Immigration Shaping America - Population Reference Bureau

Figure 5
The Long-Term Fiscal Impact of One Immigrant: 1996
Amount in U.S. dollars (thousands)
Not high
school graduate
32
-$89
Immigrant
Descendents
Total effect
$76
High school
graduate
-$13 -$30
$82
$51
More than
high school
$105
$93
$198
All immigrants
-$3
$83 $80
Source: J.P. Smith and B. Edmonston, eds., The New Americans: Economic, Demographic,
and Fiscal Effects of Immigration (1997): table 7-5.
the United States by the Treaty of
Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended a
war that began when American settlers
moved into Mexican territory and
rebelled. The relatively few Mexican
residents of what is now the southwestern
United States became Americans,
but there was little population growth
until the early 20th century.
A permanent migration stream
between Mexico and the United
States was created in 1917, when the
U.S. government approved the first
of two bracero programs that allowed
recruitment of Mexicans to work in
the United States, primarily on farms.
Both bracero programs were strongly
opposed by U.S. unions and church
groups concerned about U.S. workers,
but farmers justified the program
by arguing that the world wars had
created an emergency situation.
During the second bracero program,
which lasted from 1942 to 1964,
between 1 million and 2 million Mexicans
gained work experience in the
United States. Millions of others
came illegally but eventually gained
legal status. Unauthorized Mexicans
found inside the United States were
taken to the border, issued work permits,
and returned to the farms on
which they were found.
Under the 1942 agreement with
Mexico, U.S. employers had to pay
the cost of transporting braceros from
their place of recruitment in Mexico
to U.S. farms. Mexicans soon learned
that they could improve their chances
of being selected by moving close to
the U.S. border. When the bracero program
was stopped in 1964 as a way to
improve wages and opportunities for
Mexican Americans, there were hundreds
of thousands of braceros and
their families living in Mexican-U.S.
border cities. To provide the workers
with jobs, Mexico and the United
States modified their trade laws to
allow the creation of maquiladoras,
factories in Mexico that import
components, assemble them into finished
goods such as televisions, and
then re-export the products to the
United States. The maquiladoras never
provided many jobs for ex-bracero
workers—virtually all braceros were
men, and the maquiladoras hired
mostly women—but the new factories
drew even more Mexicans to the
border area.
There was relatively little illegal
Mexico-U.S. migration during the
1960s and early 1970s, which was
one reason why activist Cesar Chavez
and the United Farm Workers union
could win contracts with California
farmers for better wages and benefits
for farm workers. The flow quickened
after 1976 because of higher
U.S. wages and a devaluation of the
Mexican peso. By 1980, an estimated
1 million undocumented Mexicans
were living in the United States. 57
The Mexican economic crash of
1982 and the ensuing devaluation
of the peso fueled more emigration.
U.S. farmers and other employers
turned to labor contractors to assemble
crews of Mexican workers to harvest
crops, clean buildings, and work
in construction jobs for low wages.
Employers who hired unauthorized
workers faced few consequences,