migration from mexico to usa case study

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Before covid-19, more mexicans came to the u.s. than left for mexico for the first time in years.

More Mexican migrants came to the United States than left the U.S. for Mexico between 2013 and 2018 – a reversal of the trend in much of the prior decade, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of the most recently available data capturing migration flows from both countries.

An estimated 870,000 Mexican migrants came to the U.S. between 2013 and 2018, while an estimated 710,000 left the U.S. for Mexico during that period. That translates to net migration of about 160,000 people from Mexico to the U.S., according to government data from both countries.

In the period from 2009 to 2014, by contrast, about a million people left the U.S. for Mexico while 870,000 Mexicans made the reverse trip, for net migration of about 130,000 people from the U.S. to Mexico. A similar trend from 2005 to 2010 resulted in effectively zero net migration between the two countries. (Due to the way the Mexican government sources report data, this analysis uses several overlapping time periods: 2005-2010, for example, and 2009-2014. In addition, migration from Mexico in this analysis includes only those who were born there, while migration to Mexico includes those born in Mexico, the U.S., and elsewhere.)

Measuring migration flows between Mexico and the U.S. is challenging because there are no official counts of how many Mexican immigrants enter and leave the U.S. each year. This analysis uses the best available government data from both countries to estimate the size of these flows. For this analysis, migration from the U.S. to Mexico includes persons born in Mexico, the U.S., and elsewhere, while migration from Mexico to the U.S. includes Mexican-born persons only.

To estimate how many people have left the U.S. for Mexico, this analysis uses data from the 2018 and 2014 Mexican National Survey of Demographic Dynamics (or ENADID) and the 2020, 2010 and 2000 Mexican decennial censuses. Respondents are asked where they had been living five years prior to the date when the survey or census was taken. The answers to this question provide an estimate of the number of people who moved from the U.S. to Mexico during the five years prior to the survey date. A separate question focuses on those who have recently left Mexico. It asks whether anyone from the household had left for another country during the previous five years; if so, additional questions are asked about whether and when that person or people came back and their reasons for returning to Mexico.

To estimate how many Mexicans left Mexico for the U.S., this analysis uses the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (2005-2019) and the Current Population Survey (1990-2019), which ask immigrants living in the U.S. about their country of birth and the year of their arrival in the U.S. Both sources are adjusted for undercount.

Other sources of information include detailed tables released by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Immigration Statistics, the U.S. Department of State, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

The main change in net flow between the two countries in the most recent period comes from the decreased return flow from the U.S. to Mexico – 1.0 million from 2009 to 2014 down to 710,000 from 2013 to 2018 – rather than an increase in the number of Mexican immigrants coming to the U.S. The number of Mexican immigrants going from Mexico to the U.S. stood unchanged at 870,000 for both 2009 to 2014 and 2013 to 2018.

There are several potential reasons for the changing patterns of migration flows between the two nations. In the U.S., job losses during the Great Recession of 2007-2009 in industries in which immigrants tend to be heavily represented may have pushed a large number of Mexicans to migrate back to Mexico, which in the aftermath of the recession also made the U.S. less attractive to potential Mexican migrants. In addition, stricter enforcement of U.S. immigration laws both at the southwest border and within the interior of the U.S. may have contributed to the reduction in Mexican immigrants coming to the U.S. in the years leading up to 2013.

Some changing patterns in Mexico could also be behind the reduction in the number of immigrants coming to the U.S. since the Great Recession. First, growth in the working-age population of Mexicans has slowed due to a decades-long decline in the average number of births among women in Mexico. Lower fertility rates also mean smaller family sizes, which reduces the need for migration as a means of family financial support. Coupled with this, the Mexican economy over the past two decades has been more stable than in the 1980s and 1990s, when the country was hit with a number of profound economic crises.

While net migration from Mexico to the U.S. turned positive from 2013 to 2018 for the first time in more than a decade, it remained far below the levels seen in earlier decades when migration from Mexico to the U.S. was at its peak. In the five-year period between 1995 and 2000, for example, nearly 3 million immigrants came to the U.S. from Mexico, while only around 670,000 made the reverse trip, for net migration of nearly 2.3 million people from Mexico to the U.S.

Mexico is the largest country of birth among the estimated 47 million immigrants living in the U.S., according to preliminary estimates based on the 2019 American Community Survey. About 24% of all U.S. immigrants were born in Mexico.

Total number of Mexican immigrants living in the U.S. declined between 2007 and 2019

After peaking at 12.8 million in 2007, the number of Mexican immigrants living in the U.S. has declined in recent years. Preliminary estimates show that in 2019, the overall population of Mexican immigrants in the U.S. was 11.4 million, or about 1.4 million below the number at the onset of the Great Recession.

The decline in Mexican immigrants in the U.S. has been due mostly to a decrease of about 2 million unauthorized Mexican immigrants, from a peak of 6.9 million in 2007 to an estimated 4.9 million in 2017 , according to Pew Research Center’s latest estimate of the unauthorized population in the U.S.

Mexican immigrants have been at the center of one of the largest mass migrations in modern history. Between 1965 and 2015, more than 16 million Mexican immigrants migrated to the U.S. – more than from any other country.

In 1970, fewer than 1 million Mexican immigrants lived in the U.S. By 2000, that number had grown to 9.4 million, and by 2007 it peaked at 12.8 million.

The amount of Mexican migration during coronavirus outbreak remains unclear

At the start of the coronavirus pandemic , the U.S. and Mexican governments shut down their land borders to all non-essential travel, and the U.S. has yet to reopen them after more than a year. Travel in most of the world was disrupted during the pandemic and migration flows seemed to dwindle. However, it is still unclear how the coronavirus pandemic has affected migration flows from Mexico to the U.S. and vice versa. The two main sources for this kind of information, the U.S. Census Bureau’s surveys and the Mexican government’s INEGI data, are not yet available for the period covering the pandemic, while other data sources only offer a partial view. These secondary sources, however, do hint at some of the changes that might be underway since the coronavirus outbreak started.

One of these data points is the number of immigrants who entered the U.S. in fiscal 2020 through permanent legal residency , also known as a “green card.” In fiscal 2020, about 30,500 Mexican immigrants entered the U.S. this way, down 45% from the prior year. The reduction during the fiscal year, which ran from Oct. 1, 2019, to Sept. 30, 2020, was particularly notable in the months after the coronavirus outbreak began: Between April and September 2020, the number of Mexican green card recipients dropped by 90% compared with the same period in the prior year.

Another available data point is the number of Mexican immigrants who entered the U.S. through a temporary work visa , such as the H-2A visa for farmworkers, or the TN or H-1B visas for high-skilled immigrants. In fiscal 2020, Mexican farmworkers obtained about 198,000 temporary permits to come work in the U.S., up 5% from the prior fiscal year – an annual increase far lower than those seen in most years leading up to the pandemic. Meanwhile, the number of high-skilled Mexican workers who obtained a TN or H-1B visa dropped 36% in the same period, from about 24,000 to 15,000.

Another snapshot of Mexican immigration flows relates to unauthorized immigrants, including those who come to the U.S. temporarily on a visa and overstay their permit and those who cross the border without inspection and reside in the U.S. as unauthorized immigrants.

While data on visa overstays during the pandemic is not available, the number of people traveling into the U.S. during the pandemic went down and the number of non-immigrant visas issued in Mexico also declined. In fiscal 2020, the total number of non-immigrant visas processed in Mexico by the U.S. Department of State dropped 35% compared with the prior year, from about 1.5 million in 2019 to about 960,000 in 2020. Most of these temporary visas were processed for tourism, business or for crossing the border and do not include a work authorization.

By contrast, apprehensions of unauthorized Mexican immigrants – a statistic that is often used as a proxy for measuring illegal immigration – increased considerably after the pandemic started in 2020, even as apprehensions of non-Mexicans dropped sharply . In fiscal 2020, the number of encounters or apprehensions of Mexican adults at the U.S.-Mexican border reached levels not seen since 2013 . There were 253,118 such encounters, up 52% from 166,458 the year before.

It is important to note that apprehensions at the border were handled differently in fiscal 2020 than in years immediately prior due to an executive order called Title 42 , authorized by former President Donald Trump. Under the order, Border Patrol agents did not always conduct a formal apprehension and removal, but instead sent immigrants directly back to Mexico without those steps.

Some analysts say that the new procedures have increased the number of immigrants from Mexico and elsewhere who try to enter the U.S. illegally multiple times. The number of immigrants with a prior encounter with a Border Patrol agent increased considerably in fiscal year 2020, according U.S. Customs and Enforcement data .

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About Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts .

Weekly U.S.-Mexico Border Update: Mexico crackdown, no spring migration increase, Texas, Guatemala

With this series of weekly updates, WOLA seeks to cover the most important developments at the U.S.-Mexico border. See past weekly updates here .

Support ad-free, paywall-free Weekly Border Updates. Your donation to WOLA is crucial to sustain this effort. Please contribute now and support our work.

THIS WEEK IN BRIEF:

Mexico’s intensified enforcement delays the united states’ expected spring migration increase.

Migration at the U.S.-Mexico border usually increases in springtime. That is not happening in 2024, although numbers are up in Mexico and further south. Increased Mexican government operations to block or hinder migrants are a central reason. Especially striking is migration from Venezuela, which has plummeted at the U.S. border and moved largely to ports of entry. It is unclear why Venezuelan migration has dropped more steeply than that from other nations.

Insights from CBP’s February reporting about the border

Migration at the U.S.-Mexico border increased by 8 percent from January to February; the portion that is Border Patrol apprehensions of migrants grew by 13 percent. February’s levels were still on the low end for the Biden administration. Preliminary March data indicate no further increases this month.

Is Texas’s crackdown pushing migrants to other states?

Texas’s governor, an immigration hardliner, is claiming credit for a westward shift of migration toward Arizona and California. Uncertainty over a harsh new law—currently blocked in the courts—could be leading some migrants to avoid Texas, but the overall picture is more complex. Migration declined slightly in Arizona in February and is still dropping there in March, while four out of five Texas border sectors saw some growth in February.

Migration on the agenda of Guatemalan President’s visit to Washington

President Bernardo Arévalo of Guatemala, in his third month in office, paid his first official visit to Washington, meeting separately with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. The White House touted $170 million in new assistance to Guatemala and the operations of a U.S.-backed “Safe Mobility Office” that seeks to steer would-be migrants toward legal pathways. In 2023, Guatemala’s previous government expelled more than 23,000 U.S.-bound migrants, most of them from Venezuela, back across its border into Honduras.

THE FULL UPDATE:

“ The spring migration increase is underway ,” read WOLA’s March 8 Border Update. This statement reflected early reports of a 13 percent increase in Border Patrol apprehensions of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border from January to February. (Those early reports were correct, as discussed below .)

However, this increase has leveled off or may even be reversing in March . That rarely happens in spring, a season when the border usually sees a jump in migration as temperatures warm, but not to extremes.

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) encountered 6,307 migrants per day at the U.S.-Mexico border during the first 21 days of March, including the approximately 1,450 per day who made CBP One appointments at border ports of entry, according to slides posted by Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, at his March 26 morning press conference .

That preliminary March average is smaller than CBP’s daily average in February (6,549, more statistics below ). If this holds—we’ll find out in the second half of April, when CBP releases final March numbers—then 2024 could be only the second year this century in which migration declined from February to March . (The other year was 2017, when migration dropped sharply in the three months after Donald Trump’s January inauguration.)

Meanwhile, on March 25 Mexico’s government published data through February showing that its migration authorities encountered almost exactly 120,000 migrants in both January and February. Before January, Mexico’s monthly record for migrant encounters was about 98,000. This is evidence that Mexico’s government has stepped up interdiction of migrants in its territory so far in 2024.

A New York Times analysis found that Mexico’s government’s ability and willingness to help control migration flows make it “a key player on an issue with the potential to sway the election” in the United States. However, “behind closed doors, some senior Biden officials have come to see López Obrador as an unpredictable partner, who they say isn’t doing enough to consistently control his own southern border or police routes being used by smugglers.”

Meanwhile, migration continues at high levels further south. Officials in Panama reported that the number of migrants crossing the Darién Gap so far in 2024 has now exceeded 101,000. At the end of February, the number stood at 73,167; this means that the March pace in the Darién Gap remains, as in January and February, at a bit over 1,200 people per day . Of this year’s migrants, nearly two thirds (64,307) are citizens of Venezuela.

The March data show that U.S. encounters with migrants from Venezuela continue to be far fewer than the past two years’ monthly averages. Venezuelan migrants’ numbers dropped sharply in January and have not recovered: they totaled 20,364 in January and February combined, just over one-third of what they were in December alone (57,850). Meanwhile, Mexico reported 56,312 encounters with Venezuelan citizens in January and February—almost 3 times the U.S. figure .

That points to a strong likelihood that the Venezuelan population is increasing sharply within Mexico right now . The Associated Press confirmed that Mexico’s increased operations to block migrants have many Venezuelan citizens stranded in the country’s south, including in Mexico City, which is within the geographic range of the CBP One app and its limited number of available appointments.

U.S. authorities’ encounters with Venezuelan migrants haven’t just dropped in aggregate terms. The percentage of Venezuelans crossing between ports of entry has also fallen, from a strong majority to just 37 percent since January. This means that a majority of Venezuelan migrants are now making CBP One appointments .

Meanwhile, this week Mexico’s government reached an agreement with Venezuela’s government to facilitate aerial deportations to Caracas. As part of the deal, some of Mexico’s largest corporations with presences in South America would employ Venezuelan deportees, paying them a “stipend” of US$110 per month for a six-month period. “We’re sending Venezuelans back to their country because we really cannot handle these quantities,” said Foreign Minister Alicia Bárcena.

At his March 26 press conference , López Obrador added that he is seeking to expand this program to citizens of Colombia and Ecuador. Participants in a “Migrant Via Crucis” march through Mexico’s southernmost state, Chiapas, told EFE that they had no interest in this offer.

That annual Easter week march of migrants near Mexico’s southern border—not exactly a “caravan,” but an organized protest to urge the Mexican government to allow them to keep moving northward—has walked about 20 miles through Chiapas, the country’s southernmost state. By March 26, its numbers had reportedly dwindled to about half of the approximately 3,000 participants with which it began.

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) provided updated data late on March 22 about migration through February at the U.S.-Mexico border. (Search this data at cbpdata.adamisacson.com .)

It revealed that

• Border Patrol apprehended 140,644 migrants in February, up 13 percent from January but still the 7th-fewest apprehensions of the Biden administration’s 37 full months .
• 49,278 migrants came to ports of entry, 42,100 of them (1,452 per day) with CBP One appointments . This is similar to every month since July 2023, as CBP officers tightly control the flow at ports of entry.
• Combining Border Patrol and port-of-entry encounters, CBP encountered 189,922 migrants at the border in February, an 8 percent increase over January.

In late February, press reports indicated that the Biden administration was considering new executive actions at the border, like limits on access to asylum or a ban on crossings between ports of entry. (See WOLA’s February 23 Border Update .) But then nothing happened: Politico reported on March 25 that the White House has stood down “in part, [due] to the downtick in migration numbers” so far this year. (Executive actions are not off the table, however. Axios reported that “President Biden is still considering harsh executive actions at the border before November’s election.”)

The top nationalities of migrants arriving at the border in February were:

• Mexico (33 percent of the month’s total; 28 percent during the first 5 months of fiscal 2024)
• Guatemala (13 percent; 11 percent during 2024)
• Cuba (7 percent; 6 percent during 2024)
• Colombia (6 percent; 6 percent during 2024)
• Ecuador (6 percent; 5 percent during 2024)
• Haiti (6 percent; 4 percent during 2024)

The nationalities for which encounters increased the most were chiefly South American :

• Brazil (87 percent more than January)
• Peru (67 percent)
• Colombia (65 percent)
• Ecuador (50 percent)
• El Salvador (31 percent)

The nationalities for which encounters decreased the most were:

• Turkey (72 percent fewer than February)
• India (56 percent fewer)
• Venezuela (24 percent fewer—and 85 percent fewer than in December)
• Russia (15 percent fewer)
• Cuba (7 percent fewer)

The top nationalities crossing between ports of entry and ending up in Border Patrol custody were:

• Mexico (35 percent of the total; 28 percent during the first 5 months of fiscal 2024)
• Guatemala (17 percent; 14 percent during 2024)
• Ecuador (8 percent; 7 percent during 2024)
• Colombia (8 percent; 7 percent during 2024)
• Honduras (6 percent; 8 percent during 2024)

The top nationalities reporting to ports of entry were:

• Mexico (27 percent; 26 percent during the first 5 months of fiscal 2024)
• Cuba (26 percent; 24 percent during 2024)
• Haiti (23 percent; 16 percent during 2024)
• Venezuela (11 percent; 18 percent during 2024)
• Honduras (4 percent; 5 percent during 2024)

Of February’s encountered migrants, combining Border Patrol and ports of entry:

• 60 percent were single adults (55 percent during the first 5 months of fiscal 2024), principally from Mexico, Guatemala, Cuba, Haiti, Ecuador, and Colombia
• 34 percent were members of family units (40 percent), principally from Mexico, Guatemala, Colombia, Honduras, Ecuador, and Cuba
• 5 percent were unaccompanied children (5 percent), principally from Guatemala, Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador, and Haiti

Border-zone seizures of fentanyl totaled 1,186 pounds in February, the fewest fentanyl seizures at the border in any month since June 2022. After five months, fiscal year 2024 fentanyl seizures total 8,021 pounds, 27 percent fewer than the same point in fiscal year 2023. This is the first time that fentanyl seizures have declined since the drug began to appear in the mid-2010s. Ports of entry account for 85 percent of this year’s fentanyl seizures. (See WOLA’s March 8 Border Update for a more thorough exploration of drug seizure data through January.)

Border Patrol divides the U.S.-Mexico border into nine geographic sectors. Between March 2013 and June 2023, the sectors with the largest number of arriving migrants were consistently in Texas. That changed in July of last year, shortly after the end of the Title 42 policy.

Since then Tucson, Arizona, has been the Border Patrol’s busiest sector . The principal nationalities arriving there so far in fiscal 2024 have been Mexico, Guatemala, “Other Countries,” Ecuador, India, and Colombia.

As of January, San Diego, California has been the number-two sector. The principal nationalities arriving there in fiscal 2024 have been “Other Countries,” Colombia, China, Mexico, Brazil, and Ecuador. (The prominence of “Other Countries” points to a need for CBP to add more detail to its public dataset.)

Weekly data from the Twitter accounts of Border Patrol’s sector chiefs indicate that while Tucson is experiencing decreases in migration this year, San Diego has remained largely steady.

The New York Times reported on the movement of migration away from the Texas border. Though the picture is complex, it concluded, the Texas state government’s high-profile crackdown on migration is a factor. Gov. Greg Abbott (R), a pro-Trump critic of the Biden administration’s border and migration policies, has been claiming credit for the geographic shift.

In less than three years, under a framework called “Operation Lone Star,” Texas state law enforcement has carried out the following measures using state funds. Most of these face challenges in federal and state courts.

• arrested and jailed 13,000 migrants, mainly for misdemeanor trespassing
• placed 107,800 migrants released from CBP custody on buses bound for six Democratic Party-governed cities
• deployed thousands of police and national guardsmen to the border
• built dozens of miles of fencing, while placing sharp concertina wire along the Rio Grande to block asylum seekers from turning themselves in to Border Patrol
• placed a “wall of buoys” in the middle of the Rio Grande in Eagle Pass
• sought to forbid Border Patrol agents from cutting the concertina wire, and denied agents’ access to the riverfront park in Eagle Pass
• pursued legal actions against El Paso’s four-decade-old Annunciation House migrant shelter

In December, Abbott secured passage of S.B. 4, a law that would empower Texas police and guardsmen to arrest people anywhere in the state on suspicion of having crossed the border improperly. If found guilty, defendants would have the choice of prison or deportation into Mexico.

Early in the morning of March 27, a federal Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals panel decided , by a two-to-one margin, to maintain a stay on S.B. 4, preventing it from going into effect while the Court considers legal challenges from the Biden administration Justice Department and from the ACLU and partner organizations.

The court will hear arguments on S.B. 4’s constitutionality on April 3. At stake is whether states can devise and implement their own independent immigration policies, and whether there is any validity to the claims of politicians, like Abbott, that asylum seekers and other migrants meet the constitutional definition of an “invasion.”

Mexico’s government filed an amicus curiae brief in federal court in support of the ongoing challenge to S.B. 4. Mexican Foreign Minister Alicia Bárcena told the Washington Post that her government would place “increased vigilance and controls” along the Texas border to prevent Texas state authorities from carrying out their own deportations without Mexico’s permission.

Very high levels of migration into Texas through December appeared to indicate that Operation Lone Star was having no deterrent effect. It is possible, though, that the more recent shift to western states could reflect migrants and smugglers entering a “wait and see mode” amid uncertainty over S.B. 4., a law that has been “on again, off again” as courts have lifted and reimposed stays in recent weeks.

February data, and an El Paso municipal government “ dashboard ,” do show increases in migration in four out of five Texas sectors , so the lull may be fleeting.

Across from El Paso In Ciudad Juárez , the Casa del Migrante, one of the city’s principal migrant shelters, “has been filling up in recent days as families and single adults looking for an opportunity to seek asylum in the United States are again arriving in Juarez in large numbers,” according to Border Report . Rev. Francisco Bueno Guillen, the shelter’s director, said it “went from being 20 percent full a couple of weeks ago to 75 percent capacity as of Monday.” The city’s municipal shelter is also three-quarters full.

In El Paso on March 21, a group of migrants on the U.S. bank of the Rio Grande pushed their way past Texas state National Guard personnel blocking access to the border wall, where they hoped to turn themselves in to federal Border Patrol agents. Video showed a chaotic scene.

A Texas law enforcement spokesman told the New York Times that the increase in migration to Border Patrol’s El Paso sector reflects more migrants crossing into New Mexico, which is part of that sector—not Texas. There is no way to verify that with available data.

Guatemala’s reformist new president, Bernardo Arévalo, visited the White House on March 25, where he met separately with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris . Migration—of Guatemalans, and of other nations’ citizens transiting Guatemala—was a central topic in both of Arévalo’s conversations.

This is the first presidential visit for Arévalo, who took office on January 14. He and Vice President Harris reportedly discussed “providing lawful pathways to migrants, increasing cooperation on border enforcement, and…U.S. support for Guatemala’s migration management efforts.” A White House release stated that the Biden administration plans to provide Guatemala with an additional $170 million in security and development assistance , pending congressional notification.

Vice President Harris touted the administration’s “Root Causes Strategy,” which she claimed has created 70,000 new jobs, helped up to 63,000 farmers, supported 3 million students’ education, and trained more than 18,000 police officers and 27,000 judicial operators in all of Central America.

The leaders announced no changes to the U.S.-backed “Safe Mobility Office ” (SMO) in Guatemala that links some would-be migrants to legal pathways. The prior administration of President Alejandro Giammattei (whose U.S. visa has since been revoked amid corruption allegations) had reduced the SMO’s scope to serve only citizens of Guatemala. On a visit to Guatemala the week before, Mayorkas noted that the Guatemala SMO has “already helped more than 1,500 Guatemalans safely and lawfully enter the United States” via existing programs, principally refugee admissions.

The head of Guatemala’s migration agency, who worked in the government that left power in January, resigned on March 26. The reason for Stuard Rodríguez’s departure is not known. “Rodriguez made several reports during his administration of the increase of migrant expulsions, especially of Cubans and Venezuelans,” noted the Guatemalan daily Prensa Libre .

In 2023, under the Giammattei administration, Guatemalan authorities reported pushing back into Honduras more than 23,000 migrants , more than 70 percent of them Venezuelan. As of February 13, Guatemala’s 2024 expulsions count stood at 1,754.

So far in 2024, the U.S. and Mexican governments have deported 20,018 citizens of Guatemala back to their country by air, more than 5,000 above the total at the same time in 2023. The United States has returned 18,437 people on 154 flights, while Mexico has returned 1,632 on 15 flights.

Asked during his visit to Washington whether he believes that border walls work, Arévalo told CBS News , “I think that history shows they don’t. What we need to look for is integrated solutions to a problem that is far more complex than just putting a wall to try to contain.”

• The six construction workers presumed dead in the collapse of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge were people who had migrated from Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. CASA of Maryland is collecting donations to support their families .
• 481 organizations (including WOLA) sent a letter to President Joe Biden asking him to extend Temporary Protected Status for Haitian migrants in the United States, to halt deportation flights and maritime returns to Haiti, and to increase the monthly cap on access to humanitarian parole for people still in the country, where governance is near collapse.
• At the London Review of Books , Pooja Bhatia combined a narrative of Haiti’s deteriorating security situation with an account of the challenges that Haitian asylum seekers face at the U.S.-Mexico border. Bhatia reported from the dangerous border in Tamaulipas, Mexico, and highlighted the role of humanitarian workers and service providers, including staff of the Haitian Bridge Alliance, the principal author of the above-cited letter.
• NBC News highlighted the dilemma of migrant women who were raped by criminals in Mexico while en route to the United States, and now find themselves in states like Texas where, following the 2022 Supreme Court Dobbs decision, it is illegal to obtain an abortion. Often, the rapes occur while migrants are stranded—usually for months—in Mexican border cities as they await CBP One appointments.
• Despite a crushing backlog of cases, the number of U.S. immigration judges declined in the first quarter of fiscal 2024, from 734 to 725. That means “each judge has 3,836 cases on average,” pointed out Kathleen Bush-Joseph of the Migration Policy Institute. (That number is greater if one uses TRAC Immigration’s higher estimate of the immigration court backlog.)
• The International Organization for Migration’s (IOM) Missing Migrants Project now has 10 years of data about deaths of migrants: 63,285 known cases worldwide between 2014 and 2023, including a high of 8,542 in 2023. In its 10-year report , IOM counted more deaths in the Mediterranean (28,854 deaths), Africa (14,385), and Asia (9,956) than in the Americas (8,984).
• CBP released body-worn camera footage of the February 17 death, apparently by suicide, of a man in a holding cell at a Laredo, Texas checkpoint. The footage does not show the exact circumstances of how the man died because “the video recording system at the Border Patrol checkpoint was not fully functioning at the time of the incident.”
• In Tucson, Arizona, local authorities now believe that federal funds—made possible by Congress passing a budget over the weekend—will arrive in time to prevent the closure of shelters that receive migrants released from CBP custody. The prospect of “street releases” in Tucson and other Arizona border towns is now unlikely.
• Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh and Muzaffar Chishti of the Migration Policy Institute explained that many of today’s proposals to restrict asylum access and otherwise crack down on migration will not work because the U.S. government can no longer “go it alone.” Reasons include the diversity of countries migrants are coming from and the policies of other governments, such as varying visa requirements, refusals to accept repatriations, and the Mexican government’s unwillingness to receive expelled migrants from third countries.
• At Lawfare , Ilya Somin of the Cato Institute dismantled an argument that has become increasingly mainstream among Republican politicians: that asylum seekers and other migrants crossing the border constitute an “invasion” and that states have a constitutional right to confront them with their own security forces. Somin warns that the “invasion” idea, if upheld, could allow border states “to initiate war anytime they want,” and permit the federal government to suspend habeas corpus rights.
• Conservative politicians and media outlets are going after the non-profit shelters that receive migrants released from CBP custody in U.S. border cities, along with other humanitarian groups, noted Miriam Davidson at The Progressive . Tucson’s Casa Alitas and El Paso’s Annunciation House have been subject to aggressive misinformation and legal attacks so far this year.
• “I think the migrants that we encounter, that are turning themselves in, yes, I think they absolutely are, by and large, good people,” Border Patrol Chief Jason Owens told CBS News’s Face the Nation . But “what’s keeping me up at night is the 140,000 known ‘got-aways’” so far this fiscal year.
• At the New York Review of Books , Caroline Tracey documented an abandoned, unpopular plan to construct a massive Border Patrol checkpoint on I-19, the highway between Tucson and the border at Nogales, Arizona. The case highlighted the tension between security concerns and economic and human rights considerations.
• As Mexican farmworkers migrate to the United States, often on temporary work visas, Mexico is facing its own farm labor shortages and is considering setting up its own guest-worker program for citizens of countries to Mexico’s south, the Washington Post reported .

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Migrants and the Mexico-US Border

April 3, 2024

Between January 2021 and January 2024, CBP had more than six million encounters with unauthorized migrants on the Mexico-US border. Another two million migrants were detected entering the US but were not apprehended.

Many of the foreigners who entered the US illegally sought out Customs and Border Protection officers and applied for asylum. There is a backlog of three million immigration cases, including a million asylum cases, and space to detain fewer than 50,000 foreigners who are awaiting hearings before immigration judges. As a result, solo adult migrants who pass a credible fear test, meaning they have a 10 percent probability of being persecuted at home, are typically released into the US along with families with children and unaccompanied minors under 18. Immigration judges reject most asylum claims, but the backlog ensures that migrants can work in the US for several years while their children attend K-12 schools..

A record 250,000 foreigners were encountered by CBP officers just inside the Mexico-US border in December 2023. Most were not Mexicans.

Migrant encounters reached record levels in December 2023

Most migrants come to the US for more opportunities than they have in their home countries. Smugglers advertise and urge migrants to migrate to the US now in case Donald Trump is re-elected president and closes the border. A combination of US policies, immigration case backlogs, and the low US unemployment rate mean that most migrants who get into the US can find jobs.

Context. The US has four percent of the world’s 8.1 billion people but almost 20 percent of the world’s 280 million international migrants. A quarter of the almost 50 million foreign-born US residents are unauthorized.

The US welcomed Europeans to settle the country during its first century, and introduced qualitative restrictions in the 1880s, meaning there were no quotas on how many immigrants could come, but Chinese, communists and others were barred. The US added quantitative restrictions or numerical quotas in the 1920s and changed priorities in 1965 from national origins, favoring immigrants from Western Europe, to giving priority for immigrant visas to foreigners who have family members in the US. Further changes have made US immigration law second only to tax law in complexity.

The US is in the midst of the 4th wave of immigrants that began in 1965

Most of the 1.1 million legal immigrants admitted each year are from Latin America and Asia, and 70 percent are already in the US when they are “admitted,” meaning that receiving an immigration visa often means that a US resident changes from student, temporary worker, or another non-immigrant status to immigrant.

Immigrants differ from US-born residents in the best predictor of earnings, years of education. US-born adults, when ranked by their years of schooling, form a diamond shape, with a wide bulge in the middle for the 60 percent who are high-school graduates but lack college degrees. Immigrants have more of an hourglass shape: a higher share of Asian immigrants than US natives have advanced degrees, while a higher share of Latin American immigrants did not graduate from high school.

US immigration reforms often have unintended consequences. The 1965 reforms were not expected to change immigration patterns, but they did, as Latin American and Asian immigrants replaced Europeans. The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 legalized 2.7 million unauthorized foreigners, 85 percent Mexicans, and aimed to prevent more illegal immigration by imposing sanctions on employers who knowingly hired unauthorized workers. However, false documents proliferated and, because employers were not required to verify the documents presented by newly hired, sanctions were ineffective. One result: the number of unauthorized foreigners tripled from 3 million in 1990 to 9 million in 2000 rose further to 12 million in 2007.

Mexicans are almost half of the 12 million unauthorized foreigners in the US. As unauthorized Mexicans spread throughout the US in the 1990s and early 2000s, reactions varied. Alabama, Arizona, Georgia and other states enacted laws that required employers to use the internet-based E-Verify system to check new hires to discourage illegal migrants from coming to or staying in the state. California, New York and 17 other states issue driver’s licenses, allow unauthorized foreigners to pay in-state university fees, and provide health care to poor unauthorized foreigners.

Trump. President Donald Trump (2017-21) pledged to reduce illegal migration at the border, deport unauthorized foreigners from inside the US, and reduce refugee admissions, drawing protests and suits that blocked or slowed the implementation of some of Trump’s executive orders. Trump’s efforts to build a wall on the Mexico-US border, separate parents who entered illegally from their under-18 children (who can be detained only 20 days), and invoke a public health law (Title 42) to prevent migrant entries, sent a message that the US was not open to migrants and asylum seekers.

Trump promised to build a wall on the 2,000 mile Mexico-US border

Trump’s focus on illegal immigration made migration a more partisan issue. Instead of the bipartisan IRCA of 1986, Republicans under Trump argued that illegal immigration must be halted before dealing with unauthorized foreigners who had developed an equity stake in the US. Democrats became more admissionist, arguing for the legalization of unauthorized foreigners in the US and the abolition of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency that detects and removes unauthorized foreigners from the interior of the US (“abolish ICE”).

Under Trump, the US continued to admit over a million immigrants a year. However, Trump’s efforts to separate adults from their children in a bid to discourage asylum seeking and to speed up the processing of asylum applications were challenged in court and often not fully implemented.

Despite Trump’s promise to farmers that he would make it easier for them to employ guest workers, and the employment of H-2A and H-2B workers in Trump businesses, there were no significant changes to these seasonal guest worker programs during the Trump presidency. The H-2A program is not capped, and farm employers were certified to fill almost 400,000 seasonal jobs with guest workers in 2023. Nonfarm employers complained of too few H-2B visas to fill seasonal nonfarm jobs, prompting successful efforts to allow H-2B migrants who worked previously for an employer to not count against the 66,000 a year cap.

Biden. President Biden took office in 2021 and reversed many of Trump’s policies. Biden issued over 500 executive orders on migration that, inter alia, stopped construction of the border wall and ended workplace raids aimed at detecting unauthorized workers inside the US. Biden tackled the root causes of migration by promising aid to Central American countries and more opportunities to enter the US legally to work or apply for asylum.

Biden reversed many Trump migration policies in 2021

Biden Immigration Bill:

• Allow Central American children to apply for refugee/asylum status from
• Hiring more immigration judges to handle asylum cases
• Offering "humane alternatives" to immigrant detention
• Chaning the term "alien" to "noncitizen" in immigration laws
• An expedited path to citizenship for DACA< TPS recipients

After taking office, Biden halted deportations for 100 days and ordered DHS to prioritize the deportation of foreigners convicted of US crimes and those who arrived in the US recently.

Deportations of foreigners from inside the US have been falling

Biden’s reversal of Trump policies, the end of Title 42 in May 2023 (which allowed foreigners to be returned to Mexico without an opportunity to apply for asylum), and the booming US economy sent a signal that the US border was open, leading to the largest unauthorized migration flows in US history. Mexicans are the largest nationality apprehended between US ports of entry on the Mexican border, followed by Central and South Americans.

The share of Mexicans among the unauthorized has fallen

Most non-Mexicans apply for asylum, knowing that they will be able to remain legally in the US for several years until there is a final resolution of their cases.

There are 3 million cases in immigration courts, including a million asylum applicants

The share of applicants who were granted asylum rose toward 50% under Biden

The US has special rules for children under 18 who are encountered, usually releasing them to parents or relatives in the US.

There were 20,000 unaccompanied children a month in 2021.

Most unauthorized foreigners are detected by CBP officers just inside the Mexico-US border rather than by ICE officers who enforce immigration laws in the interior of the US. Texas is a border state that tried to prevent the entry of unauthorized migrants by placing shipping containers covered with barbed wire on the banks of the Rio Grande River to make it harder for migrants to enter the US. The Biden Administration sued to obtain a court order to force Texas to remove these barriers.

Texas tried to deter migrants with shipping containers topped by barbed wire

Perspective. The stock of unauthorized foreigners in the US peaked at 12 million in 2007 and is 11 to 12 million in 2024. Additional foreigners, including those with a Temporary Protected Status and asylum applicants, are living and working legally in the US and could become unauthorized if they are not granted asylum or TPS is ended and they do not depart. The rising number of legal and unauthorized foreigners pushed net immigration above a million in 2023.

The number of illegal immigrants peaked at 12 million in 2007

Net immigration to the US was over a million in 2023

House Republicans impeached DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in February 2024 on a 214-213 vote for “breach of trust” and “willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law” because DHS failed to prevent illegal entries. During Congressional hearings, Mayorkas was asked repeatedly if DHS had “operational control” of the border and, when he answered yes, was accused of lying to Congress.

The House impeached DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in February 2024

Immigration promises to be a major issue in the 2024 presidential election. Senators James Lankford (R-OK), Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ), and Chris Murphy (D-CT) negotiated a $118 billion, 370-page bill in February 2024 that included provisions to reduce illegal entries over the Mexico-US border by restricting the number of asylum applicants. The Senate bill, opposed by ex-President Trump and declared dead on arrival in the House, failed to advance in the Senate.

House Republicans approved the Secure the Border Act of 2023 (HR 2) in May 2023 on a 219-213 vote. HR 2 would build 200 miles of wall a year on the Mexico-US border, require CBP to prevent all unlawful entries into the US, and end the use of the CBP One app that allows foreigners to make appointments to apply for asylum at ports of entry.

Under HR 2, asylum applicants would have to apply in the first safe country they transit en route to the US. Once in the US, they would have to convince an asylum officer they are “more likely than not” to qualify for refugee status in the US in order to enter and wait for a hearing before an immigration judge. HR 2 would require asylum applicants to be detained or returned to Mexico until a decision on their application is made.

Polls suggest that managing migration will be a major issue in 2024 elections. Some 60 to 70 percent of respondents agree that immigration and border security are moving in the wrong direction, and that Republicans are better than Democrats at managing migration.

Most respondents disapprove of Biden’s handing of immigration and border issues

President Biden is trying to navigate between moderate Democrats who want to do more to reduce illegal migration and Democratic admissionists who believe that the US should be more open to legal immigrants, foreign visitors, and those seeking refuge and opportunity. Ex-President Trump and many Republicans argue that Trump should “finish the job” begun in his first term by completing a wall on the Mexico-US border, reducing refugee admissions, and deporting unauthorized foreigners inside the US.

Immigration was the top concern of Americans in the February 2024 Gallup poll

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I study migrants traveling through Mexico to the US, and saw how they follow news of dangers – but are not deterred

Postdoctoral Fellow, Cornell University

Disclosure statement

Angel Alfonso Escamilla García does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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The world awoke one morning in late March 2023 to the news that at least 38 Central and South American migrants had died in a fire in a migrant detention center in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico.

A widely circulated video from the closed-circuit cameras inside the detention center showed the building burning, with migrants trapped inside trying to break the metal bars of their cells – and detention center officers allegedly leaving them there.

The Mexican government has said the migrants themselves started the fire after learning they would be deported from Mexico – which is increasingly a destination for migrants and asylum seekers – back to their home countries.

The video spread quickly across social media, and many Mexican migrant advocacy groups and activists decried the event.

Another group also paid close attention to this tragedy – migrants who are in transit through Mexico.

As a sociologist , I have studied the impacts of violence against Central American migrants in Mexico for nearly a decade. I have considered questions like how migrants who are on their way to the U.S. react to news of violence against other migrants, and whether such news alters their plans.

My research has shown that migrants pay close attention to any information that can give them clues about the dangers that lie between them and the U.S.

Migrants have shared with me that they highly value information about any dangers ahead as they move north, whether it relates to criminal groups or U.S. immigration policy changes. Migrants use this knowledge to implement a variety of strategies to avoid, or at least prepare for, any suffering – and it can lead them to take different routes to the U.S. border.

Understanding migrants in Mexico

Hundreds of thousands of migrants from around the world transit through Mexico every year on their way to the U.S.-Mexico border. In April 2023 alone, the U.S. detained more than 211,000 migrants along that border. That statistic coincides with an overall rise in global migration and rise in migrants trying to reach the U.S.

The majority of migrants crossing the U.S. border come from Latin American countries other than Mexico , including Central American countries, but also Peru, Colombia, Venezuela and Cuba.

Most of these migrants are single adults , though a number of them are also families and children. People migrate through Mexico for many reasons, including political instability, lack of work opportunities and violence in their own countries.

My interviews with migrants moving through Mexico show that they tend to widely circulate tragic news, such as news of the June 2022 news of migrants found dead locked in a tractor trailer in San Antonio. Videos and photos of this and other tragic instances, like the Ciudad Juárez fire, provide real, vivid images of what can happen if migrants decide to pursue the same pathway.

And for these migrants, the images and news stories aren’t secondhand information that they can question or doubt – images can be interpreted as unchangeable truths.

How migrants get their news

Migrants don’t receive news from New York Times alerts or nightly news.

Their information-sharing largely occurs in an underground informal information exchange that circulates news and stories among migrants heading toward the U.S. through Mexico.

That information is shared, discussed, interpreted and commented on through social media platforms, chat groups and word of mouth. Within 24 hours of the Ciudad Juárez fire, every single social media outlet and migrant chat that I follow as part of my research, comprised of thousands of transit migrants moving throughout Mexico and Guatemala in real time, had posted and reposted the video and news of the incident.

Some comments and replies in social media and chat groups about the incident prayed for mercy and peace for the dead and their loved ones.

Others asked for a list of names of the dead, or about their places of origin, as people desperately sought to find out whether their family members and friends were among the dead and injured. Still others asked for tips and discussed ways to avoid suffering the same fate, such as asking about alternate routes to the border, or sharing ways to avoid ending up in Mexican migrant detention centers.

A shared response

Common among migrants’ reactions to the March 2023 fire was a deep sense of grief. Migrants recognized how close they are to those who lost their lives and expressed a sense of “that could have been me.”

And yet, in my field work, I have found that these horrific events do not deter migrants’ desire to reach the U.S. What they do is reset migrants’ expectations going forward.

Through my field work, I have heard migrants repeatedly tell stories about the dire conditions in detention centers in Mexico .

They report that these poor conditions – rotten food, fleas, lack of clothing or blankets for the cold weather – have triggered hunger strikes and protests.

Broader effects

Another of my main findings is that violent and tragic incidents tend to prompt migrants to avoid any interactions with police or any other officials, even under the guise of help or support.

For example, my research suggests that stories and images of violence like the Ciudad Juárez tragedy will generate a further lack of trust in the Mexican government. I believe that the incident will create certain expectations about the perils of spending time near the border. If they can, I think that migrants will likely avoid Ciudad Juárez and other areas where they feel they may be detained.

I believe the fire will also leave a symbolic scar on migrants in Mexico, who will collectively remember this event and construct their journeys around it.

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The Consequences of Migration to the United States for Short-term Changes in the Health of Mexican Immigrants

Noreen goldman.

Office of Population Research, Princeton University, Wallace Hall, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA

Anne R. Pebley

California Center for Population Research, University of California Los Angeles, CA. 90095, USA

Mathew J. Creighton

Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Departament de Ciències Polítiques i Socials, Barcelona, Spain

Graciela M. Teruel

Universidad Iberoamericana, AC and CAMBS, México D.F., México

Luis N. Rubalcava

Centro de Análisis y Medición del Bienestar Social, AC and CIDE, México D.F., México

Chang Chung

Although many studies have attempted to examine the consequences of Mexico-U.S. migration for Mexican immigrants’ health, few have had adequate data to generate the appropriate comparisons. In this article, we use data from two waves of the Mexican Family Life Survey (MxFLS) to compare the health of current migrants from Mexico with those of earlier migrants and nonmigrants. Because the longitudinal data permit us to examine short-term changes in health status subsequent to the baseline survey for current migrants and for Mexican residents, as well as to control for the potential health selectivity of migrants, the results provide a clearer picture of the consequences of immigration for Mexican migrant health than have previous studies. Our findings demonstrate that current migrants are more likely to experience recent changes in health status—both improvements and declines—than either earlier migrants or nonmigrants. The net effect, however, is a decline in health for current migrants: compared with never migrants, the health of current migrants is much more likely to have declined in the year or two since migration and not significantly more likely to have improved. Thus, it appears that the migration process itself and/or the experiences of the immediate post-migration period detrimentally affect Mexican immigrants’ health.

Introduction

Large-scale Mexican-U.S. migration has changed social, economic, and cultural life on both sides of the border. Migration to the United States can offer increased earnings and savings accumulation ( Gathmann 2008 ). However, it can also be a difficult experience for migrants because of the risks and costs of border crossing; poorly paying, irregular, and hazardous jobs; crowded housing; lengthy family separation; discrimination; and a politically hostile climate ( Hovey 2000 ; Massey and Sanchez 2010 ; Ullmann et al. 2011 ).

What are the consequences of the immigrant experience for immigrants’ health? The literature suggests that Mexican immigrants are positively selected for good health and healthy behaviors (the “healthy migrant effect”) but that living in the United States may lead to deterioration in both health and healthy behaviors of migrants ( Ceballos and Palloni 2010 ; Kaestner et al. 2009 ; Oza-Frank et al. 2011 ; Riosmena and Dennis 2012 ). However, the evidence for both parts of this scenario is often contradictory and limited by available data. A study based on Mexican longitudinal data found only weak evidence of positive health selection for migrants ( Rubalcava et al. 2008 ). However, studies using binational cross-sectional data to compare Mexican immigrants in the United States with Mexican residents have argued more strongly in support of positive health selection ( Barquera et al. 2008 ; Crimmins et al. 2005 ).

Research on the effects of life in the United States on immigrant health is also problematic. Studies comparing immigrant duration cohorts cross-sectionally in the United States have generally suggested that immigrant health and health behaviors deteriorate with longer durations of residence ( Abraído-Lanza et al. 2005 ; Lara et al. 2005 ). In contrast, some studies indicate that health trajectories are not monotonically related to time spent in the United States ( Jasso et al. 2004 ; Teitler et al. 2012 ).

Many of the limitations characterizing previous research on immigrant health result from reliance on cross-sectional data. These studies did not have adequate information on premigration health, making it impossible to determine when health deterioration began. In addition, cross-sectional comparisons involve cohorts of immigrants with different characteristics that arrived in different time periods with distinct political and economic climates; comparisons are further biased by selective attrition of return migrants, who, on average, are less healthy than the stayers (i.e., the “salmon bias”; Riosmena et al. 2013 ). Moreover, cross-sectional studies cannot assess whether the observed health trajectories of immigrants differ from those of nonmigrants. Alternative strategies that compare U.S. emigrants who have returned to Mexico with those who remained in their home communities are also problematic because of potential health-selective return migration.

In this article, we use data from the two waves of the Mexican Family Life Survey (MxFLS) to explicitly examine short-term changes in health status for current migrants in the United States compared with return migrants and never migrants. Because the richness of data in the MxFLS permits extensive controls for the potential health selectivity of migrants, this article provides a significantly clearer picture of the consequences of immigration for Mexican migrant health than previous studies.

The literature suggests several reasons why immigrant health may deteriorate in the United States. The first is inadequate access to health care, particularly for undocumented migrants ( Nandi et al. 2008 ; Prentice et al. 2005 ; Vargas Bustamante et al. 2012 ). Having health insurance is a key predictor of access to health care, particularly for immigrants ( Siddiqi et al. 2009 ).

A second explanation is the detrimental effects of acculturation on health behaviors (i.e., poor diet, a sedentary lifestyle, and substance abuse) through exposure to U.S. society. In recent years, the acculturation literature has been strongly criticized ( Carter-Pokras et al. 2008 ; Creighton et al. 2012 ; Hunt et al. 2004 ; Viruell-Fuentes 2007 ; Zambrana and Carter-Pokras 2010 ) for failing to take socioeconomic status seriously and for its limited theoretical grounding in the immigrant integration literature. A more nuanced interpretation of the acculturation hypothesis, drawn from the literature on segmented assimilation, suggests that Mexican immigrants may adopt the less healthy behaviors of lower-income Americans because many involuntarily join this social class upon entering the United States ( Abraído-Lanza et al. 2006 ).

Other hypotheses focus on social inequality as causes of declines in migrant health ( Viruell-Fuentes et al. 2012 ). For example, the acculturative stress hypothesis suggests that because U.S. society views Mexican-origin immigrants as low status, immigrants face discrimination and chronic stress ( Finch and Vega 2003 ). In addition, Mexican immigrants may live and work under unhealthy conditions that expose them to infectious disease, environmental toxins, injury, and other health risks ( Acevedo-Garcia 2001 ; Kandel and Donato 2009 ; Orrenius and Zavodny 2009 ).

A related stressor is the increasingly hostile political climate for recent immigrants in the United States, including stronger border enforcement, restriction of access to welfare and Medicaid, and state anti-immigrant efforts ( Cornelius 2001 ; Massey and Sanchez 2010 ). Discrimination, family cultural conflict and lengthy separation, a hostile political climate, loss of social support, and, after the 2008 economic crisis, fewer jobs are all likely to be stressful experiences, especially for undocumented immigrants, and are likely to have a more immediate impact on immigrants’ mental and physical health than poor access to health care or acculturation mechanisms.

Despite these findings, it is possible that emigration to the United States improves Mexican migrants’ health. Residence in the United States has a consistently positive effect on the wealth of middle-aged and older Mexican return migrants ( Wong et al. 2007 ), and income and wealth are strongly associated with better health ( Marmot and Bell 2012 ). Mexican migrants, particularly documented ones, may also experience better working and housing conditions than they would have in Mexico. Previous studies have found that health care use and self-perceptions of health may improve with duration in the United States ( Hummer et al. 2004 ; Lara et al. 2005 ) and that some health outcomes are better for immigrants who have resided in the United States for several years ( Riosmena et al. 2013 ; Teitler et al. 2012 ).

In this article, we examine whether the health of Mexican immigrants deteriorates or improves after migration to the United States. We explicitly compare changes in health status of recent immigrants with those of previous immigrants and with individuals who remained in Mexico. Because these three groups are likely to differ in initial health status (e.g., because of the healthy migrant effect and salmon bias), a critical part of this analysis is the introduction of extensive controls for baseline health status.

The Mexican Family Life Survey (MxFLS) has several advantages for this analysis: it interviews respondents at closely spaced waves that permit assessment of short-term changes in health for migrants to the United States and individuals who remain in or return to Mexico; it collects objective and subjective health assessments that provide controls for potential health selectivity of migrants; and it obtains detailed migration histories that allow us to distinguish among recent, earlier, and never migrants. The baseline survey in 2002 (MxFLS-1) interviewed all adult members residing in more than 8,440 households in 147 localities of Mexico ( Rubalcava and Teruel 2006 ). Respondents in the baseline survey were reinterviewed in 2005–2006 (MxFLS-2) and 2009–2012 (MxFLS-3). MxFLS followed individuals who left their household of origin, irrespective of destination, including movers to the United States: of those sampled in MxFLS-1, more than 90% were located and interviewed again in MxFLS-2 ( Rubalcava et al. 2008 ). This analysis is based on MxFLS-1 and MxFLS-2; MxFLS-3 is not yet available.

The sample includes respondents who are 20 years and older at baseline. Of the 19,132 age-appropriate respondents, one could not be matched to a municipality and was excluded. An additional 4,874 respondents did not report one or both of the health outcomes at follow-up. After exclusion of these respondents, the analytic sample comprises 14,257 adults.

In exploratory analyses, we estimated a logistic model of the probability that a respondent was missing either of the two health outcomes. The results indicate that individuals with no previous migration history, those with more education, men, and individuals in their 20s were more likely to be missing outcomes than others. However, with these variables in the model, there were no significant differences by self-reported health status at baseline.

Outcome Variables: Self-reported Health and Change in Health

Despite the frequent use of self-reports of overall health to compare the well-being of various immigrant and native-born groups (e.g., Finch and Vega 2003 ), comparisons may be biased by differences in choice of reference group, degree of acculturation, and language of interview ( Bzostek et al. 2007 ). Because this analysis examines changes in reported health for a given individual, such biases are likely to be substantially reduced. We consider two outcomes—self-rated health (SRH) and perceived change in health—each with five possible responses: “much better,” “better,” “the same,” “worse,” and “much worse.” The SRH question in MxFLS-2 for both Mexican residents and immigrants in the United States, is as follows:

If you compare yourself with people of the same age and sex, would you say that your health is (…)?

With controls for SRH at baseline, an analysis of SRH at follow-up implicitly examines change in the respondent’s health between interviews.

The second outcome is a direct assessment of change, based on different questions for respondents in the United States and in Mexico. Respondents in Mexico were asked:

Comparing your health to a year ago, would you say your health now is (…)?

Respondents interviewed in the United States were instead asked:

Comparing your health to just before you came to the United States, would you say your health now is (…)?

Calculations indicate that the average time since migration to the United States for current migrants is 1.6 years—only slightly longer than the explicit period of 1 year used in the Mexico interviews.

Because few respondents reported the extreme categories of “much better” or “much worse,” the five response categories were collapsed into three: “much better” and “better” were combined into a single category, as were “much worse” and “worse;” “same” health is the reference category.

Migrant Status

We categorize respondents as “current,” “return,” and “never” migrants. Current migrants migrated after the baseline survey and were interviewed in the United States in MxFLS-2. Return migrants were interviewed in Mexico at Wave 2 but had previous migration experience to the United States; they include long-term and temporary migrants as well as those who migrated to the United States between survey waves but returned to Mexico before the second interview. Never migrants reported no international migration experience by Wave 2.

Control Variables

To account for potential differences in the health status of migrants, return migrants, and nonmigrants at baseline that are not captured by SRH, we include four health variables in addition to SRH, all measured at Wave 1. Obesity, anemia, and hypertension are derived from assessments conducted in the home by a trained health worker. Obesity is defined as a body mass index (BMI) ≥30 based on height and weight measurements ( WHO 2000 ). Individuals are classified as anemic for the following hemoglobin (Hb) levels: Hb<130 g/L for males or Hb<120 g/L for females ( WHO 2000 ). Individuals with elevated systolic (mmHg≥140) and/or diastolic (mmHg≥90) blood pressure are considered hypertensive ( WHO 2000 ). The final health measure reflects whether the respondent had been hospitalized in the past year.

Two measures of socioeconomic status provide additional controls for potential selectivity of migrants: (1) years of schooling, and (2) log per capita household expenditure. The latter measure has been used to assess household economic well-being in a broad range of contexts, including Mexico ( Contreras 2003 ; Rubalcava et al. 2009 ; Xu et al. 2009 ). All models also control for sex and age (linear and quadratic terms).

Municipal Controls

Because the literature suggests that migration decisions depend on place of origin ( Rubalcava et al. 2008 ) and migration flows at the municipality level are likely to be related to unobserved characteristics (e.g., human capital) of residents, we include three variables at the municipality level. A municipality was coded as rural if there were fewer than 2,500 residents ( INEGI 2003 ). We also include two measures based on the 2000 Mexican Census: (1) a marginalization index derived from a factor analysis of municipal-level measures of education, housing, income, and schooling ( Luis-Ávila et al. 2001 ); and (2) a measure of migration intensity based on the number of return migrants, current migrants, and amount of remittances received by households ( Tuirán et al. 2002 ). Both measures are categorized as “low,” “medium,” and “high.”

As described earlier, we classify both health outcome variables (self-rated health at Wave 2 relative to someone of the same age and sex and perceived health change over the year prior to Wave 2) as better, same, or worse health. For each of the two health outcomes, we fit multinomial regression models, with “same” health as the reference category, to estimate relative risk ratios (RRRs) for worse relative to same health and RRRs for better relative to same health. We estimate a set of three models that sequentially includes (1) migrant status, baseline SRH, age and sex; (2) objective health measures; (3) socioeconomic status and municipal-level characteristics. The estimate of primary interest pertains to current migrants: that is, is health at follow-up or perceived change in health of current migrants better, worse, or the same as that of never or return migrants?

We use multiple imputation to estimate a response for explanatory variables with missing values (see Table 1 for the frequency of missing data). We create five imputed data sets. The imputation models include all covariates with complete information as well as a variable denoting household size (to improve overall model fit). The estimated RRRs in the results section are derived from average values of the coefficients across the five imputed data sets.

Description of the outcome and explanatory variables in the analytic sample

The sample is clustered at two levels: 14,257 adults are drawn from 7,200 households and 136 municipalities. To account for the dependence of observations, we use robust standard errors clustered at the household level to calculate variances under multiple imputation. The estimates are computed in Stata 12 using the mlogit command ( StataCorp 2011 ).

Descriptive statistics are presented in Table 1 . At each wave, about 60 % of respondents evaluate their overall health the same as someone of the same age and sex, and only about 8 % rate their health as worse. Almost twice as many respondents note an improvement as compared with a deterioration in health over the period. About 5 % of the respondents are current or return migrants.

The relative risk ratios (RRRs, or exponentiated coefficients) in Table 2 pertain to self-rated health at follow-up. Based on Model 3, the estimated RRR for current migrants is 1.7 ( p < .05) for worse compared with the same health and 1.3 ( p < .05) for better compared with the same health (relative to a never migrant). In other words, current migrants in the United States are less likely than never migrants to rate themselves as having the same health status as someone of their age and sex: they are more apt to rate their health both worse and better—but especially worse than their peers—at the second interview. The estimates for return migrants are not significantly different from those for never migrants. Estimates for the control variables generally conform to expectation.

Relative risk ratios (RRRs) and t statistics from multinomial logistic model of self-rated health status (SRH) relative to same age and sex at MxFLS-2

Notes: Based on five multiple imputations of missing values. Standard errors are adjusted for clustering at the household level.

Because RRRs are difficult to interpret, in upcoming Table 4 , we present predicted probabilities of worse, same, or better health at follow-up by migrant status. Each estimate was determined by setting all explanatory variables except migrant status at their observed values for each individual, setting migrant status to the same value for all individuals (never, return, or current migrant) and calculating the mean prediction from the model. The first panel, which shows predictions based on Model 3 in Table 2 , underscores the results noted earlier: at follow-up, current migrants are considerably more likely (by nearly 50 %) than never migrants to rate their health as worse than someone of the same age and sex and only slightly more likely (by about 13 %) to rate their health as better.

Average predicted probabilities of self-rated health status at Wave 2 a and perceived change in health status b by migrant status

Notes: Predicted probabilities were determined by setting all explanatory variables except migrant status at their observed values for each individual, setting migrant status to the same value for all individuals (never, return, current migrants), and calculating the mean prediction from the model.

The RRRs in Table 3 are based on respondents’ assessments of the change in their health status. Consistent with the previous estimates, the RRRs for deteriorating health are large and significant for current migrants (1.9 in Model 3). In contrast, the RRRs for improving health are not significantly different from one for current migrants. As with SRH, the RRRs for return migrants are not significantly different from one for either deteriorating or improving health. The predicted probabilities in the second panel of Table 4 indicate that the health of current migrants is about 60 % more likely than that of never migrants to have worsened in the recent past and only very slightly (and insignificantly) more likely to have improved.

Relative Risk Ratios (RRRs) and t-statistics from Multinomial Model of Perceived Change in Health Status Relative to Previous Year or Prior to Migration

Note: Based on five multiple imputations of missing values. Standard errors are adjusted for clustering at the household level.

The central question of this analysis has been whether migrants from Mexico to the United States experience changes in their health after they move. This simple question has not been adequately answered by prior research because of the dearth of appropriate data. However, through data collection efforts in Mexico and the United States at the second wave, and extensive baseline information on variables potentially related to the health selectivity of migrants, the MxFLS permits us to address this issue in a methodologically appropriate way.

Two outcome variables—SRH at the second wave and self-assessment of recent change in health status—provide insights into the changing health status of current migrants relative to others. Both measures indicate that current migrants are more likely to have experienced recent changes in health status—both improvements and declines—than either earlier migrants or nonmigrants. This is perhaps not surprising because migration to the United States is associated with changes in many of the determinants of health status, including access to health care, exposure to stressful experiences and health risks, and lifestyle. Moreover, the fact that some migrants report better health while others report worse health is consistent with the notion of multiple acculturative processes that ultimately lead to distinct mental and physical health outcomes ( Castro 2013 ).

An important question concerns the net change in health status: compared with residents in Mexico, was improvement in health as prevalent as deterioration in health among current migrants? Because migrants may use a different reference group to evaluate their health status in the United States than they used three years earlier in Mexico ( Bzostek et al. 2007 ), respondents’ direct assessments of changes in their recent health status may be more informative. Our results demonstrate that the net change across the sample of current migrants is a decline in their overall health relative to the other groups.

Although this finding is consistent with the large literature on deteriorating migrant health with length of residence in the United States, our study is the first (to our knowledge) to demonstrate that declines in self-assessed health appear quickly after migrants’ arrival in the United States. Most previous studies suggest that recent Mexican immigrants in the United States are in better health compared with longer-term migrants and the U.S.-born population. However, comparisons based only on U.S. residents miss an important part of the picture: they ignore changes in individual immigrant health in the year or so after migration (compared with migrants’ own health before migration and that of nonmigrants). Our results suggest that the migration process itself and/or the experiences of the immediate post-migration period detrimentally affect Mexican immigrants’ health.

The speed with which declines occur suggests that the process of acculturation, which tends to unfold over numerous years ( Antecol and Bedard 2006 ; Creighton et al. 2012 ), is unlikely to account for most of the decline in migrant health status. Instead, we speculate that the process of border crossing for undocumented immigrants—now more costly and dangerous than in the past ( Gathmann 2008 ; US GAO 2006 ) —combined with the physical and psychological costs of finding work and lodging in the United States, lack of health care, and the stress of undocumented status can cause rapid deterioration in immigrants’ physical and mental well-being and hence perceptions of their own health. Regardless of documentation status, many immigrants face extreme poverty, isolation from families, and harsh work conditions after arrival that may affect their health assessment.

Unfortunately, given the limited set of health questions asked of migrants at the second wave, we cannot provide a more nuanced analysis of how physical and mental well-being change. Moreover, the sample size of individuals who migrated between MxFLS-1 and MxFLS-2 is not sufficiently large to consider how working and housing conditions, diet, social interactions, lack of access to health care, financial stress, and other factors moderate the relationship between migration and health.

With the availability of the third wave of MxFLS, collected in 2009–2012, many such questions can be addressed in the future. Objective markers of health status collected in the third wave for migrants and nonmigrants alike will yield a more precise description of the ways in which health status has evolved. In addition, the inclusion of migrants between the second and third waves will not only yield a larger sample of migrants but will also permit an analysis of whether migrants who came to the United States during the past few years—a period with an especially hostile political climate and an economic recession—experienced even worse health outcomes than the migrants analyzed in this study.

Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge support for this project from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R01HD051764, R24HD047879, R03HD040906, and R01HD047522) and from CONACYT-SEDESOL (2004-01). We would like to thank Germán Rodríguez for statistical advice and Erika Arenas for assistance in data collection and preparation of the data set for this analysis.

Contributor Information

Noreen Goldman, Office of Population Research, Princeton University, Wallace Hall, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA.

Anne R. Pebley, California Center for Population Research, University of California Los Angeles, CA. 90095, USA.

Mathew J. Creighton, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Departament de Ciències Polítiques i Socials, Barcelona, Spain.

Graciela M. Teruel, Universidad Iberoamericana, AC and CAMBS, México D.F., México.

Luis N. Rubalcava, Centro de Análisis y Medición del Bienestar Social, AC and CIDE, México D.F., México.

Chang Chung, Office of Population Research, Princeton University, Wallace Hall, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA.

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In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section Mexican Migration to the United States

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Mexican Migration to the United States by Luis F.B. Plascencia LAST REVIEWED: 21 August 2018 LAST MODIFIED: 30 July 2014 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199766567-0082

Since the early 1970s, academic analyses of Mexican migration to the United States have become a sizeable scholarly literature. Scholars from the disciplines of anthropology, economics, geography, history, law, political science, and sociology have dedicated much attention to understanding the multiple forces that stimulate and sustain the mobility of individuals from Mexico to the United States. Anthropologists have a long-standing interest on the topic of Mexican migration. The specific interest on the topic, however, emerged adventitiously, later it was secondary, and became a primary interest around the 1980s. Anthropologists engaged with the topic of Mexican migration have collaborated with scholars in other disciplines and maintained a dialogue with scholars publishing outside of anthropology. Particular interests within the broader topic of Mexican migration shape the actual conversations and interactions. Anthropologists engaged with legal and public policy dimensions of the topic, for example, keep abreast of research carried out by political scientists, scholars of law, and public policy researchers. Research carried out by social/cultural anthropologists has played an important role in examining localized dimensions of Mexican migration in Mexico and the United States, and in elucidating the impacts of global processes in shaping the motivations of households and individuals in initiating and maintaining the ongoing human movement and transnational relations between communities in the two nations. It also has informed the development of theoretical arguments regarding human migration and local impacts of Neoliberal policies. This article focuses on English-language published research by social/cultural anthropologists on the topic of Mexican migration, principally research published in the United States and focuses on the migration process. It does not focus on presenting the significant scholarship on the experience of Mexican-origin communities throughout the United States. A separate bibliography would need to be developed to adequately cover the regional dimension of the topic. The subsection on Local/Regional Communities can serve as a starting point for graduate students and scholars interested in exploring the expanding literature since the late 1980s. In the case of topics that have not received significant attention from anthropologists, the citations are supplemented with scholarship of non-anthropologists. This article focuses on published books, thus it does not seek to synthesize the large volume of journal articles. Undergraduate and graduate students interested in the voluminous literature found in journals can review the journals cited as well examine scholarly databases such as JSTOR and Academic Premier .

Anthropologists have been engaged with the topic of Mexican migration since the 1920s. This initial interest emerged serendipitously. Manuel Gamio, who had studied at Columbia University under Franz Boas (the “father” of US anthropology), chose to leave Mexico because of internal governmental politics. Upon contact with the anthropologist Robert Redfield and Edith Abbott in the school of social work at The University of Chicago, Gamio was encouraged to carry out a study of Mexican migrants in the United States—a topic he had not researched before. A Social Science Research Council grant in 1926–1927 allowed him to carry out a national study that led to the publication of two important works, Gamio 1971a and Gamio 1971b (originally published in 1930 and 1931). After the Second World War, anthropologists indirectly turned their attention to Mexican migration. This indirect interest emerged from the work carried out in Mexican rural communities in the 1920s to 1970s by anthropologists such as Robert Redfield, Manning Nash, Oscar Lewis, George Foster, Ralph Beals, May Díaz, Paul Friedrich, Eric Wolf, and others. Between 1930 and 1950, Redfield published four classic ethnographic works on Mexican peasant communities in Mexico (see Redfield 1929 ). These publications became the center of later re-studies by younger anthropologist such as Oscar Lewis. The observation that individuals from rural communities were migrating to urban places such as Mexico City, and some to the United States, led to an interest in examining processes beyond local rural communities in Mexico. Starting in the 1960s and early 1970s, scholars in Mexico and the United States turned their attention to topics related to Mexican migration and Mexican-descent communities in the United States. Romano and Ignacio 1960 , an article in American Anthropologist focused on a Mexican “immigrant enclave” in South Texas. The first article published by the International Migration Review that focused on an element related to Mexican migration was Jones 1970 , and a year later the journal published its first special issue on “Mexican and Mexican American Migrants,” Shannon and Kemper 1971 . Mason 1969 is a dissertation on the “Bracero Program” and can be thought of as the starting point of a literature that is now quite significant in volume. The essay on “commuters” ( Jones 1970 ) remains unique because of the date of its publication, and because the topic has received almost no attention by anthropologists or other social science scholars. Since the 1970s, a steady flow of scholarly work has examined elements within the topic of Mexican migration. The items listed here provide important chronological markers to the scholarly study of Mexican migration. Anthropologists interested in examining the development of the study of Mexican migration to the United States should become familiar with these early efforts.

Gamio, Manuel. 1971a. Mexican immigration to the United States: A study of human migration and adjustment . New York: Dover.

Originally published in 1930. This work is considered the first anthropological monograph examining the economic and social life of Mexican migrants in the United States. Many of the issues of concern to later scholars are introduced in this volume such as geographic distribution, wages, social mobility, remittances, and forms of entry.

Gamio, Manuel. 1971b. The life story of the Mexican immigrant . New York: Dover.

Originally published in 1931. The volume is an important compilation of the life histories and experience of Mexican migrants interviewed after the First World War and before the Great Depression. This is also the period that preceded the first large-scale deportation of persons of Mexican descent by US authorities.

Jones, Lamar B. 1970. Alien commuters in the United States labor markets. International Migration Review 4.3: 65–89.

DOI: 10.2307/3002325

Jones, an economist, published the first article in the journal that focuses on Mexican migration. The article focuses on the “Mexican commuter”: individuals who were granted special status that allowed them to live in Mexico and commute to work in the United States.

Mason, John D. 1969. The aftermath of the Bracero: A study of the economic impact on the agricultural hired labor market of Michigan from the termination of Public Law 78. PhD diss., Michigan State Univ.

Mason’s dissertation is the earliest dissertation in the ProQuest database that explicitly focuses on a dimension central to Mexican migration: the Second World War contract labor program. Although the researcher is not an anthropologist, the dissertation represents an important marker within the database.

Redfield, Robert. 1929. The antecedents of Mexican immigration to the United States. The American Journal of Sociology 35.3: 433–438.

DOI: 10.1086/215057

Based on research material compiled by Manuel Gamio (1926–1927), Redfield synthesizes key issues raised in Gamio’s unpublished book manuscript—a manuscript originally published in English, and translated, from Spanish to English, and edited by Margaret Park Redfield. Gamio 1971b was translated into Spanish from the English version and published in 1969.

Romano, V., Octavio Ignacio. 1960. Donship in a Mexican-American community in South Texas. American Anthropologist 62.6: 966–976.

DOI: 10.1525/aa.1960.62.6.02a00030

Although the title does not suggest its focus is on Mexican migrants, the actual essay focuses on a “Mexican immigrant enclave” Romano labels “Frontera” in South Texas. Romano’s primary interest is with first-generation migrants who escaped the Mexican Revolution and their use of the “don” form of respect.

Shannon, Lyle W., and Robert V. Kemper, eds. 1971. Mexican and Mexican American migrants: Current U.S. immigration legislation. Special issue: International Migration Review 5.3.

Includes the work of anthropologists and sociologists. Represents the first special issue of the journal that focused on Mexican migration and Mexican Americans.

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Geography AS Notes

Mexico to usa migration.

By Alex Jackson

Last updated on September 13, 2015

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The content on this page is extremely old. Much has changed in the world since this article was written. While many of the concepts will still be relevant, figures and case studies are likely to be outdated at this point.

Migration from Mexico to the United States Of America primarily involves the movement of Mexicans from Mexico to the southern states of America which border Mexico. In order to gain access to America, Mexicans must cross the “Unites States-Mexico Border”, a border which spans four US states & six Mexican states. In America, it starts in California and ends in Texas (east to west). Due to their proximity to the border & the high availability of work in these states, the majority of Mexicans move to California followed by Texas. California currently houses 11,423,000 immigrants with Texas holding 7,951,000.

Many Mexicans from rural communities migrate to America, the majority being males who move to America and then send money back to their families in Mexico. Many of these immigrants enter the country illegally, which often requires them to cross a large desert that separates Mexico and America and the Rio Grande. These journeys are dangerous and many immigrants have died, or nearly died, trying to cross into America through these routes.

Reasons for Migration

Push factors.

There are incredibly high crime rates in Mexico, especially in the capital. Homicide rates come in at around 10-14 per 100,000 people (world average 10.9 per 100,000) and drug related crimes are a major concern. It is thought that in the past five years, 47,500 people have been killed in crimes relating to drugs. Many Mexicans will move out of fear for their lives and hope that America is a more stable place to live, with lower crime rates.

Unemployment and poverty is a major problem in Mexico and has risen exponentially in recent years. In 2000, unemployment rates in Mexico were at 2.2, however, in 2009, they rose by 34.43%, leaving them standing at 5.37 in 2010. A large portion of the Mexican population are farmers, living in rural areas where extreme temperatures and poor quality land make it difficult to actually farm. This is causing many Mexican families to struggle, with 47% of the population living under the poverty line. With these high unemployment and poverty rates, people are forced to move to America, where they have better prospects, in order to be able to support their families and maintain a reasonable standard of living.

The climate and natural hazards in Mexico could force people to move to America. Mexico is a very arid area which suffers from water shortages even in the more developed areas of Mexico. The country also suffers from natural disasters including volcanoes, earthquakes, hurricanes & tsunamis. Recent natural disasters could force people to migrate if their homes have been destroyed or made uninhabitable. People who live in danger zones could also migrate out of fear for their lives.

Pull Factors

There is a noticeable difference in the quality of life between America & Mexico. Poverty, as mentioned above, is a major issue in Mexico, with 6% of the population lacking access to “improved” drinking water. Mexico’s infrastructure is severely undeveloped when compared to America’s. Despite being the 11 th richest country in the World, Mexico also has the 10 th highest poverty. With America offering significantly better living standards and services, such as health care, people are enticed to move to America for a better life.

Existing migrant communities in states such as Texas and California help to pull people towards migration. Existing communities make it easier for people to settle once moved and family members & friends who have already moved can encourage others to move. People are also enticed to move in order to be with their families. Cousins and brothers will often move in with their relatives after they have lived in America for a while in order to be with their family.

86.1% of the Mexican population can read & write versus 99% of the population in America. In addition, the majority of students in Mexico finish school at the age of 14, versus 16 in America. These statistics show that there are significantly better academic opportunities in America than in Mexico, which can entice Mexicans to migrate for an improved education, either for themselves or, more likely, their future children, in order to give them more opportunities in the world and allow them to gain higher paying jobs.

Assimilation of Mexicans into American communities has been problematic. Many Mexicans can’t speak fluent English and studies show that their ability to speak English doesn’t improve drastically whilst they live in the US. This is largely due to them living in closed communities of other Mexican immigrants which reduces their need to assimilate with America. This can, in turn, create tension between migrants and locals which can, in extreme cases, lead to segregation, crime and violence.

There are concerns that immigrants are increasing crime rates in areas that they migrate to. Low income & poor education are factors which can lead to crime. In addition, as Mexico is a country associated with drug trafficking, there are concerns that Mexican migrants could be smuggling drugs into America, creating the problem of drug related crimes.

The introduction of Mexican cultural traditions to America, especially in states with large numbers of migrants, have helped to improve cultural aspects of those states. Mexican themed food has become incredibly popular in America with burrito and taco fast food shops opening up across the country. The new food & music has helped to improve the cultural diversity of America significantly.

With such a large number of Mexican migrants not speaking English fluently, it is now common for Spanish to be taught in American schools, widening the skill set of the younger population and improving the potential career opportunities that students may have. This also (slightly) helps ease social tensions caused by people speaking different languages which locals don’t understand.

With so many young people leaving Mexico, its developing an increasingly dependant population as the majority of people left are the elderly who can not work. Furthermore, the lack of young fertile couples is reducing the birth rate in Mexico, further increasing the dependency ratio as there is no workforce to pay taxes to support the elderly.

The majority of migrants leaving Mexico are males leaving a population with a high number of females. This is problematic as they are unable to find partners, get married and, in a mostly catholic country, have children (out of wedlock). This is, as mentioned above, reducing the birth rate and increasing the dependency ratio.

Mexican migrants often take low paying, menial jobs, which, while low paying, offer higher wages than what they’d earn in Mexico. This was, at first, advantageous, as many Americans did not want these low paying jobs but companies needed people to fill these jobs. Now, as unemployment rises in America, Americans want these menial jobs but many migrants already have taken the jobs. This can lead to increased social tension as Americans believe that their jobs are being taken.

Migrants work at incredibly low wages. Americans who are desperate for work are now often expected to work at these incredibly low wages too, which they can’t afford to do, leading to increased poverty in America. Many companies are now also replacing American labour with cheaper migrant labour, also increasing unemployment rates are people are forced out of their jobs.

While legal Mexican migrants are working & paying taxes, they often send money they earn back to their families in Mexico, rather than spending it in America, which can effect the country’s economy as there is less money being spent on products which are taxed in America. Conversely, the increased amount of money being sent back to Mexico is helping its economy greatly as people now have money to spend on goods and services.

As people move out of Mexico, pressure on land, social services and jobs is being relieved. Unemployment will fall and health services will no longer be over capacity as the population is reduced. The problem, however, arises when the young and skilled workforce leaves, resulting in a shortage of potential workers to fill these newly freed jobs and to work in these social services. A shortage of medically trained people, for example, could counteract the relieved health system.

Mexico’s population is very dependent on food grown in Mexico. Unfortunately, the majority of migrants come from rural areas, leaving a shortage of farmers and therefore the potential for food shortages in Mexico as the economically active people from rural areas leave.

• USA - Mexico Migration

Mexico to USA migration

Population change and migration featured in many news events during this 2011 summer. This issue looks at some of these and brings you up-to-date reports on some of your textbook's case studies.

The changing balance of the Mexico to USA migration

The migration of young Mexicans to the USA, hoping to find work and a better way of life, has been taking place for almost a century. Millions of people have attempted the crossing both legally and illegally. At the end of the 20th century the migration reached 'epidemic' numbers with hundreds of thousands attempting the crossing in the border each year, usually at night and at great risk of losing any money they have, personal injury from dangerous environment and also capture by the USA border patrols leading to deportation back to Mexico.

The case study of the Mexico to USA, is easy to understand because a rich and attractive nation has a border with a much less-economically-developed country with a rapidly growing population.

It has become one of the most used migration case studies in Welsh schools. This Year's A level students were still choosing it as their preferred case study in the summer exams, but were they correct to be still using it?

Did you know?

Mexico migration is now old news - This is about a new migration much closer to home!

Have you ever heard of Lampedusa? It is a small island that is part of the State of Italy, located in the Mediterranean half way between the coast of North Africa and the Italian mainland.

Lampedusa has a small population of approximately 6,000 people and an area of 25 square kilometres. It as hit the headlines as a serious migration headache for Italy and the EU. The EU has become a very desirable destination for potential economic migrants from poor north African countries where there are conflicts oe where there is a much lower quality of life than that in Europe. Economic migrants make the extremely hazardous journey across the Sahara to the Mediterranean Coast. Many don't make it across . A growing and criminal industry has now developed to ship these poor and hopeful people across the Sahara and then over the Mediterranean Sea to Lampedusa, usually at night and in very dangerous overloaded boats. In August, Italian coastguards have found the bodies of 25 men on a boat overcrowded with refugees fleeing Libya.The 15-metre boat landed carrying 271 survivors and the bodies of 25 men were then found in the boat's engine room. They died from lack of oxygen or engine fumes. The migrants came from countries like Somalia, Nigeria and Ghana.

Thousands of refugees from North Africa have arrived on the island in recent weeks and some estimate 1 in 10 die on the way. Italians are very unhappy that they seem to have been left to sort out this European Union problem all on their own. Emergency immigration centres have been set up in various parts of Italy to deal with the new influx of refugees but the problem is likely to get a lot worse in the future.

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But what was the pull towards the USA? What has changed? See some of the push and pull factors below.

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Who Could Sway the Outcome of the U.S. Election? Mexico’s President

Immigration is a key issue for voters in the U.S. election, giving Mexico immense power to potentially shape the vote.

A member of Mexico’s National Guard at the border fence in Playas de Tijuana in February. Credit...

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By Natalie Kitroeff ,  Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Paulina Villegas

Photographs by Guillermo Arias

Natalie Kitroeff reported from Mexico City, Zolan Kanno-Youngs from Washington and Paulina Villegas from Tijuana.

• Published March 26, 2024 Updated March 27, 2024

Migrants were streaming across the U.S. southern border in record numbers, international rail bridges were abruptly shut down and official ports of entry closed.

Desperate for help in December, President Biden called President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico, who told him to quickly send a delegation to the Mexican capital, according to several U.S. officials.

The White House rushed to do so. Soon after, Mexico beefed up enforcement. Illegal border crossings into the United States plummeted by January.

As immigration moves to the forefront of the U.S. presidential campaign, Mexico has emerged as a key player on an issue with the potential to sway the election, and the White House has worked hard to preserve Mr. López Obrador’s cooperation.

The administration says publicly that its diplomacy has been a success.

But behind closed doors, some senior Biden officials have come to see Mr. López Obrador as an unpredictable partner, who they say isn’t doing enough to consistently control his own southern border or police routes being used by smugglers to bring millions of migrants to the United States, according to several U.S. and Mexican officials. None of them would speak on the record about delicate diplomatic relations.

“We aren’t getting the cooperation we should be getting,” said John Feeley, former deputy chief of mission in Mexico from 2009 to 2012. Mr. Feeley said the two countries did more joint patrols and investigations to secure the border during the Obama administration.

“I know what it looks like when there is genuine cooperation,” Mr. Feeley said, “as opposed to what we have now, which is being touted as great cooperation but I think is bupkis.”

While in office, President Donald J. Trump used the threat of tariffs to coerce Mr. López Obrador into implementing his crackdown on migration.

Mr. Biden needs Mexico just as much, but has taken a different approach, focusing instead on avoiding conflict with the powerful and sometimes volatile Mexican leader in hopes it will preserve his cooperation.

“AMLO has correctly assessed his leverage and has acknowledged that we’re using ours,” said Juan Gonzalez, Mr. Biden’s former top Latin America adviser, using Mr. López Obrador’s nickname.

Liz Sherwood-Randall, U.S. homeland security adviser, said that the White House works “collaboratively at the highest levels with the government of Mexico,” adding: “President López Obrador has been a critically important partner to President Biden.”

Since 2022, Mexico has added hundreds of immigration checkpoints and increased enforcement personnel tenfold, according to figures provided by the U.S. State Department. Mexico is also detaining more migrants than at any point in recent history.

Yet, the numbers arriving at the southern border have remained stubbornly high. There were more than two million illegal border crossings in each of the last two fiscal years, twice as many as in 2019, the busiest year for apprehensions under Mr. Trump.

The lull at the start of this year was still one of the highest January months on record for illegal crossings, according to U.S. federal data. Apprehensions ticked up again in February.

In Mexico, officials say they have reached the limit of what they are able to achieve in the face of an extraordinary influx that has overwhelmed their country, too.

Mr. López Obrador has pushed the White House to commit more development aid to Latin American countries, to address the issues that cause migrants to leave in the first place.

“We do want for the root causes to be attended to, for them to be seriously looked at,” he told CBS’s “60 Minutes” in an interview that aired on Sunday. When asked whether he would continue to secure the border even if the United States didn’t do what he asked, Mr. López Obrador said, “Yes, because our relationship is very important.”

Migration has spiked because of factors difficult for any one government to control: persistent poverty, raging violence, the effects of climate change and the lingering impact of the coronavirus pandemic that have left people desperate for any chance at survival.

Yet Mexican officials also blame American policies, saying migrants have an incentive to come to the United States because the asylum system is so backlogged that migrants have a good chance of staying in the country for years until their case has been decided.

“This is entirely the responsibility of the United States, not ours,” Enrique Lucero, the head of the Migrant Affairs Office in Tijuana, a local government agency, said in an interview, referring to the migrant crisis.

The American government “needs to change their entire immigration and asylum system, the legal framework,” he said, “otherwise we end up doing the dirty work.”

In recent months, the authorities in Tijuana have raided hotels and safe houses, increased security at official crossings and installed new checkpoints along a once-deserted section of the border near the city where migrants were passing through a gap in the wall.

Nothing worked for long.

The authorities’ crackdown has only put migrants in greater danger, aid groups say, leading smugglers to take people on riskier routes through the vast desert, where they often get lost and are found dehydrated.

One night in February, a smuggler dropped a group of 18 people miles from the border, telling them they would quickly find a gap in the wall. In the darkness, the group got lost and walked for hours until finally crossing into California and making it to a makeshift camp where migrants often squeeze into portable bathrooms for shelter.

Two-year-old Denver Gonzalez could not stop sobbing.

“I am cold, I want to sleep,” the boy screamed repeatedly, as his father wrapped his tiny frame in blankets donated by a local volunteer.

“You pressure them at one point, and they go to another place,” said David Pérez Tejada, head of the Baja California office of Mexico’s National Immigration Institute, referring to the smugglers. “It’s all a game of cat and mouse, and it is extremely difficult to control this.”

The White House has pushed the Mexican government to increase deportations, implement visa restrictions for more countries to make it difficult to enter Mexico and bolster security forces at its southern border.

Since 2022, the Mexican government has added hundreds of immigration checkpoints, bolstered security along train routes used by migrants to travel north and increased enforcement personnel tenfold, according to figures provided by the U.S. State Department. Mexico is also detaining more migrants than at any point in recent history.

Yet truckloads of migrants continue to drive up through the country, in part because smugglers often pay off the checkpoint authorities, U.S. officials say.

The Biden administration wants Mexico to increase deportations. Mexico’s foreign ministry said last week it had reached an agreement with Venezuela to deport migrants and help them find jobs.

But repatriation flights are expensive, and Mexico has legal barriers to deporting people en masse. Last year, the Mexican Supreme Court ruled that migrants could only be detained for 36 hours .

Many countries ask for at least 72 hours notice before accepting flights with their citizens, said a senior Mexican official who was not authorized to speak publicly. That means the government often has to release migrants before it can negotiate their return. Deportations from Mexico dropped by more than half last year, Mexican government data show.

The White House has also pressed Mexico to do more of what some officials call “decompression,” which involves transporting people away from the border to somewhere deep in the country.

“People are being detained by Mexican authorities and sent to random cities in the south,” said Erika Pinheiro, executive director of Al Otro Lado, or “To the Other Side,” a humanitarian group. “Forcing them to trek back north, pay bribes to authorities and take all those risks all over again is inhumane.”

Emiliano Rodríguez Mega contributed reporting from Mexico City and Aline Corpus from Tijuana.

Natalie Kitroeff is The Times’s bureau chief for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. More about Natalie Kitroeff

Zolan Kanno-Youngs is a White House correspondent, covering President Biden and his administration. More about Zolan Kanno-Youngs

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The momentum of transnational social spaces in Mexico-US-migration

• Ludger Pries   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-0972-5177 1  

Comparative Migration Studies volume  7 , Article number:  34 ( 2019 ) Cite this article

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Debates on border control increased in Europe, especially since the refugee movement in 2015. But to what extent does cross-border migration has its own momentum, independently of labor market conditions and of migration policies? Taking the example of the long-term migration dynamics between Mexico and the USA the article argues that the existence of transnational social spaces is an influencing factor in its own. Therefore, first we review some basic approaches of migration theory that could explain cross-border migration dynamics (section 1). Then, for the second half of the twentieth century the migration regime between Mexico and the USA is analyzed (section 2). Considering the related labor market conditions and the aggregated flows and stocks of migration there remains an explanation gap (section 3). Therefore, based on analysis of individual cross-border mobility and on remittances dynamics, the factor and momentum of transnational social spaces is stressed as crucial intervening factor (section 4). This has consequences on the degree to which cross-border migration could actually be managed (section 5).

Will the wall work? Patterns and driving forces of cross-border labor migration between Mexico and the USA

The border between Mexico and the USA is of paramount importance to the analysis of cross-border migration. Approximately 6 million trucks, 2.3 million passengers in buses, 141 million passenger cars and 42.2 million pedestrians were registered in almost fifty legal border crossings in 2016. Similarly, hundreds of thousands of unregistered crossings of refugees and migrant workers are reported annually. Footnote 1 In spite of all statements on an already existing, to-be-built, or under construction border wall between the USA and Mexico, this border seems highly permeable. Cross-border labor migration between Mexico and the USA amounts to at least half a million Mexican nationals yearly (temporary visa, mainly H1B, H2A, long-term emigrants, non-regular resident). Footnote 2 In addition to the size of flows, the number of Mexicans living in the USA is significant. Taking only the number of Mexico-born persons working in 2015 in the USA (some 7.7 million), this accounts for about 3% of the total number of employees in the USA (around 256 million) and for about 15% of Mexico’s employed population (around 52 million). Footnote 3

While acknowledging the importance of migration between Mexico and the USA, a crucial question to raise relates to the main influencing factors. Three key drivers could be distinguished: (restrictive or permissive) migration policy and regime, demographic and labor market developments, and transnational social spaces. Since the 2007 financial crisis, there was a (temporary) decrease of cross-border migration and of remittances from the USA to Mexico. Policies of the federal US-government and of several states could suggest that the significance of Mexico-USA migration will decline. One could argue that border control is more and more restrictive, and that due to economic growth and demographic changes in Mexico, the pressure for emigration to the USA is slowing down.

The aim of this paper is to examine the development of Mexico-USA migration (volume and types, remittances) considering the impact of economic, political and social driving forces. I will argue that all of the following three factors influence migration and remittances dynamics: the regulative framing of the migration regime, the demographic and labor market conditions, and the institutionalized transnational social spaces. Since the quality of available data does not allow for detailed regression analysis (Salas, Loría-Díaz de Guzmán, & Díaz, 2016 , p. 186), the guiding assumption will be evaluated according to the procedure of stepwise exclusion of singular explanations.

Firstly, some remarks on social science labor market theory, on migration theory and on transnationalism research ( Findings from labor market, migration and transnationalism research section) as well as on the development of the USA-Mexico migration regime ( Development of the bi-national migration regime Mexico-USA section) will be outlined. Secondly, empirical findings from aggregate data and estimates of Mexican-US-American labor migration dynamics since the 1950s will be discussed taking into account the migration regime and the labor market ( Aggregate data and estimates of migration 1940s to 2015 section). Based on the analysis of individual cross-border mobility and remittances dynamics, the factor of transnational social spaces will also be analysed ( Individual cross border mobility and remittances section). Then conclusions will be drawn ( Conclusions section).

Findings from labor market, migration and transnationalism research

Classic theories on international migration focus on the economic, demographic, political and socio-cultural conditions, forms and consequences of cross border mobility (Castles, de Haas, & Miller, 2014 , chapter 2). The focus is on emigration and immigration, as well as on seasonal or circular migration. Important findings of this research are: (1) migrants normally are not from the poorest social strati (because migration itself requires a minimum of resources), (2) migration is embedded in social networks, (3) independently of simple push-pull-factors, migration chains follow historically grown relations between different countries and regions. During the twentieth century, the dominant focus to explain labor mobility was a rational-choice model of local and national push-pull factors. Existing transnational social relations and institutionalized orders as political regimes were not part of the explanatory model (Massey et al., 1994 ; for a broader approach of intervening actor groups in migration and the interrelation between formal authorization and social recognition of migrants see Ambrosini, 2018 , pp. 16f, 21f). From the 1950s onwards, a social science labor market theory developed especially in the USA and Western Europe. In explicit critique of the dominant economic and individualistic-rationalistic model a main argument was that labor mobility – whether in the national or international context – is not only determined by push-pull-mechanisms of aggregated scarcity, but also by institutionalized social orders of internal and external, primary and secondary markets (Doeringer & Piore, 1971 ; Kerr, 1954 ).

Since the 1980s, the links between social science labor market theory and migration theories strengthened, especially in an international and comparative perspective. It could then be explained why labor force scarcity in the secondary labor market segment of highly industrialized countries – under given demographic conditions – must not necessarily lead to higher wages, but can also be answered by the (temporary) recruitment of labor migrants from other countries (cf. Papademetriou & Martin, 1991 ; Piore, 1979 ). The theory of the “new economics of labor migration” argued that migration decisions are primarily taken in frameworks of families and households (Stark, 1984 , 1991 ). Decisions on cross-border labor migration therefore serve less individual benefit maximization than risk diversification of household income: “the migration of a family member, as a means of diversifying the family’s income portfolio, could reduce the overall risk associated with the generation of that income” (Stark, 1984 , p. 207). More recent research also included the analysis of cross-border intra-organizational mobility like that of expatriates and inpatriates (e.g. Adick, Gandlgruber, Maletzky, & Pries, 2015 ).

Besides labor market and migration theories, formal legal regulations and policies are systematically included in concepts of migration regimes that can be understood as the historically grown migration-related principles, norms, rules and decision-making procedures. Footnote 4 It includes the specific individual and collective value orientations and standards, laws and regulations, the structures of collective actors as well as the practical policies and procedures relating to the control of migration as immigration and emigration. Moreover the (including or excluding) treatment of migrants living in a given country, e.g. in the form of assimilation or integration strategies, which in particular concern legal access to labor markets, should be considered. The dominant focus is on nationally and bi-nationally negotiated migration regimes. Migrant organisations are an important part of binational migration regimes (Pries & Sezgin, 2012 , p. 20ff).

Since the 1990s, migration studies argued that not only the local and national economic and political conditions in countries of origin and of arrival are relevant, but that the cross-border mobility and communication of people, money and other resources can create more or less dense and stable transnational social spaces . These represent a genuine social-institutional factor that influences migration dynamics and is relatively independent of economic opportunities and political-legal frameworks. For the Mexican-USA-migration Massey, Alarcon, Durand, and Gonzalez ( 1987 ) show that cross-border social networks improve potential migrants’ knowledge about border control, smugglers, and labor opportunities in the USA. This can lower the risks and costs of migration, and the stock as well as historical tradition of migration increases opportunities for social capital and networks (Massey & Espinosa, 1997 ; for the European context see Ambrosini, 2018 , p. 7; Faist, Fauser, & Reisenauer, 2013 ; Helbling & Leblang, 2019 , pp. 253, 260f; Jacobson & Goodwin-White, 2018 ). In this context, transnational migration or transnationality of migration can be understood as a subtype of cross-border international migration based on the multi-directionality of mobility and the durability of strong cross-border social entanglements (Guarnizo, 2003 ; Khagram & Levitt, 2007 ).

Whenever there are dense and permanent institutionalized exchanges between local and regional levels in different countries that develop independently (or relatively independently) from the relevant national migration regimes, transnational migration regimes can consolidate. For the USA-Mexican case, Besserer ( 2002 ) revealed permanent and dense economic, political, cultural and social interaction structures between municipalities in rural areas of Mexico and district-related communities in the USA. These include established structures of transnational political decision making and power (for example, with regard to organizing village festivals or the taking over of local administration tasks). As shown in many studies (e.g. Besserer, 2002 , 2016 ; Gil Martínez de Escobar, 2006 ), transnational migration regimes also comprise cultural, economic, religious-ritual and educational aspects.

Taking into account this background of conceptual approaches to the labor market, migration and transnationalism, some empirical evidence concerning cross-border labor mobility between Mexico and the USA can be presented as state of the art of research. Firstly, initial migration often leads to cumulative migration and building of social networks that reduce the risks and costs of migration (e.g., by changing expectations in the regions of origin and new migration-related demand structures in the arrival regions; Massey et al., 1987 ; Massey & Espinosa, 1997 ). Secondly, given long-term cross-border migration the social spaces in the regions of origin and arrival are increasingly intertwined with one another through complex processes. This could create new, transnational social spaces , e.g. by the withdrawal and return of qualified people (brain circulation), the reimbursement of funds, changes in economic expectations, new political and gender-specific entitlements, wage competition and labor market displacement (Aguilera & Massey, 2003 ; Basch, Glick-Schiller, & Blanc, 1997 ; Bryceson & Vuorela, 2002 ; Goldring, 1997 ; Goldring, 2001 ; Kearney & Nagengast, 1989 ; Palloni, Massey, Ceballos, Espinosa, & Spittel, 2001 ). Thirdly, international migration processes can be controlled and managed only to a limited extent, given that they follow collective logics in local, national and transnational social spaces. Border control is limited in social practice; measures of strengthening it often have counter-intended effects (Ambrosini, 2018 , p. 11f). Increased negative control or closure of borders lead to higher fares for smugglers and life-risks for irregular migrants. It could fuel the unintended “caging” effect: legal and irregular resident migrant workers, who would move in and out in accordance with the employment opportunities under conditions of free mobility, remain in the countries of arrival. Footnote 5 Fourthly, in the face of growing environmental challenges, regional violent conflicts, growing local poverty, the boundaries between (voluntary) labor migration and (forced) refugee migration are increasingly fading . Also due to new transportation and communication technologies, the local, national, transnational and global level of migration processes are increasingly interwoven (Castles et al., 2014 , p. 39f; Portes, 1996 ; UNHCR, 2007 , 2011 ).

The review of conceptual and empirical findings suggests that all three drivers (migration regime, labor market, and transnational social spaces) should be taken into account (for similar arguments related to migration in Europe see Ambrosini, 2018 ; Baumann, Lorenz, & Rosenow, 2011 ; de Haas et al., 2018 ). Therefore, the development of the Mexico-USA migration regime will be addressed first in the following section.

Development of the bi-national migration regime Mexico-USA

Scholars (Delgado Wise & Márquez Covarrubias, 2009 , p. 48; Durand, 2005 , p. 48) divide the development of the Mexico-USA migration regime into five periods. The first phase dates up to the 1930s and it is characterized by a restrictive US-American immigration policy towards Mexico; country in which migration was not a policy issue. Starting from 1821, the year in which Mexico gained formal independence from Spanish colonial power, until 1848 almost all of today’s southern states of the USA belonged to the United States of Mexico. After the Mexican-American War of 1846–48, the USA began to introduce sharper border controls (Griswold del Castillo, 1990 ). However, due to past events, the immense extent and geographical conditions along the border, a flourishing informal trade, and mechanisms for irregular border crossings and professional smuggling services soon emerged and established (Andreas, 2009 , p. 30). Migration policy was not explicitly issued, but put into practice e.g. in the deportation of Mexican workers from the USA after the Great Depression of 1929.

A second phase opened with the Bracero program (1942 to 1964) aiming at substituting (male) US-American workers (who left for military services during World War II) by mainly low-skilled Mexicans to work in the USA for a limited time. The agreement was continued after World War II, also following pressure from employers, who continued to need cheap labor for harvesting or construction work (Trigueros, 2009 ). This bilateral program represents a turning point in the migration policy for both countries. Mexico succeeded in negotiating a number of treaties to protect workers (aiming at non-discriminatory management, adequate working conditions and fair wages). The program allowed about five million Mexican migrants to work legally and with temporary employment contracts in the USA. Most of them came from the states of Jalisco, Michoacán, Guanajuato and Zacatecas (Durand & Massey, 2003 ), while Texas, California, New Mexico, Arizona and Arkansas were among the preferred destinations for agricultural workers in the 1950s (Trigueros, 2009 , p. 64). During the Bracero program – similarly to the European “guest workers” programs – migration was dominated by male workers from rural regions, that migrated in a circular way with fixed-term employment contracts (Torre & Giorguli, 2015 , p. 14).

At the same time, the number of Mexican job seekers and of available jobs in the USA exceeded the number of places offered by the Bracero program. This led to an increase in unregistered labor mobility. It is calculated that, during the 22-year term of the Bracero Agreement, a total of a further five million working migrants were employed under irregular conditions in the US additionally to the regular workers employed in this program (Durand & Massey, 2003 ). The negotiations on the renewal of the agreement were accompanied by heated public debates in both countries. In the USA trade unions, political associations and a part of the press spoke out against the Mexican immigrants. Footnote 6 Small businesses and farmers criticised the negative impact of the (poor) working conditions of immigrants on local workers (in the sense of increased pressure to downgrade) and stated to have a critical disadvantage over their larger competitors, as the Bracero program provided these cheap Mexican workers. The Kennedy government did not extend the program in 1964.

A third phase dates from 1964 to the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) 1986, characterised by a ‘policy of non-migration policy’. After the end of the Bracero program, the number of irregular border crossings increased substantially. Trigueros ( 2009 , p. 67) states that “the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 for the first time limited the number of permits for Mexican immigrants to 66,000 per year.” Despite these constraints, the need for cheap labor was particularly high in the agricultural sector. Between 1970 and 1980, the number of Mexican irregular immigrants rose fivefold: “net undocumented immigrants into the United States increased from an estimated 23,000 annually by 1970 to 112,000 annually by 1980” (Vernez & Ronfeldt, 1991 , p. 1189). Likewise, based on the demographic development (the population grew from 41 million in 1965 to 79 million in 1985; cf. Ruiz Nápoles & Ordaz Díaz, 2011 , pp., 92–95), the number of job seekers in Mexico rose sharply after the “Mexican economic miracle” (1940–1970).

Although the formal-legal framework and the “policy of non-policy” did not provide for an intensification of cross-border occupational mobility, migratory movements, especially irregular migratory flows, continued to increase. During this period, the number of women and migrants from the central and northern states as well as from cities increased in importance. During this period, activities of Mexican workers with temporary contracts in the USA shifted from the primary to secondary and tertiary sectors (Trigueros, 2009 , p. 67). Also, not only governmental agencies of both states were relevant as collective actors, but also networks and organizations for the defense of migrant interests, like the Chicano civil rights movement or trade union activists such as César Chávez.

A fourth phase began with the IRCA of 1986 that aimed at controlling the situation of irregular residents by means of broad legalization and at curbing the influx of irregular migrants (in particular through the expansion of border controls, the issuance of more temporary work visas and the threat of penalties for companies employing irregular workers; cf. Trigueros, 2009 , p. 68). However, these objectives were only partially achieved. IRCA strengthened transnational social networks (including of irregular immigrants), as about three million people were given permanent residence permits (Torre & Giorguli, 2015 , p. 15). The proposed sanctions against irregular migrant workers were limited and differently imposed (Durand, Massey, & Parrado, 1999 , p. 522). The law improved conditions for legalized labor migrants and, worsened the employment situation for irregular workers. It fostered a caging effect, and family reunion became the quantitatively most important part of legal immigration from Mexico to the USA (Alarcón, 2011 ; Durand et al., 1999 ; Giorguli Saucedo, García Guerrero, & Masferrer, 2016 ).

This fourth phase extends to the turn of the century and can be characterized by tightened border controls and an expansion of legal labor migration opportunities. The Immigration Act (IMMACT90) of 1990 enabled immigration of skilled and specialized workers, and the number of annual work visas rose from about 54,000 to a total of 140,000 at the end of the 1990s with an increased share of H-1A and H-1B visas for qualified workers and academics (cf. Trigueros, 2009 , p. 71). Massey, Pren, and Durand ( 2009 ) referred to this period as the “era of the contradiction” because “on the one hand the checks for the transit of goods, services, capital, information and certain categories of persons (professional, highly qualified technicians, employees of transnational companies) had been liberalized and new barriers and obstacles to the mobility of workers between the two countries had been established” (Massey, et al., 2009 , p. 102).

Government agencies of the USA hoped to mitigate the problem of (stocks of) irregular migrants in the USA and (flows of) irregular migrants to the USA. In fact, tightened border controls were introduced. This reduced the circularity of irregular migration in terms of frequent changes between the countries, due to increasing risks and costs of irregular border crossings. Nevertheless, the volume of irregular migration was not curbed to the expected extent. The border between the two countries was too long and too difficult to control, and the number of jobseekers in Mexico continued to grow strongly (by the end of the millennium only around 12 million of the potential of almost 45 million persons were employed in formal, social insurance-based jobs). A differentiated service industry developed for irregular border crossings, which included a wide range from simply crossing the Rio Grande (as “mojado”) to a complete trip from the place of origin in Mexico, to the destination in the USA including a workplace.

The fifth and last phase of the development of the USA-Mexico migration regime starts with the new century, marked by the lack of a common migration agenda and increasing tensions concerning migration policies between the two countries. Further, organised violence generated more forced migration from Mexico. In the year 2000 in Mexico, for the first time in history, a government not appointed by the old state party PRI took over official business. One of the hopes associated with the new liberal-conservative party PAN (Partido de Acción Nacional) government was to negotiate more liberal migration provisions. However, the presidential election of George W. Bush in November 2000 and the terrorist attacks of September 2001 led to a wave of securitization in spite of liberalization. This holds for the two Bush term periods (2000–2008) and also for the subsequent government of Barack Obama (2008–2016).

No substantial bilateral agreements were signed; only in March 2005, the Presidents of Canada, Mexico and the United States signed the joint program “Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP)” as a regional dialogue initiative, which included far-reaching objectives e.g. the introduction of a common North American border Pass (Independent Task Force, Council on Foreign Relations [ITF], 2005 , p. 8f). But this program was discontinued in August 2009, without effective joint mechanisms being agreed upon in migration questions. Footnote 7 Unilateral measures dominated. Massey et al. ( 2009 ) described this period as one of marginalisation, “in which Mexican migrants were forced to abandon their connections to their communities of origin because of the militarization of the border, which made it impossible to return, and in which they simultaneously feel themselves as strangers in a society that requires and demands them, but at the same time does not accept them, discriminates and oppresses them” (Massey et al., 2009 , p. 102).

A crucial question that arises is to what extent the binational migration policy and regime actually determined or influenced the real cross-border migratory movements between Mexico and the USA (for a global and a European evaluation of this question see e.g. de Haas et al., 2018 , p. 28f; Helbling & Leblang, 2019 , p. 257f). Since there are no solid data available for the first phase, we will concentrate on the period since the 1940s.

Aggregate data and estimates of migration 1940s to 2015

Inhabitants with Mexican roots represent the largest immigrant group in the USA (Alarcón, 2011 , p. 186). The intense economic, political, cultural and social exchange relations between the two countries go far back in time, before both nation states existed in today’s form. Indigenous communities on both sides of the border are still relying on a pre-colonial common history and ancestors (Castillo Ramírez, 2012 ). Names such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New Mexico point to the centuries-old colonial order that for more generations than today’s binational structure determined the life of today’s North America as “Nueva España” (Balderama & Rodríguez, 2006 ). So how did the volume of regular immigration from Mexico to the USA actually develop since the 1940s?

A first approximation of the migratory movements from Mexico to the USA is the number of immigrants per country of origin registered annually, as listed in the Yearbooks of immigration statistics (Fig.  1 ). There is a slight increase in documented immigration in the post-war period, which however reduces by the end of the 1980s to less than one hundred thousand annual immigrations (each of which is subject to different visa types). The enormous increase from 1989 to 1991 can be explained by the fact that the IRCA legislation allowed for the legalization of Mexicans, who resided irregularly in the USA (cf. Statistical Yearbook, 1989 , p. 18). From 2000 to the year 2014, legal immigration moved to an average level of 160,000. The figure only represents registered new entries of Mexicans into the USA (including temporarily limited visa and permanent visa, the latter mainly for family reunification; see Trigueros, 2009 , p. 62).

Annual registered immigrants from Mexico into the USA 1940–2014

The number of registered immigrants from Mexico to the USA (1949–2015) is slightly positively correlated with unemployment rate in the USA (Pearson = 0,12) and negatively correlated with unemployment rate in Mexico (Pearson = − 0,46). Footnote 8 The opposite correlation were to be expected from classic labor market and migration theory (the lower unemployment in country of arrival, the higher immigration, and: the lower unemployment in country of origin, the lower emigration). We could assume that official registered migration only reflects a part of the overall dynamics. These have their own momentum – beyond macro-economic indicators, and across the timeframes of the migration regime. There is only a strong effect of IRCA 1986 leading to a substantial increase of immigration (by regularization) during the years to follow. Footnote 9 The yearly regular immigration from Mexico to the USA oscillated between some 50 and 100 thousand until IRCA and 100 and 200 thousand thereafter. This correlates neither with the four periods of migration regime identified earlier nor with the macro data of labor market dynamics between both countries. An enormous expansion of the working population in both countries goes hand in hand with a comparatively constant registered labor migration from Mexico to the USA.

Flows of immigration and emigration are reflected in the stock of residents with Mexican citizenship at birth living in the USA. According to estimates, the number of Mexico-born and naturalized persons, Mexicans with permanent residence permit, certain registered non-immigrants (such as students, refugees) and irregular residents in the USA, raised constantly from less than one million in 1970 to almost 12 million immigrants in 2015 (Migration Polity Institute [MPI]), 2016 ). Counting all residents in the USA with regular residence status and Mexican roots (including the born-citizenship of at least one parent), the American Community Survey estimates even 31 million people in 2010. Footnote 10 Since around 2006, the number of Mexico-born immigrants stagnated at just under 12 million.

Recalling that the level of regular immigration from Mexico to the USA was below 100,000 per year until the 1980s, and then on average around 150,000 (Fig. 1 ), the strong decline of the Mexican-born population in the USA since the 2000s – in relative and absolute terms – is surprising. According to some authors (Giorguli Saucedo et al., 2016 , pp. 17, 19; Maldonado, Morales, González González, Crow, & Schavon, 2016 , pp. 102f, 106ff), the sustained annual inflows of Mexicans have not substantially increased the stock of that group in the USA since then, given that returns from the USA to Mexico increased and that regular immigration from Mexico to the USA declined. This is explained by declining employment opportunities since the crisis in 2007 and a more negative or sometimes even racist climate for Mexicans.

Other scholars state a recovery in both the immigration movements from Mexico to the USA and the stock of Mexico-born residents in the USA since 2014 (Canales & Meza, 2016 , pp. 81, 86) and/or an increasing importance of migration between Mexico and the USA with a shift from irregular to regular trips (Verduzco, personal communication, 2017 , p. 2). One aspect associated with these contradictory diagnosis in migratory flows and stocks is the calculation of the number of Mexicans irregularly crossing the border and living in the USA. While there are precise and long-term series for registered immigration to the USA, for obvious reasons the extent of irregular (labor) migration can only be estimated, and such estimates are hardly comparable for long periods. Calculations are usually based on the numbers of Mexicans in the USA without valid residence papers, on the numbers of deportees registered in Mexico, and on comparisons of data from American surveys that record irregular residents, with the statistics of registered immigrants. Footnote 11 As illustrated in Fig.  2 , the stock of irregular Mexican immigrants living in the USA is estimated at almost half the level of that of regular immigrants. Footnote 12

Stock of Mexicans in the USA without valid residence papers

We can assume that, since the financial crisis in 2007, the stock of Mexicans residing without legal permit in the USA has decreased (for about one million). At the same time, the willingness to cross the border between Mexico and the USA irregularly has declined in recent years (Maldonado et al., 2016 , p. 104). Due to limited data it is difficult to calculate the role played by intensified border controls (migration regime), limited employment opportunities (labor market) and increasing racism in the USA (social factor). Based on survey data, several scholars agree that the willingness of adult Mexicans to migrate to the USA for labor has declined overall since around 2005 (Salas et al., 2016 , p. 187). Salas et al. ( 2016 ) try to move forward from a simple cost-benefit model described by Massey et al. ( 1994 ).

Salas et al. ( 2016 , p. 188) explain the decision to seek an irregular border crossing from Mexico to the USA as the net profit that a person expects over a calculated period of time with the following influencing variables: “probability of not being deported again”, “probability of getting a job in the country of arrival”, “pay in the country of arrival”, “probability of getting a job in the country of origin”, “wage in the country of origin” and “total cost of migration, including physical and psychological costs due to crime”. Since there are not sufficient data available for the latter, the authors only consider three variables: (1) the proportion of economically active population ready to migrate, (2) the number of deported Mexicans who were not registered as delinquent in the USA, and (3) the ratio of the USA unemployment rate compared to that of Mexico. The variable that most closely identifies the (irregular) cross-border prospect of Mexicans (PEAC) is the number of non-criminalized deported Mexicans: the greater the risk of being deported, the lower the declared intention to pass the border irregularly. Calculations also show that the ratio of the unemployment rates of both countries have an independent influence, and not only an influence on the willingness to emigrate. “The latter empirical finding suggests that U.S. and Mexican labor market exhibit a high degree of integration, and that migration works as a communication channel” (Salas et al., 2016 , p. 194).

While Salas et al. ( 2016 ) use the number of deported Mexicans as an independent variable to explain the intention of irregular border crossings, in other studies the number of deportations is treated as a proxy for the number of irregular border crossings themselves. The Pew Research Center ( 2017 ) reported an increase in arrests on the border Mexico-USA from about 331,000 in the fiscal year 2015 (1.10.2014–30.9.2015) to almost 409,000 in the fiscal year 2016 (Pew Research Center, 2017 ). Footnote 13 There is evidence that arrests and expulsions due to irregular border crossings increased since 2014, and this is mainly caused by intensified controls, rather than an increase in non-registered border crossings. The cost of irregular border crossing multiplied in recent years (from about 1000 to over 3000 US dollars per person). Footnote 14 At the same time, controls on irregular employment in the USA have become more extensive. Many employers shift from the old model of employing irregular residents to a policy of increased visa application.

To sum up, stagnation of cross-border mobility since the economic crisis in 2007, argued by many authors, can be explained only partly by worsened employment prospects in the USA, since total employment in the USA has been clearly expanding since 2010 (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2017 ). Changes in the migration regime (extended regular visa options and, simultaneously, more restrictive border controls) also fuel the stagnation of Mexicans, who are residing in the USA irregularly (Pew Research Center, 2016 ) or who are considering an irregular border crossing. These results are consistent with international studies showing that (restrictive) state migration policies do have an impact, but are shaped by factors like labor market opportunities and the bilateral stock of migrants (de Haas et al., 2018 ; Helbling & Leblang, 2019 ). The method described by Salas et al. ( 2016 ) to measure the influence of economic and social variables on the emigration of Mexicans suggests a greater influence of general social context variables (such as the (in)security feeling in Mexico) than i.e. changes in unemployment rates in both countries.

Based on the analysis of individual labor mobility, the following section focuses on transnational social factors as explaining the dynamics of labor mobility. It also relates migration development to remittances flows. Related to the debates about the decrease or increase of recent cross-border mobility I will argue that remittances from the USA to Mexico do not show a long-term stagnation trend. The development of remittances suggests that transnational social spaces are a strong factor in explaining labor mobility between the two countries.

Individual cross border mobility and remittances

Despite methodological challenges, the longitudinal migration data of the Mexican Migration Project (MMP) is one of the best internationally accessible sources to analyze transnational migration dynamics between Mexico and the USA based on individual and household data. Footnote 15 Data allow analyzing the frequency of migration trips between both countries. Figure 3 shows, for all heads of households interviewed between 1987 and 2015 ( n  = 8.252), the number of border crossings from Mexico to the USA referred to by the interviewed persons (of at least one month’s duration). The figure has to be interpreted cautiously because the data are ‘right-censored’, therefore, only persons with a first trip until 2010 are included.

Number of US trips per person according to the year of first labor migration

The figure illustrates the composition of the number of trips between Mexico and the USA according to the year of the first trip (grouped by persons who indicated one trip, two trips, three to five trips, six to ten trips, or eleven to twenty trips). The (four) periods of migration regime seem to have little influence on the number of trips by person. Only IRCA suggests having an effect given that the share of persons indicating 6–10 trips is decreasing substantially since 1986 (as year of the first trip; part of this finding probably has to be explained by the right-censored of data). The end of the Bracero program seems to have had little influence on the individual migration patterns. Footnote 16

Another survey of more than 600 transnational Mexican labor migrants from predominantly agrarian regions of the state of Puebla to the metropolitan area of New York revealed interesting results due to capturing retrospectively the total life and employment history of these interviewees. For instance, the survey allows measuring the patterns and reasons of shifting employment relations inside and between the two countries (Mexico and the USA) and inside and between economic sectors (Pries, 2004 ). The interviewees stated that they had switched to the USA for economic and employment reasons and from the USA to Mexico mainly for family reasons. Household considerations and other family members usually influenced all corresponding decisions. Opportunity structures for employment are transnationally aligned with family needs in both countries.

Concerning the specific occupational and sectoral positions during the labor trajectory (as a sequence of employment relations during the life course) some statistically significant patterns (not random with a probability of more than 99%) could be detected. Shifts of employment relations within Mexico, within the USA or between Mexico and the USA each follow certain specific patterns. Agricultural jobs are more frequent than (statistically) expected after a trip from the USA to Mexico. Vice versa, in case of a trip from Mexico to the USA an agricultural occupation was counted only half as often as expected (54 to 112). On the one hand this means that interviewees are shifting from agricultural employment in Mexico to predominantly industrial or service employment in the USA and, on their return to Mexico, above average, frequently engage in the agricultural sector. When a shift of employment occurs inside one of the two countries, either in Mexico or the USA, the new job – with a statistically significant probability – will not be in an agricultural occupation (only 102 inside-country job changes into agricultural activities, where 159 were expected). On the other hand, subsequent employment takes place significantly more often than expected inside the manual-industrial sector or inside areas of commerce, administration and hotels-restaurants, if previous employment occurred in the same country (Mexico or the USA) or in Mexico (that is, job shift is connected to a country shift from Mexico to the USA). When a previous employment took place in the USA and the following in Mexico, less than half of the expected number of job shifts went into the manual-industrial or the commercial/administrative/hotel-restaurant-sector.

Figure  4 displays the number of statistically significant employment shifts according to whether these occurred inside the same country or they were related to a shift between both countries, and to whether they occurred inside the same occupational sector or were combined with a shift between different sectors. The numbers indicate the standard residuals and could be read as the statistically significant correlation between changes of country and occupation. A value of zero would indicate no significant correlation between both, the possible shift of an occupation and of a country when changing from one employment to another. The circled arrows indicate employment shifts inside the same occupational sector. The linear arrows represent employment shifts that are combined with a shift between different occupations. The three ‘colors’ (white, grey and black) of the circled and linear arrows specify whether an employment shift was combined with no country shift (white arrows), with a country shift from Mexico to the USA (grey arrow) or with a country shift from the USA to Mexico (black arrow). Only statistically significant correlations (of more than 95% of probability of being non-random) are indicated.

Employment shifts according to change of country and occupation

As an example, for those interviewees that had been working in an occupation of the commercial, administrative, hotels-restaurants sector in Mexico there is a seven times higher propensity to work in the same occupational sector when they change employment and move from Mexico to the USA. Similar occupational sector stability stands for country shifts from Mexico to the USA in the case of manual-industrial work, technical and academic occupations. A very high sector stability is in place for all three kinds of country shifts (no shift, shift Mexico-USA, shift USA-Mexico) in the case of agricultural work and person related services. There are also significant (but with lower probabilities of 1.3 to 1.6) patterns for inter-sectoral change for all three kinds of country shifts.

The results suggest that labor market positioning and dynamics are embedded in three different units of reference: Mexico, the USA and transnational social spaces). Simple personal services, for example as a nanny or gardener, have a different social embedding in the USA than the same activities in Mexico. In the USA, this is usually a job paid on an hourly work basis not significantly different from other service work. In Mexico such activities are historically linked to a still existing paternalistic system of dependency and care relations. Relations between muchachas and patrones are less associated with modern wage-employment than with traditional paternalistic ownership and care. In a transnational social space, a child-care task can be conceived as a temporally limited moral family obligation being negotiated in the context of the larger family. Analysis based on person-related data suggest that labor mobility within and between the two countries is not fully explained by the migration regime and binational labor market mechanisms. Transnational labor mobility patterns and household logics also seem to influence and have their own inertia – independent of migration regimes and national labor markets.

Besides direct physical mobility, an important indicator of cross-border social relations between the USA and Mexico are remittances. This can be justified both within the framework of “new economic migration theory” and transnationalization research. The first suggests that decisions for migration are usually not taken by individual market players, but in the context of complex network structures, especially families and households. A crucial aim of migration is diversifying risks. Transnationalization research conceptualizes remittances not exclusively in an economic-rationalist way, but as an expression of strong transnational social ties: families themselves span transnationally; remittances then are an indicator of intensity of cross-border social relations and a factor in (re)structuring cross-border inequality. Footnote 17

Delgado Wise and Márquez Covarrubias ( 2009 , p. 43) emphasize the NAFTA agreement of 1994 as a catalyst for the labor migration from Mexico to the USA, making remittances an important instrument for Mexico to obtain foreign exchange. Behind the more populous countries China and India (and the Philippines with an explicit labor migrants exporting strategy) Mexico is the country with the fourth largest volume of remittances (World Bank, 2016 , p. 30). Based on data of the Bank of Mexico, Balderas ( 2009 , p. 364) pointed out that remittances from the USA almost tripled from 1998 to 2004 (from 5.6 million to $15.4 million US dollars). They were on the same level with foreign exchange income from foreign direct investments, and higher than currency income from tourism.

Analyzing MMP data (71 communities in 13 Mexican states, over 4700 observations covering the period 1982 to 1999), Balderas ( 2009 , p. 379f) finds that wage increases in the USA have a positive effect on the volume of remittances to Mexico. An increase in the hourly wages of the interviewed Mexican workers in the USA by one dollar leads to an increase of the average monthly remittance payment to Mexico by 16 US dollars. Mexican migrants with a bank account in the USA transfer significantly more money to Mexico (an average of 137 US dollars per month) than those without a bank account; those with children still living in Mexico transfer on average about 291 US dollars more each month than those without children in Mexico. Migrant workers without valid residence permits in the USA send about 87 US dollars more a month to Mexico than those with legal residency status. Footnote 18

As illustrated in Fig.  5 , since the 1970s remittances from the USA to Mexico grew steadily up to the economic crisis of 2007/2008 (Banco de México, 1969 , 2017 ). Some scholars assumed that due to restrictive border controls, a tense labor market situation in the USA and increasing racism towards Latinos and particularly Mexicans (especially since the 2015 presidential election campaign) transnational social ties would decrease. In fact, since 2009, the money flows have risen again and have already exceeded the pre-crisis level (see also Li Ng & Serrano, 2017 , p. 134). Even if the actual volume of cross-border mobility and the stock of Mexican migrants in the USA would be stagnating during the last years (as discussed in Individual cross border mobility and remittances section), remittances flows indicate strong ongoing transnational social ties.

Revenues by Workers’ Remittances (quarterly amounts 1943–2017)

These transnational social areas play a significant role in labor mobility: “Macro-economic trends alone do not determine migration flows. A variety of other factors also influence the number of people moving from one place to another, and these can include everything from border controls in a receiving country to agricultural support policies in a sending country. An overarching factor is the operation of family networks that link migrants to relatives left behind. These networks can greatly facilitate new migration by providing access to housing, information about work opportunities and the comfort of familiar faces in a new land” (Passel & Suro, 2005 , p. 11).

Conclusions

Previous research on the volume and patterns of labor migration between Mexico and the USA had suggested that these are influenced by labor market conditions, migration regime and transnational institutionalized social spaces. In light of the four commonly differentiated periods of the migration regime between Mexico and the USA since the 1940s, only for the beginning of the IRCA phase from 1986 onwards there was a clear impact on the registered migration dynamics between the two countries. Although IRCA aimed at reducing not registered migration, the volume of irregular border crossings from Mexico to the USA, and irregular stays of Mexican migrants in the USA rose for decades. According to Massey et al. ( 2009 , p. 116), the likelihood of another irregular border crossing from Mexico to the USA continued to increase until 1998. Footnote 19

Contrary to predictions from classic migration theories, remittances from Mexican labor migrants did not tend to decline in the ‘maturing process’ of migration, but increased constantly, dropped with the crisis 2008 and then recuperated until 2017. This indicates that transnational social spaces are a genuine relevant factor. Three larger sets of explanatory factors have to be integrated: migration regimes, labor markets, and the institutionalized transnational social spaces. Footnote 20 Especially since the 2000’s, other societal aspects such as organized violence in Mexico have to be taken into account: “Now – and as an additional factor – we have rampant, international organized crime in Mexico that dramatically affects the undocumented migrant workers and should be considered a crucial and new psychological dissuasion factor” (Salas et al., 2016 , pp. 194-196; see also Menjívar & Abrego, 2012 ). A question for further research is if in the future registered and irregular cross-border migration (and remittances) between the two countries will decrease (Giorguli Saucedo et al., 2016 ; Lowell, Villareal, & Passel, 2008 , p. 8), stay at current levels or even increase (Canales & Meza, 2016 , p. 85f). Strong cross-border ties and social spaces existing for hundreds of years and having stabilized during the last decades will probably maintain and flourish in the future – relatively independent of migration policies and regimes, and of labor market conjunctures.

Cf. https://transborder.bts.gov/programs/international/transborder/TBDR_BC/TBDR_BC_QuickSearch.html ; https://www.wola.org/2017/01/fact-sheet-u-s-mexico-border/ und https://www.wola.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/border.png . In 2016 alone, over 400,000 unregistered persons were arrested at the US-Mexico border, about half of each with Mexican and non-Mexican citizenship.

Cf. Giorguli Saucedo et al., 2016 , p. 17; in the “National Occupational and Employment Survey” (ENOE) carried out by the Mexican Statistical Office, INEGI, the number of emigrants is estimated to be 3.6 per 1000 residential population (cf. http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently-requested-statistics-immigrants-and-immigration-united-states#Mexican ). On return migration from the USA to Mexico, (cf. Canales & Meza, 2016, p. 82f) and on the increase of emigration from Mexico to the USA (p. 85f).

Cf. http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently-requested-statistics-immigrants-and-immigration-united-states#Mexican and https://www.inegi.org.mx/default.html .

Cf. about the regulatory density, complexity and stringency of migration regimes (e.g. Beine et al., 2016 ; Helbling & Leblang, 2019 ).

For Germany this effect has been observed since 1973 after the end of the so-called guest worker programs for Turkey (cf. Schmuhl, 2003 , p. 524f); about Mexico-USA migration (cf. Massey, Pren, & Durand, 2014 , 2016 ; in general about the concept and restricted effects of circular migration, see Pries, 2016 ; for a different strategy dealing with irregular migration in Southern Europe, see Ambrosini, 2018 , p. 13f).

In this context, the McCarran Walter Act was passed in 1952, which declared it illegal “to harbor, transport or conceal illegal entrants, or directly or indirectly induce their entry to the US”, it introduced the first distinction between temporary labor migrants into trained (H-1 program) and untrained workers (H-2 program) (Trigueros, 2009 , p. 66).

Cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_and_Prosperity_Partnership_of_North_America .

From 1990 to 2017, civil employment in the USA increased (with short decreases in 2001 and 2008) from 120 to almost 154 million jobs; see Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2017 .

An alternative explanation could be that the strong Mexican export industry – especially in the NAFTA area of the USA and Canada – is very much based on the import of pre-products that are only ‘refined’ in Mexico through (inexpensive) wage labor (cf. Delgado Wise & Márquez Covarrubias, 2009 , p. 35f). According to this argument, the emigration of Mexican workers to the USA, e.g. for working in the automotive industry, is replaced by the import and re-entry of auto parts from the USA to job processing by cheap labor in Mexico (cf. Canales & Meza, 2016 , p. 89ff).

Vgl. https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=ACS_10_SF4_DP02&prodType=table .

In particular, the work of the Pew Research Center ( 2016 ) can be taken as sources, the regular surveys of deportees by the COLEF (El Colegio de la Frontera Norte, cf. http://www.colef.mx/emif/ ), the data of the American Community Survey ACS and the current Population Survey CPS.

Data provided by the US Department of the Interior (U.S. Census Bureau, 2012 ) do not differ much from those of the Pew Research Center ( 2016 ). Only for 1990 and 1995 estimates differ significantly.

The reported figures of the Pew Research Center and other sources are not directly comparable for different reasons (fiscal year versus calendar year, data source ENOE vs. U.S. Customs and Border Protection data, etc.).

cf. e.g. http://www.havocscope.com/black-market-prices/human-smuggling-fees/ ; https://www.unodc.org/documents/toc/Reports/TOCTASouthAmerica/English/TOCTA_CACaribb_migrantsmuggling_to_US.pdf ; http://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/smugglers-up-prices-due-to-immigration-policies/ .

Within the framework of the MMP, since 1987, each year, in accordance with theoretical criteria retrospective life and migration-oriented, representative surveys are carried out in selected municipalities and districts of major cities in Mexico (and in some cases also the USA; cf. http://mmp.opr.princeton.edu/research/studydesign-en.aspx ). This sampling strategy does not allow a simple time series analysis of all border crossings, therefore I took the year of the first migration trip to the USA as point of reference.

Calculating correlations and regressions between different variables, there are some interesting findings. For instance, the year of birth is not significantly correlated with the year of the first trip Mexico-USA; and the year of the first trip to the USA is not significantly correlated with the length of the first trip or with the total number of trips.

Some studies suggest that migrants’ money transfers initially have the effect of accentuating differences in income existing in the regions of origin, but then, in the case of massive migration, develop a more egalitarian effect in a second phase. Other studies came to exactly opposite conclusions; (cf. Massey et al., 1994 , p. 735). For an expanded understanding of social and political remittances, (cf. Goldring, 2003 ; Levitt & Lamba-Nieves, 2011 ).

The influence of targeted government funding programs for collective remittances cannot be addressed here. Cf. E.g. the programs “3 × 1 para migrantes”/SEDESOL (from 1992, cf. González Rodríguez, 2011 , p. 6), “Tu Vivienda en México”/SEDATU (from 2005, df. https://www.gob.mx/sre/prensa/lanzan-sedatu-y-cancilleria-programa-de-vivienda-para-migrantes ) and “Paisano, invierte en tu tierra”/SAGARPA (from 2010, cf. http://www.sagarpa.gob.mx/desarrolloRural/noticias/Paginas/B0132012.aspx ).

Whether the thesis of a long-term and irreversible reduction of Mexican irregular stays and border crossings to the USA (Giorguli Saucedo et al., 2016 ; Massey et al., 2009 , p. 124f) is valid cannot be discussed here; for impacts of migration policy, especially regularization on migrants’ identities see Menjívar & Lakhani 2016 .

The latter explicitly stands against methodological nationalism, which assumes nation-states as the natural analysis units for social phenomena, (cf. Wimmer & Glick Schiller, 2002 ).

Abbreviations

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Mexico to USA Migration Case Study

MIGRATION                                  GEORGE STANSFIELD

INTRODUCTION

Migration is the movement of people from one area to another, be it across the road, or to the other side of the earth. Everyday over 2000 Mexicans try and cross the 2000km border that spans between Mexico and the USA.  The immigrants walk for miles to try and illegally enter the country and for many it is a wasted journey as they are returned shortly after by the US border patrol police. The immigrants usually travel in groups of 10 and up, friends and families together as a large group.  To try and make the journey easier they will often travel lightly, meaning they carry no heavy, but vital, supplies such as food and water. This often leads to things such as dehydration and death as they cross the hot and dry border. Another way the immigrants will try and gain access is through human smugglers, whereby the immigrants will pay the smugglers large sums of money to smuggle them across the border. Once across the border it’s now a game of ‘hide and seek’ with the immigration officers. After crossing the border without being caught they will usually meet in some form of safe house, usually provided by the human smugglers. Once they are settled they will often rent houses in large groups so that can cut the costs dramatically and easily afford it. They can’t stay for long though as eventually they would be caught, so to keep their trail clean they move from house to house as not to alert the police.

WHY MIGRATE?

People migrate places for many different reasons be it for family or money ect. These reasons can be classified as 4 different categories; economic, social, political or environmental:

• Economic migration  - moving to find work or to follow a particular career path only available in such place
• Social Migration  - moving for a better quality of life or to live with or closer to family or friends
• Political Migration  - moving to escape/avoid political disputes, persecution or war.
• Environmental Migration - moving to escape natural disasters such as flooding

For the reasons above many people choose to migrate. For example migrants who move country to find work for money and food. Other migrants are forced during times of war and natural disaster.

This is a preview of the whole essay

Below is a map of the USA and Mexico. The map shows the movement of migrants as the cross the USA/Mexico border. The highest rates of migrants are found to be from the bordering states living in the USA’s bordering states. The arrows on the map point from where most Mexican migrants come from, and where they usually end up. They want the journey to be as quick as possible; they don’t travel far and often stay in the neighboring states.

Migrant Movement

Border between Mexico and the USA

PUSH AND PULL FACTORS

Just like everything in life there is always something that makes you want do something else. The same applies to the Mexican migrants and there are many ‘push and pull’ factors for why the Mexican migrants would want to migrate.

Push Factors

Push factors are the reasons why people are pushed away from and what to leave an area. There are many push factors for why migrants would want to leave their country and I have listed the most common below. They are all traits of an LEDC, where most migrants come for.

• Lack of services   - often a problem in LEDC’s where most migrants are from. Poor countries cannot afford to provide good quality services as MEDC’s do.
• Lack of safety - often a problem in LEDC’s, people cannot afford to pay for repairs and safety equipment ect and things go to ruin.
• High crime - often a problem in poorer countries as people cannot find work or don’t earn enough money to make ends meet, many people turn to crime.
• Crop failure - this isn’t just something you seen in poor countries but for a poor country it is a big loss and could be the final push someone needs to just get out of their old life.
• Drought - this often leads to crop failure and as I mentioned above this can be a big problem for someone relying on it to feed their family.
• Flooding - flooding is serious business and can cause masses of damage even destroying houses, losing your house could make you want to migrate to a better life.
• Poverty - nobody likes having no money, well imagine spending everyday barely making ends meet, you’d want change and quick.
• War - refuges often migrate to escape the terror and dangers of war as civilian casualties are often high in LEDC wars.

Pull Factors

Pull factors are the reasons why people want to and are pulled towards an area. There are many factors for why migrants would want to live in another country and I have listed the most common below. They are all traits of an MEDC, where most migrants migrate to.

• Higher employment  - as is often the case in MEDC’s there is much more jobs available with much higher wages.
• More wealth  - In MEDC’s people on average tend to have more money, due to the higher paid jobs.
• Better services  - More money means better services, things such as emergency personnel, education ect.
• Safer, less crime  - Places with more money tend to have less crime as people can afford to pay their way.
• Political stability  - Less chance of a political breakdown and wars breaking out.
• More fertile land  - less chance of losing crops and crops will be stronger and better than ever earring the farmer more money for his work.
• Lower risk of natural hazards  - natural disasters destroy just about everything from your home to your family. Moving away from them would be the best option.

IMPACTS OF MIGRATION

Immigration has both positive and its negative effects on the countries. The major problem that Mexico has with the immigration of its people to the USA is that the majority of migrants are young, without families. This means that old people are left behind in Mexico and this has no good effects on Mexico’s population. The older people cannot look after themselves or even boost the population for that matter. This is truer as in Mexico it’s usually the men who migrate leaving the women behind to look after their family whilst the men bring money in from a job in the USA. There is also the big problem with Mexico’s economy. The country is already very poor and with most people immigrating to America to find work there is no way money is every going to get back into Mexico’s economy. For this reason many people turn to the drugs business producing and exporting drugs to distribute across the USA. Although this brings money into the country its accounts for m any deaths across the country and is not taxed and therefore the government looses out again.

In the USA, Immigrants cost the country millions of us dollars a year. The money is spent on enforcing the border patrols and the migrants being held for deportation. The problem the USA have is that the Mexican’s take all of the low paid, labor intensive jobs and are very happy and grateful of the opportunity. Americans on the other hand are less for the idea and as the Mexicans become more popular racial attacks are often a big problem. For the USA though the Mexicans doing the low paid jobs is perfectly good for the economy, the work gets done at a low price, and the workers are enthusiastic, very great full of the opportunity they have gotten, what more could you ask for? Problems arise in America when immigrants start to gain sate benefits. With the migrants being illegal they’re not on record and hence are not accounted for the distribution of benefits, America could lose lots of money through benefit fraud.

WHAT IS THE USA DOING TO STOP ILLIGAL IMMIGRARTION?

One of the most important methods of stopping illegal immigration America uses is border patrol security. This method involves the border between Mexico and the USA being patrolled by security officers in order to try and stop any immigrants from illegally entering the country. The officers use many methods of enforcement and even have drones that can fly the border and spot any intruders. The officers are armed and will take down anybody trying to breach security, sounds harsh but essentially what the immigrants are doing is putting the countries security at risk by crossing the border as they cannot keep tabs on who is entering.

My opinion on Mexico-America immigration is slightly mixed. On one hand for America’s sake I think that more of an effort should be made to control immigration so as not ruin both Mexico’s and America’s economy. This will also stop Mexico’s population for dropping, which if it did drop would result in the economy of Mexico being even worse. As long as the immigration is controlled and not stopped then I am sure that the relationship will work and that America would benefit economically from it.

On the other hand though it doesn’t feel right not allowing the Mexicans access to America, because they’re immigrants. At the end of the day the USA was originally founded by immigrants from Europe, not to mention the fact that during the Mexico-US war, the USA ‘stole’ (some argue it was paid for) ; Texas, Arizona, new Mexico and California from Mexico. In my opinion they have every right to enter America as they will.

Teacher Reviews

Here's what a teacher thought of this essay.

Eleanor Wilson

A generally good essay looking at Mexico - USA migration. However in places it is very generalised and instead needs focus in specifically on Mexico and the USA. 4 stars

Peer Reviews

Here's what a star student thought of this essay.

Quality of writing

In terms of the different 'push and pull factors’; there was strong geographic terminology, such as 'political stability' and phrases to that nature. However, the rest of the case study did lack good geographical terminology, which showed a possible lack of good understanding of this case study and how it applies to human geography. Overall, spelling, grammar and punctuation were excellent.

Level of analysis

The analysis of the case study is good; however, it did lack depth in some places. The analysis was overall elevated by including immigration policies and how their change could potentially impact migration in different ways, which was excellent. There was not detail in the 'push and pull factors' of Mexican migration (as mentioned before), which showed that perhaps vital research was not done. The overall conclusion, entitled 'my opinion' was slightly vague; however, it did briefly cover some good points, for example, the economies of both USA and Mexico. The inclusion of the map was good; however, some US states could have been labelled, and then referred to in the analysis.

Response to question

The case study is about the migration of Mexicans to the USA. The response to this by the candidate is very good, especially as they have structured the case study clearly by the use of sub-headings. There is a good response to why they migrate, which is fundamental to the case study. Furthermore, the candidate goes into more detail than just 'push and pull factors', by stating different types of migration, e.g. environmental migration (on a more general scale). This conveys that the candidate has a good depth of back group knowledge. However, the candidate does not give specific push and pull factors for the Mexican migration.

Document Details

• Word Count 1638
• Page Count 5
• Subject Geography

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White House says it’s putting US first in face of Mexico's migrant demands

The White House on Thursday stressed that it is putting U.S. interests first when making policy decisions, emphasizing that it has a "constructive" relationship with Mexico after that country's president made a number of demands related to migration policy.

Lifting sanctions on Cuba and Venezuela, sending Latin American and Caribbean countries $20 billion in aid a year and granting legal status to Mexican illegal immigrants in the U.S. were among President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's demands of President Biden in exchange for the Mexican government doing more to halt the surge of migrants to the U.S. border.

López Obrador was asked about those demands by "60 Minutes" correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi this week.

MEXICAN PRESIDENT SAYS THE ‘FLOW OF MIGRANTS WILL CONTINUE’ UNLESS THE US MEETS HIS DEMANDS 

"If they don’t do the things that you’ve said need to be done, then what?" she asked. 

"The flow of migrants will continue," Obrador responded.

READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP

Elsewhere in the interview, he emphasized the positive relationship between Mexico and the U.S., describing it as "very important" and "fundamental." He also said Mexico does plan to slow down migration but wants the "root causes" of the crisis to be dealt with. He also said he would continue to try to secure his border even without those demands being met.

In response, a White House National Security Council spokesperson told Fox News Digital that Mexico is "an important partner on multiple areas" including dealing with migration, as well as drug traffickers and economic cooperation, while pointing toward the comments the Mexican leader made elsewhere in the interview.

"As President López Obrador noted in his interview with '60 Minutes' on Sunday, we mutually need each other. We are at a moment of incredible promise and consequence for the United States and Mexico with Mexico being our No. 1 trading partner. Last year, our bilateral trade hit a record $860 billion," the spokesperson said.

The spokesperson noted the Biden administration's strategy to address the migrant crisis, which has included tackling "root causes" of migration, while also developing lawful pathways to the U.S. for migrants and improving regional enforcement. The spokesperson also mentioned the Los Angeles Declaration for Migration and Protection, signed in 2022, in which countries committed to measures to reduce migration in the Western Hemisphere.

FORMER TOP ICE OFFICIAL SIDES WITH TEXAS GOV. ABBOTT OVER BIDEN IN ONGOING BORDER BATTLE 

The spokesperson also said López Obrador and President Biden "have a constructive relationship built on respect."

"President López Obrador has been a critically important partner to President Biden in developing a constructive bilateral approach to addressing issues of mutual interest, including migration and counternarcotics cooperation," the spokesperson said.

However, the White House also emphasized that national interest forms the basis of policy decisions.

"As President López Obrador said, both Mexico and the United States are sovereign countries. We can have frank, candid and respectful conversations, and, at the end of the day, our policy decisions are based on what is in the best interest of the United States," the spokesperson said.

HOW EAGLE PASS BECAME THE CENTERPIECE OF ABBOTT'S EFFORTS TO SECURE THE BORDER 

The Mexican president’s comments came a day before the president of Guatemala met with Vice President Kamala Harris at the White House to discuss cooperation on migration.

Immigration is looking to be a top issue in the November election, with both President Biden and former President Trump having visited the southern border with Mexico last month. Meanwhile, the Biden administration has been locked in a legal battle with the state of Texas over its efforts to secure the border.

Republicans have called on the administration to reinstate Trump-era policies, including the Remain in Mexico policy, which would keep migrants in Mexico until their asylum claims are completed. 

Original article source: White House says it’s putting US first in face of Mexico's migrant demands