Research Resource: Mexodus Project

 

Picture Source:  Study documents exodus from Mexico | wfaa.com Dallas Fort Worth

19 September 2011

The University of Texas at El Paso (UT-El Paso) launched a project to record Mexican migrations and the reasons why. The project is dubbed the Mexodus Project.

So far, the project determined that many thousands of people fled Mexico for the US, or less violent regions of Mexico, to escape areas dominated by the drug cartels or other forms of major criminal activity.

The site documents drivers that force people to leave parts of Mexico, or Mexico as a whole, as well as document the socio-economic impacts the cartels/criminal elements have on local society.

In other words, the site documents incidences contributing to the gradual disintegration of Mexican society.

Here are some key findings noted on the About page.

The result is more than 20 stories in two languages, videos, slideshows, photos, info graphics and charts produced by participation from nearly 100 student journalists from four universities, University of Texas El Paso, California State University Northridge, and Tecnológico de Monterrey in Chihuahua and México City.

Although it was difficult for students to quantify the dislocation of México’s middle class due to the violence – researchers and demographers estimate the Mexodus at about 125,000 – more empirical studies will likely reveal a larger number of refugees pushed out by growing violence, perhaps twice as many, according to some.

Another remarkable finding of the nine-month-long project is that the number of Mexicans filing for asylum in the U.S. has skyrocketed by 300 percent in the last five years, during the height of the drug violence, among those requesting asylum are several well-regarded journalists.

Click to access the site:  Mexodus Project Web site

 

Source:  Study documents exodus from Mexico | wfaa.com Dallas - Fort Worth

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