Key to Immigration Reform: Economic Development in Mexico

President Obama’s recent speech on the need for immigration reform missed an essential element for reducing undocumented immigration: economic development in Mexico. The President’s detailed message spoke of the “two poles” of the debate between those who advocate for legalization of the hardworking undocumented immigrants and others who advocate a round-them-up-and-deport approach. The President’s balanced tone spoke of the need to make undocumented immigrants accountable for violating immigration laws and enforcing laws against employers who rely on those workers, while working to make the border more secure.

The emphasis on employer sanctions and border enforcement ignores a basic question. Why are Mexican workers willing to pay hundreds of dollars to smugglers to cram into vans or to risk life and limb by crossing the border in treacherous mountain or desert terrain? Saying that they do so for a better life, begs the more important question—why isn’t that better life available in Mexico? Last Fall, former Mexican president, Vicente Fox, reminded us in a speech of his own in New Mexico: the economy in Mexico is in shambles, and Mexican migration will continue no matter how much money is invested into border enforcement and erecting walls. The answer to undocumented Mexican migration is in investment and job development in Mexico, not erecting fences.

President Obama has made a commitment to tackle immigration reform, and that’s good news for the roughly 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States. However, if the package does not include at least the first steps toward helping Mexico improve its economy and infrastructure, undocumented Mexican migration will not be solved permanently. When comprehensive immigration reform legislation is introduced, the package no doubt will include much-needed proposals for increased family and employment-based visas. Expanding those categories is necessary and will help reduce the pressure that leads to unauthorized border crossings. But reducing the substantial flow across the southern border permanently will require the expansion of the economy and job growth in Mexico so that more Mexicans will be able to stay home.

In 1994, we were told that NAFTA would solve the undocumented problem because jobs would be created in Mexico. But NAFTA contributed to huge job losses in Mexico. Mexican corn farmers could not compete with heavily-subsidized U.S. corn farmers, and now Mexico imports most of its corn from the United States. Because of globalization,100,000 jobs in Mexico’s domestic manufacturing sector were lost in the last ten years.

Where do those out-of-work farm workers and manufacturing employees look for work? El Norte.

When the European Union experienced its own push to expand its ranks to include poorer nations, member countries faced similar concerns. Because EU membership includes the right to open labor migration for all nationals of EU countries, the wealthier countries worried that as soon as membership was granted, there would a flood of workers from poorer nations into the wealthier ones. Beginning with the 1973 EU enlargement to include Denmark, Ireland, and the United Kingdom, the British insisted on an approach to aid poorer regions. When Greece (1981), and Portugal and Spain (1986) were added, all three nations, as well as Ireland, received infusions of capital and assistance with institutional planning.

The approach worked. Their economies transformed, Ireland, Portugal, and Spain, who were all emigrant-sending nations prior to EU membership, now are net immigrant-receiving nations. Today, only 2 percent of EU citizens look for work in other EU countries.

Likewise, the United States needs to consider the EU model and include investment – with close monitoring of that investment – in Mexico as part of comprehensive immigration reform. Reducing undocumented migration is in Mexico’s interest as well; the persistent loss of able-bodied workers needed to build its infrastructure and economy cannot be good for Mexico. Mexican workers who come to the U.S. are ambitious and hardworking; Mexico needs them to develop, but can’t put them to work without better infrastructure and investment.

Ironically, when he was running for the presidency, candidate Obama understood that to “reduce illegal immigration, we also have to help Mexico develop its own economy, so that more Mexicans can live their dreams south of the border.” I wish he had remembered that understanding earlier this week, because that’s what we need for a permanent resolution of the undocumented migration challenge.

[For more, see Ethical Borders: NAFTA, Globalization and Mexican Migration (Temple Univ. Press 2010)]

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