Mexico & Nafta - August 2006 (ISSN 1741-444X)

On 31 July the National Guard announced that it had deployed 6,199 of its members along the border with Mexico. The deployment is code-named Operation Jump Start. The Guardsmen from 18 states are supporting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.  

The US Border Patrol, which is the most public arm of the ICE, said that the deployment had already paid dividends. It noted that the numbers of illegal migrants arrested in July 2006 was 37% lower than in July 2005 at 58,025. The US Border Patrol said that this was because potential migrants were thinking twice before trying to cross into the US. Currently the ICE has 11,713 agents of which around 8,000 are deployed along the Mexican border.  

The National Guardsmen will not patrol the border. What they will do is carry out engineering works, such as building barriers and improving roads, that will assist the work of the US Border Patrol. According to research by the Pew Hispanic Center in Washington 55% of the illegal immigrants living in the US crossed the border on foot: the other 45% came in legally, usually through an airport, with a visa, but decided to remain in the US when their visa expired.

Research from academics at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónoma de México (ITAM) found that one in three Mexicans of working age work in the US. Originally migrants were the least educated; then they tended to be the better educated (people who had completed high school). Now, Rodolfo Tuirán, a researcher at ITAM said, migrants come from all parts of the educational spectrum. The problem is that because US jobs are so much better paid than Mexican ones, Mexicans working in the US are often overqualified. Just over 5% of Mexican migrants working in the US have a professional or postgraduate qualification.  

Mexico's Consejo Nacional de Población (Conapo), which researches demographic changes, noted that since 1986 there have been at least 10% more people of working age in Mexico than there are jobs for them. In 2000 there were 24% more Mexicans of working age than there were jobs for them. The bulk of the migrants are young: according to US census data, cited by Conapo, in 2003 31% of the Mexican (defined as born in Mexico) migrant workers in the US were aged between 15 and 29. This is equivalent to 3.038m people. The number of Mexicans between 15 and 29 living in Mexico was 17.23m. This means that almost 18% of young Mexicans were working in the US in 2003.  

US implications: A telephone opinion poll by the Tarrance Group, published in the New York Times on 25 July, found that 69% of the Hispanics who had followed the US debate on immigration reform had decided that they would not vote for a Republican candidate in the forthcoming mid-term congressional elections. This is a change from what has happened in recent elections, in 2000 and 2004, when 40% of Hispanic voters backed the Republicans. Just under half the Hispanics polled, (47%), said that they had been insulted or offended as a result of the debate over immigration reform. Almost three-quarters (73%) of this subgroup said that they would not vote Republican in November. Hispanics form 14% of the US population but only 5% of the electorate. Most are well informed about the debate on immigration reform: two-thirds knew that each house of congress had proposed very different immigration reforms.