Background

The UMP is an internationally known research-arts-education collective that seeks to raise awareness about migration issues globally while empowering migrants to tell their stories.

ABOUT

In the mid-1990’s, the U.S. immigration enforcement strategy known as Prevention through Deterrence [PTD] was implemented along the southern border. This strategy increased security in unauthorized crossing areas surrounding urban ports of entry in an attempt to shift undocumented migration towards remote border regions such as the Sonoran Desert of Arizona, where security is less intense but crossing conditions (e.g., terrain) are more difficult. Two decades of research has shown that PTD has failed to deter migration, but has succeeded in shaping border crossing into a well-organized and violent social process with a unique set of material culture and technologies.

The Undocumented Migration Project [UMP] was started in 2009 by anthropologist Jason De León with the goal to understand the human impacts of border enforcement policies such as PTD. Using a combination of ethnographic, archaeological, and forensic approaches, the UMP carried out research in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona from 2009-2015 culminating in the award-winning book The Land of Open Graves: Living and Dying on the Migrant Trail and the highly acclaimed exhibition State of Exception.

In 2015, the UMP shifted its attention to the role of smugglers in the social process of clandestine migration. This photoethnographic project focused on Honduran smugglers moving migrants across the length of Mexico and resulted in the book Soldiers and Kings: Survival and Hope in the World of Human Smuggling, which won the 2024 National Book Award for nonfiction. 

After the final run of State of Exception, the UMP launched Hostile Terrain 94, a participatory exhibition intended to raise awareness about migrant death along the US/Mexico border. This installation has been exhibited in more than 150 locations globally.

In 2026, the UMP launched ¡Listen Up!, a music outreach program intended to amplify the voices of migrant, immigrant, indigenous, LGBTQ+ youth around the globe. Through mixed media workshops that focus on storytelling, songwriting, performance, recording, and video production, we seek to equip young people with the skills and tools to create art that reflects their experiences, world views, and hopes and aspirations for the future.