Beschreibung:
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>As insecurity in Central America persists and avenues for asylum in the U.S. constrict, migrants are exploring options in Mexico—to seek humanitarian relief or to bide time as they consider whether to continue north, settle, or return. Based on interviews with migrants and shelter staff at the Mexico‐Guatemala border in the summer of 2017, this article applies contingency logics (Bledsoe 2002) to analyze how proximate social ties, accumulated experiences, and harsh ordeals inform how migrants make decisions, change their minds, and re‐envision destinations amid uncertainty. Complicating tensions between mobility/immobility and settlement/transit, we demonstrate how decisions to settle, seek protection, or wait in Mexico may be socially understood as fostering migrants’ larger goals to continue their journeys and pursue their migratory aspirations. However, given Mexico's expanding deportation apparatus and the unpredictability of options in Mexico, such forms of waiting also risk consigning migrants to indeterminate waiting, vulnerability, and entrapment.</jats:p>