Making a life in Limbo: Monterrey, Mexico, as a waiting territory for Honduran Garifuna migration to the United States

Recent ethnographic research on transit migration of Central Americans through Mexico has focused on how they often find themselves stuck there for long periods of time due to barriers to mobility, turning certain spaces into waiting territories. Using two case studies and ethnographic fieldwork in Monterrey with Honduran Garifuna migrants, this paper explores the strategies of containment that trap Garifuna in the city, how they engage in placemaking while they wait, and how that impacts their migration decisions. I argue that while they engage in strategies of emplacement in the city, the violence created by visa regimes makes permanent settlement in Mexico difficult, fuelling their desire to reach the United States, such that Monterrey is only a parenthesis in their journey.