With the advent of globalization, neoliberalism, and immigration policy reforms that enlarged the non-White workforce in the United States, precarious employment—work that is contingent, risky, and socially stratified—has increased dramatically. The 2008 Great Recession exacerbated labor market uncertainty, deepening the demand for precarious labor. These same structural forces have conditioned a rise in precarious entrepreneurship in the informal economy; yet little is known about how precarity is experienced among “survival entrepreneurs” or its effects on their entrepreneurial outcomes. This study uses unique ethnosurvey data collected between 2012 and 2018 on 116 street corner day laborers in Texas, a state in the Southwest region of the United States, to investigate these relationships. In the context of a more precarious economy, findings reveal that undocumented Latino immigrant men continue to dominate day labor activity; however, the expanding supply and demand for day laborers has resulted in a more diverse day labor pool that includes legal permanent residents, naturalized citizens, and U.S.-born citizens, including Black and White Americans. At the same time, day labor remains a “bad job” characterized by exploitive and abusive working conditions and low hourly income. That said Latino immigrant day laborers are subject to a distinct process of criminalization and racialization that conditions a lower hourly income for this group, regardless of legal status. Findings suggest that day labor is a form of precarious entrepreneurship that is polarized by race and nativity.

At the frontline of México’s “war on drugs” is the Mexican-U.S. border city of Cd. Juárez, Chihuahua, which has become internationally known as the “murder capital of the world.” In Juárez, which neighbors El Paso, Texas, United States, estimates of the murders in Juárez are as high as 7,643 between 2006 and 2011, leaving approximately 10,000 orphans. Juárez has also experienced an exodus of approximately 124,000 people seeking safety, some migrating to the Mexican interior and others to the U.S., particularly along the U.S.-México border. Based on 63 in-depth interviews with Juárez-El Paso border residents, along with ethnographic observations, we examine the implications of the “war on drugs” on transnational movements and on the initial settlement of those escaping the violence. In particular, we construct a typology of international migrants who are represented in the Juárez exodus: the Mexican business elite, the “Refugees without Status,” and those who resided in México but who are U.S. born or have legal permanent residency in the U.S. This article highlights the role of transnational capital in the form of assets and income, social networks in the U.S., and documentation to cross the port of entry into the U.S. legally, in easing migration and initial settlement experiences in the U.S

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