I’m frequently asked, “Why don’t people go back to their country and make it a better place?”
Across two decades of researching immigration, I’ve concluded that most people, and especially those who advocate for mass deportation, grossly underestimate how precarious life is outside the U.S. My recent work in Mexico reflects this conclusion.
I spent much of 2025 in León, Mexico, researching female-led collectives that search for missing people. Their work defies comprehension. Since the government declared war on drug trafficking in 2006, more than 130,000 people have gone missing. Another 450,000 have been murdered. Still, collectives like Hasta Encontrarte, based out of Irapuato, place these figures much higher.
“You only know what you see,” Bibiana Mendoza, who helps coordinate Hasta Encontrarte, told me. “And people are afraid to report disappearances.”
In fact, my interest in Mexico’s collectives was spurred in 2023 when I helped a woman from central Mexico apply for asylum in Southwest Colorado. During our initial conversation, she recalled an uncle who was kidnapped by cartel members before she fled.
“We knew where he was buried,” she told me. “But we were afraid to look for him.”
There are more than 250 collectives searching for missing people across Mexico, and in dozens of cases, those searching for the missing have themselves disappeared. Uncovering the truth is a risky business in a nation where power is forged and maintained by alliances between cartels and corrupt officials.
I participated in a half dozen searches. On one search, we combed the hills outside León for a missing lawyer. The man’s widow, Wendy, accompanied us. Her husband took on cases involving land and title disputes. One day, masked men with guns showed up at his office.
“I never saw him again,” Wendy said. Years later, his assassins indicated that they’d buried the body along the hillside that we were navigating. They told authorities they’d lead them to the grave, but the judge feared a cartel ambush and wouldn’t authorize it.
As we walked, another man in the party noticed a low-flying plane. “You hear the plane up above?” he asked. “They use them to track military convoys.”
Later, a soldier pointed toward the trees. “See over there?” he said. “Under the tree, where the grass is down? That’s where the narcos watch over town.”
After a while, I broke off from the group toward the base of the cliffs, cautiously venturing through the thick underbrush. Suddenly, I felt someone else’s presence. I slowed down, and my eyes settled on the cliff’s edge. I saw the silhouette of a man holding what appeared to be a rifle. I eased down toward the ground and pulled out my Nikon, zooming in on the figure. He was dressed in dark clothing and wore a broad-brimmed hat. He was standing in thick, waist-high grass. I snapped several shots, but by the time I took my eye off the viewfinder, he was gone. My palms were sweating. I could no longer see the man, but he was there, somewhere, watching.
In Mexico, someone is always watching.
Today, those who flee cartels in Mexico are hunted by masked U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in the U.S., snatched on their way to work and school as if they were the criminals. This cycle of fear and persecution is unsustainable. We need policies that recognize the humanity and desperation driving migration – policies that create pathways to safety and opportunity rather than criminalize those seeking refuge.
Benjamin James Waddell, Ph.D., is a researcher, immigration scholar and professor of sociology at Fort Lewis College in Durango.
