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42 Chapter 3 Mexico and Unauthorized Migration U p to this point we have considered the general phenomenon of international migration to the United States, noting the several kinds of flows that make up this migration, theories as to why such flows occur, and the economic and labor market contexts within which they have taken place. Often, analyses of immigration to the United States that are intended to shed light on immigration -related policy issues tend to treat immigration as a single phenomenon (see, for example, Borjas 1999). There are three major problems with such approaches. First, migrants from different origin countries are viewed as similar in terms of their reasons for migrating and the receptions they receive when they arrive in the United States. This may accord with desires to address immigration issues and potential policy reforms in universalistic terms, but the “one size fits all” approach fails to account for the fact that over the past thirty years immigrants to the United States from certain countries, especially Mexico, differ in important ways from immigrants from other countries (Suárez-Orozco 1998). The major feature that differentiates Mexicans from other immigrants is that so many of them are unauthorized low-skilled labor migrants. This carries significant implications , as we note below. The second problem with viewing immigration as one homogeneous , generic phenomenon is that it tends to overlook the fact that the volume of Mexican migration to the United States over the past thirty years has vastly exceeded that coming from any other source country. This was especially true for the decade from 1991 to 2000, during which Mexico accounted for 24.7 percent of all legal entrants to the United States; in this period, the Philippines, in second place, accounted for only 5.6 percent. A third and related problem is that those who take the generic Mexico and Unauthorized Migration 43 view tend to ignore unauthorized migration, which is also mainly Mexican in origin. Many analysts estimate that Mexicans constitute an even greater presence among unauthorized migrants than among legal migrants (about 55 percent of all migrants versus about 7 percent for the next largest group, El Salvadorans) (U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service 1999; Passel 1999). In sum, to speak of immigration without making a distinction between legal and unauthorized migration is to oversimplify substantially the reality of the U.S. immigration picture; and it is not possible to take unauthorized migration into account without paying special attention to the Mexican case. These considerations lead us to devote an entire chapter to Mexico and Mexican migration. We do not intend in so doing to minimize the significance of immigration from other countries of origin. Rather, we simply bow to the reality that at this point in U.S. history Mexican migration is relatively large and is different in kind from other migration flows. Moreover, the U.S. and Mexican economies are so interdependent and the fates of the two countries so intertwined that Mexican immigration requires not only separate analysis but also perhaps exceptional treatment in immigration policy. We thus give it extra attention at this point, reviewing the history of Mexican emigration and its relationship to U.S. policy, its contribution to the evolution of the United States’ Mexican-origin population, and the nature and size of the unauthorized Mexican migrant population in the United States. Mexican Emigration and U.S. Policy Mexican migration is important for U.S.–Mexico relations but the direction these relations will take in the future is uncertain (Weintraub 1997b). Whether the two countries continue to become more cooperative and to emphasize their increased integration or become more negative and promote further separation has the potential to affect myriad aspects of social and economic life in both countries. The rising importance of Mexico to the United States is reflected in the publication of a raft of books during the 1990s on Mexico and Mexican migration (see Bean et al. 1997; Oppenheimer 1995; Castañeda 1995; Fuentes 1996). It is also illustrated by the high priority the Democratic Clinton administration gave in 1993 to the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), an initiative begun in the first Bush administration, and by the loan-guarantee package put together by the Clinton administration to assist the Mexican government through the economic difficulties created by the peso devaluation of December 1994. As Andres Oppenheimer (1995, xi) noted: “No single country in the post–Cold War era affects the U.S. national...

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