Privilege Under Watch: The Intersection of Skills and Surveillance in Credentialized Cross-Border Mobility in North America

This paper explores the intersection of privilege, surveillance, and justice in the cross-border mobility experiences of highly credentialized Mexican migrants in the U.S. and Canada. Drawing on interviews and ethnographic data, it examines how Mexican professionals, despite successfully navigating the different migration infrastructures shaped by the “regimes of skill" (Shan and Fejes, 2015) embedded in migration policies, encounter systemic inequalities. Participants experience both upward and downward mobility simultaneously, highlighting the contradictions in their transnational lives. Despite their ability to leverage migration-facilitating capital (Kim, 2018), they face the precarities of being racialized and surveilled as foreigners in Vancouver and Seattle. This research emphasizes the complex strategies these migrants employ to convert short-term mobility into permanent migration options, while managing the tensions between their elite status in Mexico and their racialized identities in North America.

This paper also addresses the role of justice in shaping these migration experiences, specifically examining how state policies perpetuate exclusion and inequity. Participants’ struggles with “permanently temporary” legal status and heightened surveillance reflect broader structural injustices that render even privileged migrants vulnerable to state control and racial profiling. The paper further investigates how gender, class, and race mediate their capacity to navigate local norms, either blending in or becoming hyper-visible, depending on the socio-political context.

By focusing on the intersection of privilege, precarity, and justice, this research offers critical insights into the broader dynamics of international migration, racialization, and the unequal distribution of rights and opportunities across borders. It explores how participants grapple with the legal and social challenges of navigating borders under temporary residence, while pursuing the perceived security and privileges of permanent residence or citizenship. These findings contribute to debates on transnationalism, skilled migration and the evolving nature of borders in an era of heightened global surveillance.