Migrants From Mexico Still Coming--and Staying

The 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act is not deterring the arrival of new migrants from Mexico and Central America, according to evidence from both sides of the border. The UC San Diego Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies conducted a year of detailed field interviews in three Southern California counties, including 100 employers, more than 420 workers and 150 recently arrived, undocumented immigrants. Meanwhile, Immigration and Naturalization Service apprehension statistics and systematic observation of illegal entrants by researchers at El Colegio de la Frontera Norte in Tijuana support our findings.

Last month, center representatives visited three Mexican communities that have traditionally sent large numbers of migrant workers to the United States. They were virtual ghost towns. Residents reported more migration to the United States in 1988 than in any previous year. The initial period of fear, uncertainty and confusion about the 1986 law has ended.

Those who delayed migration during 1987 are now coming, having observed that work is still available in the United States--even for new arrivals lacking papers. There have been no mass layoffs of undocumented workers by employers, and no mass roundups and deportations by the INS. These facts are now common knowledge in the communities from which migrants come.

Of the recently arrived undocumented migrants we interviewed--mostly at street corners and public parks--nearly two-thirds were in the United States for the first time. Half of them knew about the employer sanctions provision of the 1986 Simpson-Rodino law. Many of them were having a difficult time finding regular, permanent jobs. They were relying on casual day-labor to survive, but they were not deterred by the new law .

More than half the recent arrivals had come from parts of Mexico that are not traditional sending areas, including Mexico City; in fact, 20% of them came from the Mexico City metropolitan area. The traditional points of origin haven’t dropped out of the flow, but new sending areas are being added as Mexico’s economic crisis continues. Many rural Mexicans would once have migrated to cities within their own country but the crisis has largely eliminated the internal option.

Yet the law does seem to be deterring undocumented workers already employed from returning to their places of origin. The employer-sanctions provision, coupled with stepped-up border enforcement, is causing some first-time migrants to stay longer than planned. The traditional “shuttle” migration--for periods of six to 18 months of work in the United States--is becoming a luxury many migrants can no longer afford. Some of them fall into a debt trap, having borrowed from U.S.-based family and friends in order to support themselves, and being unable to return home until they earn enough money to pay off their debts. To the extent that employer sanctions have made it more difficult for some types of undocumented migrants to find steady work, the 1986 law may be keeping the most recent wave of migrants here longer . It is also inducing more migrants to settle permanently in the United States.

A key assumption of the 1986 law holds that employer sanctions will dry up employment opportunities for immigrants who failed to be legalized, thereby inducing their return to countries of origin. This is not yet happening, partly because the supply of jobs has not dried up and partly because even when it is somewhat harder to find jobs, most undocumented migrants are determined to ride it out. Only 15% of our interviewees were considering leaving because of the immigration law. Most say they will remain indefinitely, or until they “get kicked out” or make enough money to take home.

Some undocumented workers who did not qualify or failed to apply for amnesty feel trapped in their current jobs--however dissatisfied they may be with pay and working conditions--because they are likely to have to produce papers for any new employer. Nearly half of the undocumented workers we interviewed thought it would be harder to find another job comparable to the current one if they tried to switch. In fact, if they were employed in their current jobs before Nov. 6, 1986, they are “grandfathered in”: Employers are not required to dismiss anyone on the payroll before that date, with or without legal-residence papers. But if an undocumented worker should try to change employers now, or if he returns to Mexico for a sojourn, he loses privileged “grandfathered” status.

Simultaneously, the cost, difficulty and danger of crossing the border without papers has increased significantly in recent years as a result of a steady buildup in Border Patrol capabilities. Thus, while the law is not discouraging new migration, it is making some Mexicans already in this country much more reluctant to leave, for fear that they will find it too difficult to come back, or to find regular employment here again.

Given the increased border-crossing problems, there is a stronger incentive for whole family units to migrate together, or for families to be brought up from Mexico to join the male family head, since he can no longer shuttle back and forth so easily. Sources in Mexican sending communities confirmed last month that many more wives and children had gone to the United States this year than in any previous year within memory. The presence of more families will inevitably be reflected in heavier utilization of education, health care and other U.S. social services.

How are U.S. employers responding to the new law? It’s too early to say much about agricultural employers--they will not be subject to penalties for hiring undocumented migrants until Dec. 1. But interviews with other employers, as well as with immigrant workers, indicate that the vast majority of employers know their obligations under Simpson-Rodino and are complying with the letter of the law: 97% of the employers we interviewed are familiar with the employer sanctions provision; 55% of them had received information directly from the INS. Employers know what documents they need to request from job applicants; 91% percent of the firms in our sample ask for these documents and they fill out the appropriate INS forms required.

In fact, 80% of the employers were over complying with the law, photocopying the documents presented by new hires and attaching copies to the INS forms. The law does not require this, but employers see it as added protection for themselves. A small minority has also been demanding documents from pre-Nov. 6, 1986, hires and discharging “grandfathered” workers who cannot produce them. In some cases, this may be a pretext for firing costly employees who have built up seniority.

A major loophole in the law does not require employers to verify the authenticity of documents. If the employer can clearly demonstrate that he asked for and saw documents, whether fraudulent or not, he can stay out of legal trouble.

Most critics of employer-sanctions legislation predicted that it would create a bonanza for false document makers. Gradually, this prophecy is coming to pass: 39% of the undocumented workers we interviewed admitted having purchased or used fake documents to gain employment. Even one-third of the most recent arrivals, looking for work on street corners, had acquired them. And although it is not common, some migrants have been told by employers to get fake papers.

Some workers borrow or rent the documents required. Friends and relatives lend them to each other. In Southern California, documents can be rented from a corner store for $5 an hour.

Many employers are willing to “go along” with such dodges. When we asked employers “What would you do if you suspected that a document was fraudulent,” the answers were illuminating. Here are two representative responses:

“If it’s a flagrant fake ID, then we obviously would turn it down; but we’re not responsible for being professional identification checkers.”

“It’s so easy for these guys to get the fake IDs . . . . I think that’s one of the reasons we haven’t had any problems getting employees. You ask them for IDs and they don’t have any. Three days later, they do.”

Some employers, wanting to continue using undocumented immigrant labor but anxious to eliminate risk, have been limiting new hires to strictly short-term employment. If they hire a worker for fewer than 72 hours, they are not obligated to complete the paper work required by the employer-sanctions law. Others hire workers for only a month or two, hoping that their presence will never be detected. For some businesses, this strategy of short-term hiring, with high turnover, may be too disruptive. But for other firms--especially in construction and landscape work--and for individual homeowners needing day laborers, this is standard operating procedure.

For most of Southern California’s non-agricultural employers, the new immigration law simply does not pose a credible threat to operations. Only 7% anticipate having to close all or parts of their business because of the law.

The simplest way of adjusting to a tighter labor market would be raising wages. But California employers tell us emphatically that they have not raised wages and will not raise them. Only 38% would even consider it and 50% say “absolutely not.”

This is a snapshot of how the 1986 law is working at present in California. But barring the kind of massive and highly intrusive enforcement effort that I believe would be politically unfeasible in this country, Simpson-Rodino in its present form is unlikely to compel enough employers of undocumented immigrant labor to switch to another labor source, or to reduce overall labor requirements.

In the future, however, a higher proportion of undocumented migrants--new arrivals as well as those who did not get amnesty this year--may be forced to seek employment in smaller firms, where they will be paid lower wages, have little or no access to health insurance and have considerably less job security than most of their predecessors. Others will find themselves confined to self-employment in the so-called “informal economy.”

While the law is not creating a new army of openly unemployed immigrants, it is increasing underemployment, especially among the most recent arrivals coming from non-traditional sending areas. These people are not tied into established immigrant networks that assist in finding jobs and housing. So they literally take to the streets. Some work as street vendors, hawking fresh produce or flowers. Others congregate at the street-corner, drive-by labor markets so visible in many Southern California cities.

The rapid expansion of these labor markets--often in close proximity to middle-class housing and shopping--has become a major source of controversy during the last 18 months, as irate Anglo homeowners demand that government “do something” to get rid of the “illegal aliens” in their immediate environments.

To the extent that the law has made the latest wave of undocumented migrants less employable--at least in long-term jobs with decent wages--their loss of earning potential may have significant social consequences. Our interviews suggest that many of these people will become “trapped” here, with growing debts and families. Diminished earning prospects will limit the ability of these families to give their children the kind of education needed to achieve upward mobility in U.S. society.

U.S. immigration “reform” legislation may finally succeed in creating the permanent underclass of illegal aliens that proponents of the 1986 law claimed it would eliminate.