Flow of illegals 'inevitable'
August Gribbin
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published 3/27/2002
The steady, massive flow of legal and illegal
Mexican immigrants in the United States cannot be stopped and won't decrease
dramatically even if the Mexican economy blooms, U.S. and Mexican demographers
say.
"The migratory phenomenon between Mexico
and the United states is structural and permanent," concludes a study by
Mexico's National Population Council, a ministry of the Interior agency.
The report, "Migration: Mexico-United States,"
concludes that by 2030, the Mexican-born U.S. population will at least double to
16 million to 18 million regardless of improvements in Mexico's
economy.
"Diverse factors such as geographic
proximity, the asymmetrical and growing economic integration and intense
relations and exchanges between both countries make the creation of migratory
flow inevitable," it says.
The council's report
was published in Mexico in November but was ignored in this country until David
Simcox, board chairman of the nonprofit Center for Immigration Studies, produced
an analysis and summary of the document. Mr. Simcox made a copy available to The
Washington Times last week.
The document
provides a statistical foundation for Mexico's insistence that the United States
ease immigration restrictions for Mexicans while creating a "guest worker"
program for Mexican laborers and "regularizing" the status of illegal
border-crossers now in the United
States.
Prominent U.S. demographers who study
Mexican immigration were questioned about points the study discussed. Although
they have not yet seen the report, they tend to agree with its general
observations.
Some celebrate it. Marcelo M.
Suarez-Orozco, a Harvard Graduate School professor and author who heads the
university's Immigration Project says, "Without reference to politics and
considering only the scientific framework, Mexico and the United States are
Siamese twins. Immigration from Mexico is our history and our destiny. That is
the basic dynamic of the situation seen after 20 years of
study."
Demographer Carl Haub of the Population
Reference Bureau says, "It's reasonable to expect that the influx [of immigrants
from Mexico] will continue. It's hard to see any reason that it
wouldn't."
It's widely believed that Mexicans
flock to the United States principally because they are seeking a job and want
to pursue the "American dream." So by most accounts, a widespread rise in the
pay of Mexican workers, accompanying a major, large-scale improvement in
Mexico's economy is one thing that would reduce the number of Mexicans crossing
to the United States.
But Mexico's population
council says, "The most favorable economic conditions will express themselves in
only slightly lower flows in the constant rate of migration," even if there is a
simultaneous fall in the Mexican birthrate.
Mr.
Simcox has been studying Mexican immigration since 1986, and he says that given
"the most favorable scenarios for Mexico's economy and U.S.-Mexican wage ratios
... annual emigration in 2030 will still approach 400,000 a year, 8.3 percent to
11.4 percent higher than the 370,000 estimated for
2000."
That rings true, Mr. Suarez-Orozco
explains, because half the immigrants come to the United States to be with
family. "Someone said the formula for a happy life is based on love and work.
That's why Mexicans migrate — love of family and to get a good
job."
It's clear that as the number of Mexicans
in the United States increases, the number of family members wishing to join
them will too. But there are other reasons Mexicans move
north.
"Immigrating to the United States or
moving back and forth across the border is ingrained in Mexican culture.
Children in some parts of Mexico are raised with the understanding that they
will grow up and work here," Mr. Simcox
says.
Moreover, Mexico's population council
reports, illegal immigrants don't give up after a failed border-crossing
attempt. Seven in 10 deportees intend to "try a new crossing in the next seven
days ... a proportion significantly higher than observed in 1993-1994, when the
figure was 59 percent."
According to the
report, most illegal immigrants "return to their effort within days or hours,"
and most consider "forced returns just part of the difficulty of the
crossing."
Mexicans' migration is not new.
Mexicans roamed freely into and out of what is now U.S. territory before the
United States was organized, and Mexicans have crossed the U.S. border legally
and illegally for 100 years. In the first part of the 20th century, the border
was almost entirely open. The migration caused little concern then, mostly
because most immigrants did not stay in the United
States.
Even earlier — in the 19th century —
U.S. employers were happy to have Mexicans trek north for low-wage jobs.
Employers still want cheap Mexican labor, and that further encourages would-be
Mexican migrants.
For decades the Mexican
government has valued the money immigrants send home. In the last decade,
Mexican immigrants dispatched more than $45 billion to relatives south of the
border. In 2000, they sent $6 billion, about $17 million a
day.
"On average, receiving households obtained
about $3,000 a year — $2,000 in rural households and a little less than $4,000
in urban homes. That equaled a little less than 40 percent of total income" for
those families, the national council reported. Mexico is not eager to have that
income source diminish.
University of
California economist Gordon H. Hanson and Antonio Spilimbergo of the
International Monetary Fund point out in a study that repressing immigration
works effectively only when the "sending" country clamps down, as the Soviet
Union did and North Korea does. The economists say, "International experience
has shown that it is very difficult to patrol a border effectively, especially a
long border without topographical barriers between two democratic countries."
• Tom Ramsack contributed to this
report