Re: Roughly 10% of Mexico's population is now living in the U.S
- From: "Frank Arthur" <Art@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 22 May 2006 11:58:28 -0400
What percentage of Italy's population compared to the number of Italian
Americans?
What percentage of Irelands population compared to Irish Americans?
Scandanavians likewise.
So what?
" George" <george@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:65-dnXuqOvOb1OzZRVn-sQ@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/05/21/MNGFQIVNAF1.DTL&type=politicsWashington -
- The current migration of Mexicans and Central Americans tothe United
States is one of the largest diasporas in modern history,experts
say.Roughly 10 percent of Mexico's population of about 107 million is
nowliving in the United States, estimates show. About 15 percent of
Mexico'slabor force is working in the United States. One in every 7
Mexican workersmigrates to the United States.Mass migration from Mexico
began more than a century ago. It is deeplyembedded in the history,
culture and economies of both nations. The currentwave began with Mexico's
economic crisis in 1982, accelerated sharply inthe 1990s with the U.S.
economic boom, and today has reached recorddimensions.It is unlikely to
ebb anytime soon."There is no scenario outside of catastrophic attack on
the United Statesthat would make immigration stop," said Demetrios
Papademetriou, presidentof the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan
think tank.The fierce immigration debate now under way in Congress focuses
almostexclusively on the U.S. side of the equation. Senate legislation
attemptsto reduce the flow by hardening the border, sanctioning employers
who hireillegal migrants, and expanding avenues for legal immigration. The
Housepassed a bill focused solely on U.S. enforcement.Yet whatever the
United States decides about immigration will have a hugeimpacton its
closest neighbors, especially Mexico.What happens in Mexico, by turn, has
a big effect on immigration flows tothe United States. Those events
include a hotly contested election sixweeks away that pits a leftist
populist against a market-oriented heir toPresident Vicente Fox."We want
Mexico to look like Canada," said Stephen Haber, director ofStanford
University's Social Science History Institute and a Latin
Americaspecialist at the Hoover Institution. "That's the optimal for the
UnitedStates. We never talk about instability in Canada. We're never
concernedabout a Canadian security problem. Because Canada is wealthy and
stable.It's so wealthy and stable we barely know it's there most of the
time.That's the optimal for Mexico: a wealthy and stable country."What
isn't wanted, Haber said, "is an unstable country on your
border,especially an unstable country that hates you."Three-quarters of
the estimated 12 million illegal migrants in the UnitedStates come from
Mexico and Central America. Mexicans make up 56 percent ofthe unauthorized
U.S. migrant population, according to the Pew HispanicCenter. Another 22
percent come from elsewhere in Latin America, mainlyCentral America and
the Andean countries. These same countries send many ofthe half-million
new illegal immigrants who arrive each year.Migration is profoundly
altering Mexico and Central America. Entire ruralcommunities are nearly
bereft of working-age men. The town of Tendeparacua,in the Mexican state
of Michoacan, had 6,000 residents in 1985, and now has600, according to
news reports. In five Mexican states, the money migrantssend home exceeds
locally generated income, one study found.Last year, Mexico received a
record $20 billion in remittances from migrantworkers. That is equal to
Mexico's 2004 income from oil exports anddwarfing tourism revenue.Arriving
in small monthly transfers of $100 and $200, remittances haveformed a vast
river of "migra-dollars" that now exceeds lending bymultilateral
development agencies and foreign direct investment combined,according to
the Inter-American Development Bank.The money Mexican migrants send home
almost equals the U.S. foreign aidbudget for the entire world, said Arturo
Valenzuela, director of the Centerfor Latin American Studies at Georgetown
University and former head ofInter-American Affairs at the National
Security Council during the Clintonadministration."Where are we going to
come up with $20 billion?" to ensure stability inMexico, Valenzuela asked
at a recent conference. "Has anybody in the ragingimmigration debate over
the last few weeks thought, could it be good forthe fundamental interests
of the United States ... to serve as something ofa safety valve for those
that can't be employed in Mexico?"Migration has caused significant social
disruption in Mexico, thoughresearch is scant, said B. Lindsay Lowell,
director of policy studies atthe Institute for the Study of International
Migration at GeorgetownUniversity."We do know that it can break up
families, and has done so in manytraditional sending areas," he said. "The
husband comes to the UnitedStates and stays for many years. His wife is on
her own with the children.In some cases, the couple comes to the United
States and leaves theirchildren behind with relatives."The migration is
driven in part, experts say, by the large incomedifferentials between the
two nations. A rural Latin American migrant mayearn 10 times in the United
States what he or she can earn at home.But an equally intense pull comes
from U.S. employers, including privatehouseholds, who employ large numbers
of illegal immigrants as nannies,housekeepers and caregivers, said Jeffery
Passel, a senior demographer atthe Pew Hispanic Center.The U.S.
information economy has created a split labor market, one with apowerful
demand for high- and low-skilled workers, economists say.While U.S.
professionals toil in office buildings, others come to cleantheir offices,
prepare their food and provide the host of services thatsupport modern
life. In a bygone era, teenagers, women and rural U.S.migrants filled
these jobs. The U.S. labor market offers opportunities to"a younger,
vibrant labor force and Mexican immigration has been fillingthat void,"
said Armand Peschard-Sverdrup, director of the Mexico Projectfor the
Center for Strategic and International Studies.U.S. demand has driven a
record increase in wages for newly arrivedimmigrants, about 30 percent
between 1994 and 2000, according to Lowell.The migration has also raised
average wages in Mexico by 8 to 9 percent,economists estimate. As the
first U.S. Baby Boomers turn 60 this year, thisdemand is only expected to
intensify.Once migration starts, social and economic networks sustain and
fuel it,which explains in part why flows have not fallen despite solid
economicgrowth in Mexico.Most illegal immigrants from Mexico and Central
America have not completedhigh school, although education levels are
rising. Harvard economist GeorgeBorjas found that in 2000, 63 percent of
Mexican immigrants had notfinished high school.New immigrants are much
more broadly dispersed than previous waves. A lowerpercentage are going to
the traditional magnet states such as Californiaand New York. The
fastest-growing destinations for new arrivals, accordingto demographer
William Frey of the Brookings Institution, are NorthCarolina, Tennessee,
Georgia, Nevada, Arizona, Iowa and Nebraska.This geographic dispersal may
account in part for rising public discontentover immigration, many
believe. Migrant workers have also shifted from thefields to the cities,
working in hotels, restaurants and construction,where they are more
visible to the public.Mexico is aging too, which will eventually cause
migration to ebb. Itspopulation trails the U.S. age profile by 30 years.
By then, demographersexpect Mexico may be importing labor.While migration
has long served as a safety valve for Mexico, the currentwave may also be
hindering the political and economic reforms that mostagree are needed --
in education, taxes, energy, agriculture and law, wheresystemic corruption
is a serious barrier to growth."The good news is that a million Mexicans
were on the street recentlydemanding good jobs and good government and
justice," Roger Noriega, formerassistant secretary of state for Western
Hemisphere affairs, told a recentpanel at the American Enterprise
Institute. "The bad news is they weremarching in someone else's country.
Every day, thousands of Mexico's mostindustrious people leave their
families behind ... leading many to wonderwhy Mexico's political class is
not capable of creating economicopportunity for its citizens in a land
rich in mineral wealth,hydrocarbons, agricultural potential and human
capital."The United States is not the only country that shares a long land
borderwith a poorer nation. So does Germany, with Poland. France once did
withSpain. Many point to Europe's unification as a better way to integrate
theNorth American economies without disruptive migration flows.Before the
European Union opened its labor markets, its wealthier countriesinvested
billions of dollars to develop the economies of its poorermembers -- at
the time, Spain, Portugal and Greece -- that had been sendingmigrants
abroad. Since then, Spain has become the economic engine ofEurope, and
this month opened its labor market to Poland. The Irish, whoonce fled
economic calamity by the millions to the United States, are todayhaving
their gas pumped by Eastern Europeans.Many contend that U.S. investment in
Mexico would be less expensive andmore effective than a wall. Poorly
developed Mexican credit markets make itall but impossible for a
low-income family to get a mortgage.If, when the North American Free Trade
Agreement was signed in 1994, "theUnited States had approached Mexico and
its integration into the NorthAmerican economy in the same way that the
European Union approached Spainand Portugal in 1986, we wouldn't have an
immigration problem now," saidPrinceton University sociologist Douglas
Massey, co-director of the MexicanMigration Project, a survey of Mexican
migrants.Given the predominance of Mexicans and Central Americans in
illegalimmigration to the United States, Papademetriou wonders why the
Senate'sguest worker program would be open to all comers, if it is
intended toprovide temporary workers for the U.S. market."If 60 percent of
our illegal immigration comes from a single country, andanother 20 percent
comes through that country, logic would say the vastmajority of visas
should go to the country of origin," he said. "The lastthing you would do
is create a global temporary worker program, as ifsomehow we should need
Bangladeshis or Russians to pick our fruits andvegetables."Targeted visas
could also leverage Mexican cooperation in undertakingpolitically
difficult reforms, and would be more likely to keep guestworkers
temporary. "You keep it a neighborhood project," Papademetriousaid, "so
you have people going back and forth visiting their families, notspending
thousands of dollars to come from all over the Earth. People whoalready
have a network in place that will support them in the UnitedStates, that
will help them find jobs."Given that Mexico is the second-largest U.S.
trading partner, the twonations' economic integration is well under way,
and labor is part of that,experts say.Even a new wall -- already under
construction on the border with Mexicowith bits of triple fencing here and
pieces of National Guard unitsthere -- has not stopped migrants entering
yet and probably works more totrap them in the United States, many
believe."These are human beings," said Audrey Singer, an immigration
expert at theBrookings Institution. "It's not like a water faucet we can
turn on andoff. I think of managing them better -- because it's very hard
to stopthem."
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