Immigration Shaping America - Population Reference Bureau

Figure 6
Mexico-U.S. Migration With and Without NAFTA
Number of migrants
34
Without NAFTA
With NAFTA
1994 2000 2005 2010 2015
In 1995, Mexico suffered its worstever
recession, losing about 10 percent
of formal-sector jobs. The United
States provided financial assistance to
stabilize the Mexican economy and, as
President Bill Clinton said, “to better
protect our borders.” Mexico recovered
from the crisis, but wages are still
below 1993 levels. During the late
1990s, Mexico-U.S. migration continued—even
accelerated—despite economic
and job growth in Mexico. This
continued migration gave rise to the
theory that “cumulative causation”
had established such strong networks
linking Mexican villagers and U.S.
jobs that neither U.S. border controls
nor sanctions on U.S. employers who
hired illegal workers would stop
migrants. 59 Cumulative causation
explains how a migration flow, once
set in motion, can assume a life of its
own, much as a snowball rolling down
a hill gathers speed and size, so that
migration can beget more migration if
underlying demand and supply factors
do not change.
In 1990, the U.S. Commission for
the Study of International Migration
and Cooperative Economic Development
explained how freer trade and
economic integration was the best
long-term way to unwanted migration:
“Expanded trade between the sending
countries and the United States is
the single most important remedy”
for such migration. 60 But the Commission
also warned that the same
policies that accelerate economic and
job growth in Mexico may also temporarily
increase Mexico-U.S. migration.
That increase came to be known
as the “migration hump,” as shown in
Figure 6.
The Mexico-U.S. migration hump
was anticipated by those familiar with
Mexican and U.S. agriculture. 61 About
35 percent of Mexicans lived in rural
areas and were dependent on agriculture
for most of their earnings in the
early 1990s; such farmers received subsidized
water and other inputs and
could sell their corn to the government
for about twice the world price.
Since Iowa produces about twice as
much corn as Mexico at about half
the price, NAFTA was expected to displace
millions of Mexican corn farmers,
who were expected to switch to
growing tomatoes and other laborintensive
crops for export to the
United States. But growing fruits and
vegetables requires capital, skills, and
access to markets that most independent
Mexican farmers did not have.
Instead of expanding in Mexico,
labor-intensive agriculture expanded
in California and elsewhere in the
United States in the 1990s, creating a
demand for Mexican workers north
of the border.
North American agricultural integration
produced a migration hump
in the 1990s, but Mexico-U.S. migration
should eventually fall as Mexico
expands its exports, especially as
Mexican farmers produce more
labor-intensive crops. Mexico’s production
of labor-intensive products
might increase faster if the United
States enforced laws that prevent U.S.
employers from hiring unauthorized
Mexican workers. And just as Mexican
workers can produce food in
Mexico for export to the United
States, they can pack meat, process
poultry, make shoes, and sew clothes
for export rather than moving to the
United States to do these things.
Guacamole, for example, is increasingly
made in Mexico and exported,
rather than made in restaurant
kitchens in the United States.