Introduction

This book marks a critical contribution to the intercultural dialogue about immigration. Each year, thousands of Central Americans leave their countries and walk across Mexico, seeking to reach the United States.

The author explores the dispossession process that drives these migrants from their homes and argues that they are caught in a kind of trap: forced to emigrate, but impeded to immigrate. This trap is discussed empirically through the analysis of immigration policies implemented by the United States government and ethnographic fieldwork carried out in some of “albergues” (shelters).