Feb 12, 2012
Immigration
- The United States found it natural to turn to Mexico for cheap agricultural labor in 1942, during World War II, under the legal framework of the Bracero Program. The United States then found it convenient, at its initiative, to terminate the program in 1964 with the expectation that most of these temporary workers would return to Mexico—and, of course, many did not.
- Many Mexicans find it natural to this day to find higher-paying jobs in the United States than at home. These jobs remain available as some U.S. employers hire unauthorized Mexican workers to cover their labor costs for the lowest possible expense. Thus, the U.S. government from time to time tries to stop the inflow, but U.S. legislation defining “illegal” immigration has little influence on the behavior of individual Mexicans.
- Mexico still relies on its nationals emigrating to the United States to ease the burden of insufficient job-creation at home, and a sense of dependency will continue until Mexico finds no need to export its young people as a social escape valve.
- Getting rid of this reliance on emigration will not happen until necessary structural changes are put in place to stimulate higher Mexican economic growth, such as a more comprehensive and efficient educational structure, labor reform to encourage formal rather than informal employment, and a tax structure that permits the government to fund its outlays from its own resources.
