Organizing the mobility of migrants from Mexico to US: The rise from individual car services to bus companies

This article analyzes the bus transportation companies located in Monterrey, Mexico. This city is a node for the transportation of Mexican migrants to the United States. One of the questions that is addressed in this article is: How can the history of these companies be understood within the context of both, Mexican migration to the U.S., and the consolidation of the Monterrey-Houston migratory circuit? I draw from theoretical insights from economic geography and utilize the concepts of mobility infrastructure and the migration industry. I argue that Monterrey’s importance as a major center for the transportation of Mexicans to the U.S. is not only due to its geographical location, but also to how migrants have used their agency to build up social infrastructures, routes, itineraries, and a migratory circuit. In this scenario, some of the larger transportation companies benefited from two related issues: migrant’s networks, knowledge and agency, and Monterrey’s economic transformation in a global context. This article contributes to the study of land transportation and international migration by considering that migrants. networks (social infrastructures) and ethnic niches constitute the basis for further formal transnational economic industries (migration industry).

Keywords: Mobility infrastructure, migration industry, migrant’s transportation, bus transportation companies.