9. Correlation Between Violence and Forced Migration

Massive migrations are usually the result of economic reasons or wars, but there is another reason that has not been studied thoroughly: violence. Since round the late 1990s, Mexico and several countries in Central America have suffered violence as a result of the economic globalization of the drug business, the Mexican drug war, and the direct and indirect violence this produces through assaults, hijacks, and so on. This type of violence differs that in wars and affects all economic strata of society. In Mexico and Guatemala, the number of homicides has increased to levels never seen in recent history, and has prompted a wave of requests for asylum in the United States that has reached a number robust enough to be studied using statistical metrics. In this chapter, asylum immigration data from Mexicans and Guatemalans is correlated to violent crime indicators in these countries. It is determined that taking into account the appropriate time delays for immigration to take place and for asylum to be processed, the data from asylum requests and homicides in Mexico correlate positively, showing a causal connection between violence and migration.