PERSPECTIVE ON FREE TRADE : Workers Are a Commodity, Too : Evidence mounts that the flow of Mexican emigrant labor can’t be staunched, so it should be regulated.

There appears to be a growing awareness in the United States that deterring undocumented Mexican immigration may be one of the less certain of the vaunted merits of a free-trade agreement.

Labor mobility has been removed from the negotiating agenda by the Mexican side for one stated, largely fictitious reason--Mexico prefers to create jobs rather than export people; and one true but often silenced motivation--including immigration would significantly slow down the entire process.

There is growing acceptance that the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act has not brought about the sought-after reduction in undocumented immigration from Mexico. Apprehensions at the border--an imprecise measure of actual flows, but a good indicator of trends--rose sharply in 1990 and were close to the six-year record in the period ending in March. Several recent academic studies also found little evidence that the new law has been a deterrent.

The problem is that both the supply and demand sides of the immigration equation continue to favor greater flows, and the strictures provided by the 1986 law are severely flawed.

It is a well-known fact that forged documents are easily available--as shown by the two fake cards obtained to prove the authors’ point, and reproduced here. Both were purchased for less than $200, practically overnight. The purveyor goes by the name of El Pecas, “Freckles”; his business is doing so well, he joked, that he is considering a toll-free number.

For the purposes of getting a job and complying with federal requirements, these documents are adequate. An immigration officer would quickly spot them as false--the “green card” has no watermark, and the paper used for the Social Security card is too thick--but employers would not, and on the photocopy they must keep on file, the defects are hardly obvious.

On the demand side, deep structural changes in the U.S. economy and urban population are generating a growing number of low-paying, unskilled jobs for Mexicans. Even in the current recession, there is increasing demand for labor-intensive services, more than for labor-intensive goods. Women, an important new factor in immigrant flows from Mexico, are often more able than men to find jobs in the expanding, and often informal, service sector--in restaurants, hotels, janitorial services, etc. Thus families are now accompanying heads-of-households who previously migrated alone; and these families are staying longer or settling down in the United States as the seasonal nature of Mexican immigration gradually shifts to permanence.

On the supply side, the most important factor in generating migration continues to play its role: The wage differential between Mexico and the United States remains extraordinarily high. According to GEA, a new analysis and consulting institute in Mexico that is finally providing the type of statistics that Mexico has traditionally lacked, more than 55% of wage-earning Mexicans make twice the minimum wage or less--about $7.50 per day, or under $1 per hour.

President Carlos Salinas de Gortari’s entire economic strategy is based on attracting foreign investment through low wages to generate employment and distribute wealth through job-creation. This may happen in the long term, but for now the wage differential between Mexico and the United States is wider than ever. It continues to make emigration to the United States a highly attractive proposition for any Mexican, employed or not, be he or she a minimum-wage earner or a highly skilled professional. Furthermore, the new migration-generating regions of Mexico--Oaxaca, Guerrero and Mexico City--are certainly not the areas that new foreign investment will flow to.

Indeed, the case can be made that mass immigration from Mexico to the United States will continue to be a fixture of U.S.-Mexican relations, regardless of immigration policy in the United States and economic policy in Mexico. There are “push” and “pull” factors operating beyond the control of either: the aging of the U.S. population, the growth of the Mexican population most likely to emigrate; the shift from manufacturing to a service economy in the United States; the “reception committee” syndrome, whereby existing communities of immigrants are a strong enticement for newcomers--this to be strengthened by the long-term effects of the 1986 law, as Mexicans with legalized status go on to naturalization and eligibility for family reunification.

The choice for the United States, then, is not between undocumented immigrants and none at all, but between legal flows and illegal ones. The free-trade negotiations could be just the time for a new realism to replace the illusion that undocumented immigration can be staunched. A free-trade agreement should include emigrant workers, not to slow them down or to shoot it down, but because it is in the interests of both countries to do so, and because the time for doing so is right.

Even American labor, which has been adamantly opposed to any immigration reform tending toward legalization, might dwell on the demographics of undocumented Mexican immigration and the consequences in a state like California: more workers without rights or unions, without protection, without a stake in the system, without a voice in government, without security, but still coming to the United States in large numbers, independently of policies or attempts at restriction. Is gradual, negotiated and selective legalization truly more detrimental to U.S. society than unstoppable, undocumented migration? The existence of a large, unprotected, overexploited foreign, illegal underclass is bad for any society; it is particularly pernicious for one that has become as much of a two-tier society as has the United States.

Free trade can become another immigration-deterring pipe dream like the Immigration Reform and Control Act, or a propitious occasion for resolving this most delicate and substantive of bilateral issues.