Re: Roughly 10% of Mexico's population is now living in the U.S


"Frank Arthur" <Art@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:kclcg.51368$Kn4.30004@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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?

Red Herring. Instead of asking 'so what', you could ask why Mexico has no
social safety net, nothing equivalent to Social Security or Medicare,
almost no education system, and essentially is exporting their social
problems to the United States, taking into consideration that they could
easily provide the services needed with the abundant natural resources at
their disposal. Some have remarked that if Taiwan was located in Mexico,
we'd be concerned about economic competition there. There is no excuse for
Mexico to be such a basket case other than criminal ineptitude on the part
of their leaders.

" 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."





.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Roughly 10% of Mexicos population is now living in the U.S
    ... Mexico'slabor force is working in the United States. ... Mexican workersmigrates to the United States.Mass migration from Mexico ... the United Statesthat would make immigration stop," said Demetrios ... Mexico and Central America. ...
    (soc.culture.usa)
  • Re: OT: Bush wants North American Union
    ... Merging the United States of America with a thoroughly corrupt ... system like Mexico, which enjoys none of the rights that our Constitution ... written about by right-wing fringe kooks," said Tancredo, who is ... Tancredo demanded the United States suspend work on ...
    (rec.gambling.poker)
  • Re: OT: Bush wants North American Union
    ... Merging the United States of America with a thoroughly corrupt ... system like Mexico, which enjoys none of the rights that our Constitution ... written about by right-wing fringe kooks," said Tancredo, who is ... Tancredo demanded the United States suspend work on ...
    (rec.gambling.poker)
  • Re: OT illegal aliens
    ... it is going to take some real work and give and take on our parts and ... Why not change our country's name from the United States of America to ... Then we will ask Mexico and Canada ...
    (alt.support.diabetes)
  • OT: 1 in 7 Mexican workers migrates -- most send money home
    ... United States is one of the largest diasporas in modern history, ... One in every 7 Mexican workers ... Mass migration from Mexico began more than a century ago. ... The fierce immigration debate now under way in Congress focuses almost ...
    (alt.sports.football.pro.ne-patriots)