Abstract:  This study examines the process of self‐inclusion among migrating populations in two cities in Northern Mexico when enforcement policies at the border generate involuntary immobility—the entrapment of asylum seekers in a prolonged socio‐legal limbo. It demonstrates that despite conditions that result in border stranding and migrant “stuckness” (Carling, 2002), asylum seekers who face structural exclusion, such as lack of legal status, limited access to goods and services, and discrimination, create processes aimed at self‐inclusion, even if temporary, by investing in building mutual‐aid networks to navigate resources, to resist, and to adapt to structural containment—without necessarily giving up on their final migratory objectives. Through ethnographic work and interviews with Haitian and Cuban asylum seekers in Tijuana, Baja California, and Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, this article explains how asylum seekers exercise agency and leverage resources to overcome obstacles to inclusion.

Keywords:  migration policy; self‐inclusion; transitional integration; US–Mexico relations

Published:   30 September 2026

Issue:   Vol 15 (2027): Dynamics of Inclusion/Exclusion as a Complex Problematic for Contemporary Topics (In Progress)