New Report Sketches Road Map for New Binational Policy Approach to Immigration Beteen the United States and Mexico

The U.S.-Mexico migration corridor, which is the world’s largest, has undergone a vast and often under-appreciated transformation in the past decade. Illegal immigration of Mexicans has declined sharply. Most Mexicans moving to the United States now do so legally and with higher human capital than in the past. And an increasing number of Americans live south of the border, even as the Mexican population in the United States declines.

Yet as the migration landscape across the region has evolved, with Central American immigration to the United States now the dominant feature and Mexico increasingly a migrant-destination country, migration policy has not always kept pace—even as both countries face surprisingly similar challenges.

While the current political moment might not seem ideal for real cooperation between the two governments amid deep tensions over U.S. enforcement and asylum policy and threats of U.S. tariffs on Mexican goods, the two countries are converging in terms of real challenges and opportunities on migration. As a result, this is an opportune moment to visualize a different type of binational policy that could reflect the real complementarity that exists between the two countries, setting the stage for its later implementation.

A new report from the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) and El Colegio de México (COLMEX), Investing in the Neighborhood: Changing Mexico-U.S. Migration Patterns and Opportunities for Sustainable Cooperation, draws from discussions of an influential study group convened by both institutions to sketch a forward-looking policy road map. It also offers a detailed, data-rich look at shifting migration patterns and demographics.

KJ