“It’s only God who gives you direction”. Hope and waiting in Mexico’s migrant shelters

In recent years, the United States has increasingly compelled Mexico to host large numbers of migrants in transit, including asylum seekers, on Mexican territory. Framed within a discourse of care and hope, this humanitarian paradigm has primarily functioned to slow and obstruct migrants’ movement toward the US, while depending on the solidarity networks created by Mexican civil society. This article examines how this humanitarian paradigm shapes the hopes and possibilities available to both migrants in waiting and shelter workers in southern then northern Mexico. The concept of judicious opportunism helps illuminate the guidance offered by shelter staff, who encourage migrants to pursue “realistic” goals, as well as the visions of migrants seeking and following “the direction” and “the signs” left by God for them. I contrast these dynamics with the far more precarious conditions observed in Ciudad Juárez, where many migrants waiting at the northern border have abandoned the idea of a realistic plan. In this context, judicious opportunism becomes centered on hoping for a miracle. Ultimately, I show that shelters contain multiple coexisting worlds of meaning – regarding migration and its possible outcomes – that largely coexist without necessarily understanding one another.