately lacked resolve. As the migration swelled, it slipped beyond Mexico’s control. What was once seen as a looming source of disorder, depletion, and disgrace became naturalized as an irreversible fact of national life.

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