US and Mexico that shows a few key cities, one showing how deprived some parts of Mexico are in comparison to others and one showing where most of the migrants from Mexico settle in the USA The map showing the deprivation of some parts of Mexico in comparison to others I believe is particularly interesting, as it is clear from it that, generally, parts of Mexico closer to the US are less deprived than others, and this might come in especially useful when thinking about what effect leaving Mexico has on the Mexicans left behind, as places closer to the border will probably have more people migrating to America. The cloropleth map shows that Mexicans move mainly to states closest to Mexico and those that are especially important of have an area designated or associated with Hispano-Americans.
A map of the world showing the locations of the USA and Mexico
A map showing some of the main cities in the USA and Mexico
A cloropleth map showing where Mexicans are moving to in the USA from Mexico
A map showing comparative deprivation between places in Mexico closer and further away from the Mexico-USA border
This is a great generalization, but it is a rough profile of the immigrants that I have built up from various sites.
Sex
In the port of entry, many women are . Historically, men have been a greater share of the crossers, to the extent that men are still a greater share of all would-be illegal crossers
Age
Most would-be illegal border crossers are between 26 and 45 years of age. Only 1% are over 45. These ages are consistent with the fact that most illegal border crossers are going to the US to work. Almost everyone in the Casa (the name often given to the ports of entry) (96%) and on the fence (illegal crossing points) is planning to work. In the San Ysidro Port of Entry, around 30% of illegal border crossers are returning residents and 30% are planning to seek work.
Marital Status
Would-be illegal border crossers on the fence are likely to be single. In the port of entry (legal crossing point), possibly reflecting the proportion of women, the share of married persons is higher.
Previous Occupation
Most illegal border crossers as operators, fabricators and labourers or in service occupations. This suggests that migrants come both from the urban and rural areas. However, 99% of the cities named by migrants when asked where they came from were large enough to be found easily on a map of Mexico in the World Atlas. Considering that rural areas are the poorest in Mexico, migrants coming to the US are not necessarily the very poorest people from Mexico.
However, there is evidence that the type of people migrating to America is constantly changing.
Historic trends in migration from Mexico to the US were altered in the 1970s and 1980s as more and more Mexican women went with their husbands and boyfriends to the US and brought their children with them, or journeyed on their own. Up until that time, Mexican migration had been primarily made up of young men. Wives, girlfriends, and children remained in Mexico while men worked seasonally in agriculture. Now, migrant women support the economy of their households through their labour at home running the household and taking care of their husbands or boyfriends and children. Mexico's National Population Council suggested in a July 2001 report that Mexican migrants bound for the US are becoming even more diverse in their destination and skill level than in the 1970s and 1980s. According to the NPC, only 93 of Mexico's 2,443 municipalities (the areas that Mexico is split up into) have sent no migrants to the US and that 57% of US-bound migrants in 2000 were from urban areas. One of the most surprising findings was that more than half of all Mexican-born adults in the US have high school diplomas or university degrees, and that 6% of Mexican college graduates had emigrated.
Many people are leaving Mexico to try and make new lives for themselves in the USA because of the many push factors in Mexico. One of these is unemployment. Mexico has quite a low unemployment rate, 2.6%, but there are two reasons for this. One is that Mexico calculates its unemployment rates differently to countries like the US and the UK, and another is that many of the workers in Mexico are in unstable, short-term jobs as opposed to longer term ones. These jobs also tend to be quite low-paid, and are often not enough to support a family with. There is a low standard of education; schools are often overcrowded and illiteracy rates can rise as high as 35% in various poor municipalities. Healthcare is not good; life expectancy, on average, is 5 years lower and child mortality 25/1000 higher than in the USA There is also evidence that Mexico’s economy is deteriorating. The peso has devalued by 50%, and many banks have shut. These increasing fears mean that many people are worried about the stability of their money in Mexico, and the fact that the peso is becoming worthless.
The USA has a great deal of pull factors, so many that it that many migrants emigrate to the US to pursue what has been labelled the ‘American Dream’. It is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, has great healthcare and education systems (60% of children can read by first grade, and infant mortality rates are low whilst life expectancy is high). It is considered a land of freedom and of good opportunities. Many Mexicans will know people who have already migrated to America, and stories about plentiful work and high standards of living mean that many Mexicans believe that their life in America would be much better than the life that they would lead back in Mexico. Many Mexican parents also think about their children, and the high standard of education that their children would receive. This is why there are increasing numbers of families crossing the border, as opposed to men who would leave their families in Mexico and send back money from their job in the USA to sustain them, as was the trend before the 1970s. It is this ‘American Dream’ that is making so many people so desperate to cross the border. Some will try again and again: ‘”I’ve tried to sneak over about six times, but it’s no good,” said Xico, 24, from the central Mexican state of Tlaxcala…The only consolation is that it is ultimately just as futile for the border guards. As Xico said: “I always tell them when they catch me, ‘I’ll be back’.”’ (Taken from the Independent, 19th March 2001.)
Many immigrants, especially illegal ones, have to take very menial jobs when they arrive in the USA. However, even when their wags sink below the minimum wage, it is still often many times the amount they would earn back in Mexico. For example, here is the story of Lourdes. For the three years since she illegally migrated to the US, Lourdes has been cleaning houses in San Diego. She earns $40 a day for her work, far more than what she earned as a primary school teacher in Mexico. She joins her wages with the higher, but more erratic, pay that her husband makes by painting houses. Some months she is able to add to the savings account she hopes will pay for college for her daughter. She says: ‘The advantage of cleaning is that no matter how bad times are, I have my job.’ This is evidence of a point made earlier on in the project, about that fact that jobs in Mexico, although more plentiful than many people would expect, are not often stable, and even permanent jobs like teaching ones can easily be lost should the school not be able to continue running because of lack of funding from the government, something that is becoming an increasingly frequent occurrence because of Mexico’s declining economy. Many women that enter the USA illegally end up having cleaning jobs. When the immigrant is young, live-in work as maids or nannies is especially popular because it means that the worker has a place to stay. Live-in work is an especially common first job for young undocumented migrant women like Teresa. She came to the US in 1990 with $50 in her pocket, hoping to earn money to send back to her mother and younger siblings in Mexico. She took a job as a nanny and housekeeper. She explains: ‘For the people that don’t have papers, like me, it’s the only job that they can find that will accept them.’ Wages for live-in work tend to be low: the average weekly pay is $135 for an average of 45 hours of work – $3.00 per hour, far below the Californian minimum wage of $5.75.
Live-out housekeeping, or ‘job work’, tends to pay better and can be done by women with their own children. Most workers earn on average $40 to $50 for the five to six hours they spend cleaning each house – above the minimum hourly wage, but the annual incomes of even the busiest domestic workers are below $10,000 (the US poverty level for a family of four is about $15,000). However, neither Teresa nor Lourdes regret their decision, the fact that they have enough to live on, and sometimes something to spare, is something which they would not have been able to experience back in Mexico. However, there is evidence that life is going to become harder for these people. Contrary to the demands made by Mexico to open the border- with headlines such as ‘Mexico seeks to open gate to the promised land’ (the Independent, 2001) it is becoming increasingly clear that many Americans do not know about the ways in which immigrants are benefiting their country. In 1994 California captured national attention when it passed a voter referendum, Proposition 187, which would prohibit state and local governments from providing public education and emergency health care to illegal migrants. Two years later President Clinton’s welfare-reform bill cut many forms of aid to legal migrants. Both Proposition 187 and cuts in federal aid to legal immigrants have since been overturned following long legal battles.
In June 1998, California voters again expressed their concerns about government services aimed at migrant families. This time the issue was bilingual education; 62% of Californian voters approved Proposition 227, which will effectively eliminate bilingual instruction in California public schools. Most women who employ housekeepers believe that migrant workers should be allowed into the US, since there is a demand for their services. Yet many also think that migrants should not have rights to social services. This hypocrisy arises because some Americans do not seem to view migrants from Mexico and other Central American countries as people wanting to make a better living for themselves, but as another commodity that many Americans do not seem to be able to do without. They believe something which has traditionally been considered as true, but something which all evidence defeats. They believe that many migrants are taking more out of American society than they are putting in, something which the long hours at low wages that many Mexicans do, in jobs which many Americans would refuse to do; but jobs that in many cases are essential to the smooth-running of a country, defeats.
As the map showing the comparative deprivation of some areas of Mexico in comparison to others shows, quality of live closer to the border is higher than that in areas further away from it. This is because of two reasons. One is the fact that people are more likely to migrate if they live closer to the border. In many cases, this will mean that they will send money back to their relatives left behind in Mexico, which will mean that the Mexicans left behind will have abetter standard of living. The other reason is that there is often profit to be made by illegal smuggling across the border, both of people and of objects. These two factors will tend to create differences between areas close to the border and others further away from it. However, migration has both positive and negative effects on Mexico. Although the trend is changing, and many more families are migrating together to the US, it is still principally young men that do so. This means that:
- There are fewer young males, jobs are done by women and older men.
- Local birth rates may fall because many men are absent.
- Family and community ties are weakened - many families without fathers/sons/brothers.
Some people could consider the first two effects in that list to be negative, but they are not always necessarily so, less working men will guarantee more jobs and lower birth rates can mean a higher standard of living and no risk of over-population. The third effect is not good, but considering the amount of positive effects that migration has on those left behind, I do not think that it has a negative effect on Mexico overall. However, many people disagree, saying that for a country to develop and strengthen it needs a large working population, something which the second effect denies and which is also affected by the fact that most people that migrate are of that age.
I believe it is a great issue that Americans do not know themselves what the effects of Mexican migrants in the US are. Because of this, there are conflicting views, with many Americans having a hypocritical view on migrants, disagreeing with efforts to admit more in, wanting to deny them rights if they do, and yet employing them- ‘”The cruel irony is that American companies are asking for Mexicans.”’ (Mr Dillon, Independent, 2001.) This view leads to comments such as these, coming mainly from middle-class Americans: "Our schools are being impacted, our taxes are up, our property values are down and
health care is being overburdened." Two years ago, two white men shouted, "Go back to Mexico!" to a group of Latino poultry workers at a convenience store north of Turner, then took off in high-speed pursuit of the fleeing Mexicans, firing shots at their vehicle. One of the workers was hit but recovered. The assailants were caught and convicted in 1995 of federal civil rights violations. However, the evidence all points towards the fact that the USA is now dependant on these people, and would not be able to function smoothly without them. America has an ageing population, which means that soon there will be a great demand for people to take up indispensable but often underpaid jobs as carers, nurses or cleaners. It also means that there is going to be a relatively small working population, which can pose a large problem. Immigrants fill this age gap that can often arise in even, and especially, the most developed countries, and make sure that a country has all the workers it needs. Here are the main effects that immigrants are currently causing in the USA:
- Higher than average proportion of young males in some parts of south west USA.
- Conflict between migrants and locals - Mexican are perceived to be 'taking jobs from Americans' although most of the work is low paid and menial which few Americans want to do.
- Large suburbs of certain cities are mainly Hispanic - this means local councils must be bilingual in order to operate effectively.
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Immigration service is put under great strain and expensive to run because of the high number of illegal immigrants.
Although not all of these effects are positive, the USA will not be able to support itself without the aid of these people in the future.
Here is a typical story of Americans and there experience of immigrants. Rachel, a physician, has been paying for housekeeping for as long as she can remember. Even with a weekly cleaner, meeting the needs of her two children, her husband, and her demanding career stretches her to the limit. She readily admits that without paid help, her household would be a complete disaster: ‘I think that women who work and then have to do 100 per cent of the cooking and cleaning and laundry and shopping, I think that’s terrible... Men don’t feel it at all. They don’t even think about it.’
In San Diego and other cities in south-western US, the business of migrant domestic workers is booming. In a recent survey 14% of San Diego households report employing someone to clean their house or to care for young children or elderly family members. Most employ Mexican women. Some are undocumented, not legally able to work in the US. Others are ‘resident aliens’ who discover domestic work pays more money and offers more flexibility than other kinds of jobs they can get.
The migrants know that Americans benefit from the cheap labour of migrant women: ‘Most Americans like it that we immigrants do housework. I have met Americans with this job and they demand their rights... In a certain sense our bosses exploit us, because they know that for very little money they can demand a lot because people need the job.’ While she is appreciative of how hard her housekeeper works, Rachel is critical of migrant women who use government services in the US: ‘Certainly the Mexicans that come over are doing work that probably no one else wants to do... But I remember as a medical intern we would have Mexicans come over to deliver their babies in the US. You know I feel a lot of personal empathy for them, but it’s something that our government can’t afford.’
Other people benefiting include the border patrol workers, thousands of people employed to stop the constant flow of illegal immigrants. This is beneficial to those people receiving the jobs and their families, but no to the US government that has to pay for it, or for those that pay higher taxes because of it. However, there are so many people employed doing this (see introduction) that the job losses involved if they were no longer needed would be very high. However, this is not likely to occur, as the flow of immigrants is so high!
There are many plans and predictions for the future, but the only real way that this problem can be tackled without either country losing out would be to strike a deal between the USA and Mexico. Migration between the two countries should be a) mutually beneficial, b) safe, legal, orderly, and predictable and c) that, over the long term, it should naturally decrease and stabilize at moderate levels. Such a deal should consist of the following components:
- Improve the treatment of Mexican migrants by making legal visas
and legal status more widely available. Make legal status available to unauthorized Mexicans who are established and working. This is called an amnesty. Legalization measures enable employers to enjoy a more stable workforce, families to remain united, and, over time, immigrants to fully incorporate into and participate in their communities.
- Future flows of migrants should be channelled through legal streams
by there being more permanent visas and by making legal work visas more widely available. Any legalization measures or increase in visas that are eventually adopted will not necessarily result in an increase in immigration to the U.S. but such measures would bring the immigration that has occurred into a legal framework.
- Help to reduce unauthorized migration by cooperatively cracking
down on criminal smuggling organizations and saving lives by preventing dangerous border crossings. Showing progress on breaking up smuggling rings will build confidence and trust between partners.
- Develop initiatives to deal with areas with especially high migration
and strengthen the Mexican economy, thus gradually reducing emigration. Development efforts targeting regions of high migration from Mexico will, over time, encourage Mexicans to remain at home and contribute to the well-being of their nation. Any development effort will be greatly enhanced by making legal status for Mexicans in the United States more widely available.
If this innovative and comprehensive approach works, it could serve not only to help the US maintain that which it receives from the work of the immigrants, but would also serve to strengthen Mexico’s economy and to reduce is so that it would no longer be a problem.
The issue of Mexican migrants is not one that is going to end or diminish in the foreseeable future, and the USA is not going to stop viewing it as a major problem. However, the USA does not seem to realise that if they tried to resolve the problem by viewing Mexican immigrants not as a burden but as an opportunity for more labour and a way to target their ageing population; and by collaborating with Mexico to develop strategies and initiatives to combat immigration in a long-term way, maybe by aiding Mexico’s economy and providing incentives for Mexicans to remain in Mexico, they would probably find a solution that would benefit both countries. Instead, it is spending a huge amount of money on trying to stop immigrants from crossing the border, which is only a short-term solution.
Also, American to not seem to realise that the immigrants that many people wish they could be rid of, but are employing in their homes and workplaces for menial jobs, are now an essential part of the American economy, and the US could not function smoothly as a country without them. Life for Mexicans when they settle in the USA is often of a much lower standard of living than for most Americans, and many immigrants lie below the USA poverty line, but it is still a life that, for many of the migrants, is much better than the life that they used to lead back in Mexico. They also hope to provide a better start for their children, who will receive a better education and hopefully go on to have a better career and a higher standard of living when they grow up than their parents did. The fact that many people are leaving Mexico is also aiding those left behind, they have more job opportunities and they generally have a better standard of living because many people that emigrate to America send back money to their relatives in Mexico.
To write this project I used a variety of sources. These are the main websites that I used:
- www.oneworld.org/ni/issue305/maid.htm
- burn.ucsd.edu/archives/raza/1998.01/msg00000.html
- http://www.ins.gov/graphics/aboutins/statistics/msrdec01/SWBORD.IITM
- www.stpetershigh.stoke.sch.uk/departments/geography/gcse%20at%20st%20peter's/ p+ptl.htm
I also used the sheets given in class with articles from various newspapers including:
- The Detroit News
- The Independent
And other sheets with maps printed on them, also geography book ‘Connections’.
Introduction: pg.
Reasons for Migration ------------------------------------------------------------ 1
The History of the Problem ------------------------------------------------------ 2
The Differences Between Mexico and the USA --------------------------------- 3
Maps of the USA and Mexico and What they Show -------------------------- 4
Who are the Mexican Migrants? ------------------------------------------------ 9
Why are People Leaving Mexico? ----------------------------------------------- 10
What is attracting Mexicans to the USA? -------------------------------------- 11
What Effect Does this Have on Mexicans in the USA? ------------------------ 12
What Effect Does this Have on Mexicans Left Behind in Mexico? ----------- 15
What Effect Does this Have on Americans in the USA? ---------------------- 16
What Might Happen in the Future? ------------------------------------------- 18
Conclusion ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 19
Bibliography ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 20
