From the San Francisco Chronicle:
The current migration of Mexicans and Central Americans to the United States is one of the largest diasporas in modern history, experts say.
Roughly 10% of Mexico's population of about 107 million is now living in the United States, estimates show.
About 15% of Mexico's labor force is working in the United States.
One in every seven Mexican workers migrates to the United States.
Cultural ties: Mass migration from Mexico began more than a century ago. It is deeply embedded in the history, culture and economies of both nations.
The current wave began with Mexico's economic crisis in 1982, accelerated sharply in the 1990s with the U.S. economic boom, and today has reached record dimensions.
[. . .]
Three-quarters of the estimated 12 million illegal migrants in the United States come from Mexico and Central America. Mexicans make up 56 percent of the unauthorized U.S. migrant population, according to the Pew Hispanic Center. Another 22 percent come from elsewhere in Latin America, mainly Central America and the Andean countries. These same countries send many of the half-million new illegal immigrants who arrive each year.
Migration is profoundly altering Mexico and Central America. Entire rural communities are nearly bereft of working-age men. The town of Tendeparacua, in the Mexican state of Michoacan, had 6,000 residents in 1985, and now has 600, according to news reports. In five Mexican states, the money migrants send home exceeds locally generated income, one study found.
Last year, Mexico received a record $20 billion in remittances from migrant workers. That is equal to Mexico's 2004 income from oil exports and dwarfing tourism revenue.
Arriving in small monthly transfers of $100 and $200, remittances have formed a vast river of "migra-dollars" that now exceeds lending by multilateral development agencies and foreign direct investment combined, according to the Inter-American Development Bank.
It sounds as if the U.S., Mexico and Central America are in fact one inseparable economic unit. If Mexico is as dependent upon the U.S. as the Chronicle suggests, it is even more important that we regain control of the border.
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Comments: 7
SEROUSLY, has any USA poitical group ever investiagated the possibility of asking Mexico to become a couple of legitimate States of the United States. I have no info. Do you -- either of you?
Dick
Richard, did you know that in addition to all the Mexican citizens here in the U.S. that 40% of those employed in Mexico are employed at U.S. owned companies.
And yet, today the President of Mexico is here begging for legal status and pay for illegal immigrants. If thirty years ago someone had written a novel with these ideas, it would have received deeper ridicule than the religious conservatives give "The Davinci Code."
I would bet my last dime, The Mexican Army would meet them at the border and not allow them to come home.
How's THIS for a future scenario: much improved WORLDWIDE COMMUNICATIONS take hold and many, many residents of many, many countries decide that the USA is a great place to work in, live in, and thrive in. AND these immigrants then decide to emigrate to the USA. How can it be stopped? With laws? Guns? Anger?
Walls will NOT do the job! Low flying hovering aircraft reporting the news of such movements back to some headquarters will NOT do the job! Helping via creative veture capital methods abroad, etc., etc, that raise prospects where they live now MAY do the job. Rising 'standards of living' quickly, ALL over the WORLD by use of technica, financial, investment help based on TRUE friendship WILL do the job -- EVENTUALLY. We need legislators and executives in OUR government who 'get it'.
Dick