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Mexico: A Crucial Crossroads
By Francisco Alba
El Colegio de México
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July 2002
Haga clic para leer el artículo en español.
Updated March 2004
Expectations were high during most of 2001 that a long-term mutually agreed approach could finally be found to manage the flows of Mexican migrants to the United States. This approach included recognizing the labor market forces and major economic interests in operation on both sides of the border, as well as a realistic appraisal of the strong migratory pressures that will prevail for some time to come. In such an environment, the United States was, to some extent, willing to accommodate Mexican flows. All this changed and collapsed with the attacks on September 11 on United States soil.
Afterwards, the bilateral attempts to tackle the migration issue vanished into oblivion, but the structural forces-economic, demographic, and social-at work remained fundamentally untouched, and the flows continued unabated. The United States economy could not afford to lose the services the migrants provide. Political and security concerns did not discourage poor, desperate, or ambitious Mexicans from crossing into the US, whether legally and openly, or surreptitiously and undocumented.
Besides several initiatives submitted to the US Congress in 2003 and pending congressional action, US President George W. Bush's proposal in January 2004 was a major breakthrough in what was becoming a scenario of tense immobility in the migration relationship. President Bush's proposal was candidly and pragmatically welcomed by the Mexican government. This move was interpreted as a continuation of the previous political moves that acknowledged the US economic demand for migrants and their contributions. The recognition that the US migration system had to be fixed was also favorably interpreted as opening room for more flexible positions.
However, the move was unilateral, and the opportunities offered by the proposed massive temporary worker program did not contemplate any major avenues for some sort of earned residence in the United States. Critics call the proposal a "dead-end" temporary worker program. Moreover, the frame of reference of the proposal evaded any link to a special relationship with Mexico, or to any wide-ranging project of North American and hemispheric integration. The apparent reason for the proposal was to help secure and control US borders while helping to track those faceless people, without documents, already within those borders.
Changes and Continuities
While discussions of Mexican migration frequently evoke images of heavily guarded US borders, migrant deaths, and unauthorized immigration, Mexico is a country that embodies several dimensions of the migration phenomenon: emigration primarily to the United States, transit mainly by Central Americans seeking to reach the US, and a not insignificant increase in immigration from these same and other countries. Yet, despite these other facets, Mexico is first and foremost a country of "indocumentados" -- Mexicans who, lacking authorization or documentation, risk their lives crossing the border into the United States, as well as of authorized emigrants.
A discussion of Mexican migration necessarily leads with the long-standing migration relationship between Mexico and the United States. Current Mexican migration to the US dates back to World War II (1942) when Mexico was asked and agreed to contribute to the US war effort by providing temporary agricultural labor. The "Bracero program," as it was called, which continued until 1964, provided the United States with short-term temporary migration to offset labor shortages faced during the war and its aftermath. Mexico supplied an estimated 4.5 million workers to the United States during this period, and at its height in the late 1950s, more than 500,000 workers migrated each year.
Like many temporary worker programs, the Bracero system left a permanent legacy in the form of continuing and intensifying emigration since the program's end. During the 1980s, the intentions of many migrants shifted from a sojourner mentality to that of settlers. Although the shift in behavior began to occur gradually, by the 1990s, the phenomenon became one of permanent moves rather than reiterative and temporary ones.
The end of the Bracero program had other consequences. After its termination in 1964, the number of apprehensions of Mexicans along the US-Mexico border began to increase, peaking at 1.7 million per year in the mid-1980s. After a relative lull, associated with the US legalization programs of the late 1980s, the apprehensions figure grew again and ranged between about 1 and 1.7 million through the year 2000. (Apprehension figures may count the same individual several times. It is nonetheless a widely used proxy for the volume of migration.) The number of Mexicans who moved their residence from Mexico to the United States -- with or without US authorization -- has also increased steadily since the 1960s, most dramatically during the last two decades when it grew from roughly 200,000 per year in the 1980s to 300,000 in the 1990s.
Drivers of the Mexico-US Migration System
Migration from Mexico to the United States is primarily economically motivated. Nominal wage differentials have been hovering for years at about a 10 to 1 ratio, in favor of the US, for manual and semi-skilled jobs. Moreover, the long and sustained US economic growth has led to a strong demand for Mexican workers, who are found primarily in the low ends of the labor market -- seasonal agriculture, high-turnover manufacturing, and service industries.
Traditionally, Mexican migrants originated from the rural areas of central Mexico and were mostly confined to the agricultural sector. Accordingly, most migrants went to the agricultural areas in the Southwest. Currently, however, US-bound migration originates in nearly every corner of the country and has spread throughout the United States. States from the south and other non-traditional emigrant regions of Mexico -- like Morelos, Hidalgo, Guerrero, and Oaxaca -- are rapidly becoming "high emigration states." Furthermore, migrants now originate from small, medium, and large cities, not only from rural areas, and are finding employment in the mid-western, the southeastern, and the eastern parts of the United States in construction, food processing, sundry services, and agriculture, which remains a mainstay employment niche. Supply-push factors in Mexico are thus matched by demand-pull factors on the US side.
In the last several decades, neither Mexican job creation nor labor demand in the United States have been able to absorb the large and growing cohorts of Mexican workers. The working age cohorts -- a product of demographic growth rates that stood above two percent well into the 1990s -- will continue to expand rapidly, although at diminishing rates, into the 2010s. Mexico's massive economic restructuring during the last two decades has cost many workers their jobs. Even the growth of the maquiladora (export-oriented factory) sector along the border, which accounted for a record 1.3 million jobs in 2001, has not been able to provide enough job opportunities to Mexico's growing labor force.
While estimates vary, employment in Mexico's informal sector almost doubled between 1980 and 2000, from 17 to 33 percent of the total urban employed population. Real average manufacturing wages in 2000 were roughly 20 percent below 1980 levels, and minimum wages experienced an even more severe decline. Poverty, an eloquent indicator of Mexico's economic distress, grew significantly over the period. Estimates of poverty levels through the 1990s range from a quarter to a third of the population and sometimes higher, i.e., from 25 to 40 million Mexicans.
Modes of the US-Mexico Migration System
The modes of migration from Mexico to the United States have been guided by strong
family, community, and socioeconomic networks that now span both sides of the border. As the
Binational Study on Migration Between Mexico and the United States (1997) puts it:
"...[f]riends and relatives established in the U.S. often provide financing, advice, shelter, and jobs to newly-arrived [authorized and] unauthorized migrants. Settled family members in the U.S. use family unification policies to have spouses and children join them and eventually to secure legal migrant status."
Based on migrants' histories collected by the Mexican Migration Project of the University of Pennsylvania, it is estimated that, by age 40, most men in some of the communities surveyed have made at least one trip to the United States. "Go north for opportunity" is thus an idea deeply embedded in the Mexican population. Furthermore, the ability to send remittances from the US to families and communities back home -- for family subsistence, home improvements, small-scale farming, or business investments -- is quite often the first step of a long journey that frequently ends with permanent settlement in the United States.
The recruitment of Mexican workers by US employers continues, if with new agents and intermediaries. What began in the 1940s as a formal, employer-sponsored system has now given way to more localized recruitment. Migration networks themselves now are the most effective means of recruitment for many US-based employers.
Types and Characteristics of Mexican Migrants to the United States
In addition to the growing regional diversity of Mexican migration, Mexican migration flows are changing in other ways. Some indicators suggest that the characteristics of migrants are becoming as diverse, in terms of migrants' origin, educational and occupational levels, as the characteristics of the Mexican population at large. This development is in line with the recent trend of migration becoming a nation-wide phenomenon. However, Mexican migrants still tend to be mainly selected from middle-to-lower segments of Mexico's socioeconomic structure. Most Mexican migration thus still fits into the "manual labor migration" type.
The Binational Study on Migration classified Mexican migrants into three types:
- Sojourner or circular migrants: authorized and unauthorized migrants whose residence is in Mexico;
- Settled or permanent migrants: authorized and unauthorized migrants whose residence is in the US; and
- Naturalized US citizens born in Mexico: a subgroup of settled or permanent migrants.
In the middle of the 1990s, circular migrants were rather young, roughly 30 years old, with males accounting for 73 to 94 percent of the total. Their average schooling was six years, and more than one-half found employment in agriculture. Their primarily short-term employment was associated with very low earnings. Specifically, in the early 1990s, circular migrants earned between US$185 and US$240 per week.
By contrast, permanent migrants were more equally gender balanced (only 55 percent male), and had a higher schooling level (eight years) than circular migrants. They had also moved from agricultural jobs (only 13 percent worked in this sector) to the service industry (51 percent) and construction and manufacturing (37 percent). Their income levels were accordingly much higher than those living in Mexico.
Many permanent migrants began their journey to the US as circular migrants, often in unauthorized circumstances. Others entered legally. Those Mexican-born migrants who became naturalized US citizens were better schooled and had slightly smaller proportions employed in agriculture (10 percent) than non-naturalized Mexican lawful permanent US residents, and slightly greater proportions employed in services (54 percent). Of those Mexican-born migrants 25 years and older who became naturalized US citizens, 33 percent were high school graduates.
Finally, although it has received little attention, greater numbers of professionals and skilled experts are also beginning to be found among the migrants. It is estimated that a quarter of a million Mexicans with US residence permits possess the equivalent of a BA or higher degree.
Most Numbers Rise, Others Drop
Given the sizable number of undocumented immigrants to the United States, estimates of migration flows and stocks vary, at times significantly. The net loss of Mexican population during the 1990s is estimated at an annual average of a little above 300,000. Mexican border surveys reveal that about 500,000 workers with residence in Mexico were leaving each year for much of the 1990s, but the numbers seem to be decreasing. Estimates of both flows include authorized and unauthorized migrants.
More than 1.6 million people were apprehended on the US-Mexico border in 2000. The number dropped to 1.2 million in 2001, and according to the Immigration and Naturalization Service, looks set to fall below one million in fiscal year 2002. About 526,000 people were picked up between Oct. 1, 2001, and April 30, 2002 -- about half of the number of those apprehended during that period two years previously.
Migration from Mexico has generated a sizeable Mexican-born population in the United States. Mexican estimates compute this population in the range of 8 to 8.5 million, of which the non-authorized component is estimated between 3 and 3.5 million. The US Census Bureau estimates that there are more than nine million Mexican immigrants living in the United States. Of these, approximately 4.7 million, or over half, are undocumented. However, about 1.6 million, or one in five Mexicans, are naturalized US citizens.
Immigration, Transit, and Asylum
Immigration into Mexico is comparatively meager. The foreign-born population increased between 1990 and 2000 by slightly more than 150,000, amounting in the year 2000 to around half a million persons. This represents half a percentage point of Mexico's total population. Among those aged five and older, the US born were the dominant group with 63 percent of the total ? up from 57 percent in 1990. Those from Central America accounted for 11.2 percent; from South America 7.3 percent; from the Caribbean 2.4 percent; and from Europe 11.9 percent. The remaining four percent came from the rest of the world.
In contrast, the number of "aseguramientos" (potentially deportable foreigners) increased significantly from 1999, when it amounted to 131,500 "events" -- not necessarily different persons -- to 2000, when it reached 168,800; but in 2001, it declined to 151,400. On average, around 90 percent of these events ended up in actual deportations.
These apprehensions provide an indirect indication of the nationalities that use Mexico as a land of transit. In 2001, of a total of 151,400 apprehensions, 44.9 percent were from Guatemala, 26.6 per cent from Honduras, and 23.2 per cent from El Salvador. The tiny remainder was divided among countries like the US, Ecuador, and Nicaragua.
At very specific historical junctures, Mexico had very generous responses to refugees and asylum seekers, most notably in the 1930s for exiles during the Spain Civil War, and in the 1980s and 1990s for people fleeing oppressive political systems in several South and Central American countries. In 2000, Mexico ratified the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol. Two years later, in March 2002, the Mexican government began adjudicating asylum claims on its own, thus replacing the eligibility determinations of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in place since 1982. The majority of refugees use Mexico as a route to reach other countries, especially the US and Canada.
In 2001, Mexico received about 500 asylum applications and granted refugee status to roughly a third of the applicants. Approximately half of these refugees came from Latin American countries (Colombia, Guatemala, El Salvador, Cuba, Honduras); the other half came from all over the world. Around two-thirds of all applications are filed from detention centers within Mexico.
From the "Policy of No Policy" to the End of It
In February 2001, presidents Fox of Mexico and Bush of the US formally engaged in serious negotiations to find a mutually acceptable response to a lingering migration issue that often placed the two countries at odds. Negotiations centered on regularizing Mexicans already residing in the United States, a guest worker program, border enforcement conditions, and an increase in the number of US visas available for Mexicans. Expectations of arriving at a far-reaching agreement were high until the September 11, 2001 attacks struck the United States. Since then, negotiations have stalled, risking a return to the largely ineffectual Mexican and US policies of the past.
After the termination of the Bracero program in 1964, Mexico tried, in the 1960s and early 1970s, to negotiate a new temporary worker program with the United States. In view of the US unwillingness to engage the issue and of the realization that Mexican migrants continued to cross the border and to find work in the United States, the Mexican government retrenched into "a policy of no policy;" i.e., it let migration flows run loose and unmanaged.
At the same time, Washington also recognized that the termination of the Bracero program did not end Mexican migration to the US; instead, it simply continued in unauthorized forms. The US Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of 1986 was the first serious attempt to curtail the migration of "indocumentados." One of the most important long-term unintended consequences of IRCA's generous regularization component was its contribution to the transformation of Mexican migration from a predominantly circular flow into a more permanent move.
The US enactment and pursuit of increasingly robust immigration control policies since 1993-1994 has prompted the Mexican government to shift its position from one of deliberate non-engagement to a stance of increasing dialogue with Washington. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) provided a more mature framework for the bilateral immigration dialogue and understandings. Although the dialogue did much to enhance exchanges of information, institutionalize and increase the effectiveness of consular protection, and expand certain forms of cooperation at the border, it did not prevent the aggressive deployment of Border Patrol operations or the enactment of the restrictive Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) in 1996. This legislation, together with the strong message sent in 1994 by Proposition 187 in California, convinced many Mexican US residents to seek US naturalization as a way to protect themselves from curtailments of many of their social rights. Also as a reaction to that restrictive climate, IIRIRA had one other important effect. It motivated Mexico to allow its nationals to retain double, or multiple, nationalities, and probably strengthened its determination to protect its nationals abroad in a more systematic way.
These measures, like other US policy changes since 1964, however, had important unintended consequences. One of the most significant such consequences has been a higher tendency for permanent settlement among migrants. Another one has been the escalating numbers of deaths along the border as migrants take ever-greater risks in crossing into the United States. This has become an important stress point in an otherwise special US-Mexico relationship.
Thus, the incentives existed on both sides of the border to engage in serious migration negotiations. As the US-Mexico Migration Panel asserted, through serious negotiations "both governments would be able to shift from enforcing contestable unilateral priorities -- with very mixed results -- to carrying out the terms of an agreement...."
Mexico Policy Debate: From Tacit Consensus to Recriminations
The dominant domestic discussion in Mexico continues to revolve around appropriate government responses to US policies and actions relating to Mexican migration. Prior to September 11, 2001, even the opposition to the Fox administration tacitly acquiesced to negotiations with the United States. Nonetheless, certain political circles still doubt the wisdom of the latent trade-offs involved, such as tighter control of Mexico's southern border. Still, as a matter of principle, most if not all public officials, congressional representatives of the ruling government and of the opposition, scholars and nongovernmental organization leaders concerned with migration stand for liberalizing the movement of workers.
In the wake of the September 11 attacks, the attitude toward the United States has shifted
toward a broad new consensus across the political spectrum. The consensus favors normalizing and
regulating migration into the US in exchange for a wide-ranging legalization of Mexicans working
there. In this atmosphere, the Fox administration has come under attack for what is widely
perceived as its failure to obtain any benefits from its close relationship with the United States.
The administration is blamed for giving in to US pressures by openly cooperating with the US
anti-terrorist campaign through strengthened border control, greater US intelligence presence,
and increased information-sharing on visa applications. For its part, the media interpreted the
"Smart Border" Agreements signed by the Fox administration in
March 2002 as gratuitous concessions to the United States. In spite of these costs, the Fox
administration and most of Mexico's lawmakers remain committed to negotiating with the United
States. At the same time, certain representatives, most hailing from opposition parties, have put
forward demands (some highly unrealistic) for the US to accommodate sizable Mexican migration.
Ongoing Concerns
The most pressing task facing the Mexican government continues to be seriously re-engaging the US in negotiations on the migration issue. For the Fox administration, these negotiations have become not only a critical foreign policy issue, but also a domestic one. To succeed, his administration needs to deliver on this front in order to secure broad political support for the bilateral (or trilateral) cooperative arrangements and accords in the law enforcement arena so dearly sought after by the Bush administration.
Arguing in favor of a thoughtful resolution of these issues is the realization that tightened immigration enforcement is unlikely to change the economic and social realities that build migration pressures. Nor can such enforcement withstand the migration momentum that is relentlessly fueled by the social networks that dominate the Mexico-to-US migration system. Continued attempts to cross the border at any cost and increased patrolling and fortifying may upset the delicate balance between the two countries, causing the migration issue to once again become an obstacle to improving and deepening the bilateral relationship. Such an about-face would herald a return to past relations, which were characterized essentially by mutual recriminations. This type of regression was apparent in the declarations during the recent Mexico-US inter-parliamentary meeting in May 2002.
This may not be a propitious moment for a freer flow of labor into the United States via a guest worker program, or for the regularization of the sizable unauthorized Mexican population living and working in the United States. Meanwhile, the two governments may try to seriously implement the "Partnership for Prosperity" initiative launched in Guanajuato in 2001, and signed in Monterrey in March 2002. However, that initiative's main thrust -- promoting cross-border economic ties by adding incentives for foreign and domestic investment in Mexico's marginal areas -- appears to stand little chance of raising Mexican living standards significantly, and thereby reducing pressures to migrate.
A fair amount of rethinking will be needed to honestly address the contradictions of migration policies heavily driven by protectionist considerations in an increasingly globalized world. The challenge will be to understand clearly the enduring nature of the economic, social, and communications forces at work even while looking at the entire process through the security lens. These forces will continue to generate strong migratory pressures between interdependent economies. Further, the deepening of regional integration will continue to raise concerns about national sovereignty. These concerns will also need to be addressed constructively.
It is difficult to predict whether or not Mexican immigration to the US will increase significantly, with serious consequences, until it is clear when or if the Mexican economy will mount a strong, sustained recovery. Unfortunately, such a recovery does not seem to be on the horizon. Inevitably, one of the most pressing issues looming ahead is the management of migrants who use Mexico as a land of transit. The rising number of apprehensions of foreign nationals seems to indicate that efforts to professionalize the government's immigration apparatus may be having some positive results. However, the southern border continues to be rather porous. Any radical action to change that situation does not look feasible in the near future due to the very high political costs involved. This is particularly true in the absence of a regional agreement on transit and movements to prevent undue disruptions, abuses, and the buildup of unmanageable tensions.
Conclusions
Looking forward, from a medium to long-term perspective, the fact that President Bush's proposal comes out almost exactly 10 years after the enactment of NAFTA, without making any reference to it, does not augur well for far-reaching attempts to come to terms with the migration issue. NAFTA was not mentioned January 7, in Washington, DC; but neither was it mentioned January 12, in Monterrey, Mexico at the Summit of the Americas. A decade of experience since NAFTA demonstrates that trade liberalization and freer capital movements alone will not by themselves necessarily put the two nations on the road to economic convergence, the so-called "partnership for prosperity" path showcased in the current political jargon. But such a path is needed if the ultimate objective is to weaken migration pressures within North America.
Today, there are no relevant proposals on the table to renew, reform, or "deepen" the NAFTA framework into active labor market policies, human-capital enhancement, infrastructure building, reduction of regional asymmetries, and social cohesion goals, among other spheres of political action. President Bush's proposal is mute on all these matters. The proposal reiterates modish, uncertain, and vague recipes to advance free trade, fight corruption, and embrace the reforms that lead to prosperity.
The current dilemmas facing Mexico and the US with regard to migration are the same old ones. Either the two countries accept the reality of Mexicans entering the United States—whether temporarily or permanently—and open avenues for orderly movement, or both countries engage forcefully and cooperatively to achieve a real "partnership for prosperity" within a framework of multifaceted integration.
Sources
Commission on Immigration Reform and Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores. 1997.
Binational Study on Migration Between Mexico and the United States. Mexico.
Consejo Nacional de Población. 2001. La población de México en el nuevo siglo. México: Consejo Nacional de Población.
Consejo Nacional de Población. Various years. La situación demográfica de México. Mexico: Consejo Nacional de Población.
Cornelius, Wayne A. 2001. "Death at the border: Unintended consequences of US immigration control policy," Population and Development Review, Vol. 27, No. 4, December, pp. 661-685.
Instituto Nacional de Migración (National Migration Institute). Various issues. Estadísticas Migratorias, Mexico: Secretaría de Gobernación.
Jordan, Mary. 2002. "Mexicans Caught at Border in Falling Numbers." Washington Post, May 24, p. A27.
Tuirán, Rodolfo (coord.). 2000. Migración México-Estados Unidos. Presente y futuro. Mexico: Consejo Nacional de Población.
Tuirán, Rodolfo (coord.). 2000. Migración México-Estados Unidos. Opciones de política. Mexico: Consejo Nacional de Población.
US-Mexico Migration Panel (The). 2001. Mexico-U.S. Migration: A Shared Responsibility. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace/Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México.
Alba, Francisco. 2003. "Del diálogo de Zedillo y Clinton al entendimiento de Fox y Bush sobre migración", in Bernardo Mabire (ed.) México-Estados Unidos-Canadá, 1999-2000, México, El Colegio de México, pp. 109-164.
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