Now, the Other Side of Immigration : Our Policy’s Success Depends on Improved Life in Homelands

The United States has just completed a historic and highly successful drive to legalize much of its illegal-immigrant population. By the May 4 application deadline, more than 2 million immigrants (including agricultural workers, whose deadline is not until November) had applied for legalization under the amnesty provision of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. The debate over how many undocumented immigrants remain in the country, how generous the legislation was in the first place and how effectively the amnesty program was managed will be with us for years. Now is a good time to ask why so many law-abiding citizens from abroad, especially from Mexico and other countries of the Western Hemisphere, have systematically violated our immigration laws for years, and why so many still choose to live the precarious existence of the undocumented alien.

The employer-sanctions provisions of the immigration law make hiring undocumented aliens illegal. This is intended to reduce the illegal-alien population by eliminating the “pull” factor in the migration equation. While this approach may or may not be effective over time, it does not address the obverse of the “pull” factor: the “push” from the other side.

The answer lies largely in the socio-economics--the underdevelopment and often political instability--of countries from which people emigrate. These conditions contrast sharply with the prosperity and stability of the United States, and with what generations of immigrants have been able to achieve here.

It has been frequently pointed out that emigration, particularly from Mexico, helps to defuse latent social tensions in the home countries, providing an alternative to limited earnings and perennial unemployment for workers not protected by generous social safety nets. With wages earned here, immigrants, including temporary ones, help to support families back home. Their remittances are significant sources of foreign exchange for Mexico and other countries. Curtailing immigration will undoubtedly cause severe economic hardships in many migrant households, and affect adversely the national economies of some of the smaller nations most heavily dependent on population overflows.

One of the key components of the new immigration law was the establishment of the Commission for the Study of International Migration and Cooperative Economic Development. The commission was charged with examining--”in consultation with the governments of Mexico and other sending countries in the Western Hemisphere”--the conditions that “contribute to unauthorized migration to the United States,” and with developing proposals concerning “mutually beneficial, reciprocal trade and investment programs to alleviate such conditions.” The commission’s mandate is unique. It represents the first official inquiry by the United States into the linkage between the determinants of illegal immigration and the state of economic development of areas from which people migrate.

Helping the economies of “sending countries” is the best long-term antidote to migratory pressures. Strong economies south of the border would contribute to stable societies and friendly nations. Promoting economic well-being is not an easy matter, however. Several decades of significant progress have been severely eroded by the global economic malaise of the post-OPEC era. Massive foreign debts and depressed prices for traditional export commodities continue to burden the economies of our neighbors.

From the migration perspective, the relationship between economic growth and population overflow is even more complicated. At the outset, the development process may promote rather than hinder emigration. A better-educated population is more acquainted with conditions elsewhere, and may have more resources with which to emigrate and more skills desired abroad.

The promotion of social and economic development as an alternative to migration is also characterized by ironic twists and Catch-22 situations. One of the main competitive advantages that “sending” societies have in the international economy today is their low wages in relation to those earned by workers in more prosperous nations. If the wage-rate differential--one of the main determinants of undocumented migration--were to be substantially reduced, such countries would lose this comparative advantage.

In Mexico, for example, the growth of employment in the border-area maquiladora (twin-plant) industry has been fueled largely by relatively low wages. If these wages were to rise appreciably, the major multinational corporations would move their operations elsewhere, and the employment consequences would be felt immediately. This is only one of the many obstacles to development as an alternative to migration. The only long-term solution is sustainable economic growth.

The commission is charged with trying to tread its way through this labyrinth. It has devised a significant research program to acquire data here and in other countries, it has been consulting with foreign governments and it has begun a series of hearings in the United States. With the cooperation of experts and institutions over the next two years, the commission hopes to develop practical and feasible measures to recommend to the President and to Congress. The goal: to deal with the basic human drive of people everywhere to seek out opportunities that guarantee not only survival but improved lives as well.