Everything you know about immigration is wrong<\/a> by Ezra Klein in The Washington Post.<\/p>\nThe Text:<\/strong> Everything you know about immigration, particularly unauthorized immigration, is wrong.<\/p>\nSo says Princeton University\u2019s Doug Massey, anyway. Massey is one of the nation\u2019s preeminent immigration scholars. And he thinks we\u2019ve wasted a whole lot of money on immigration policy and are about to waste a whole lot more.<\/p>\n
Massey slices the history of Mexico-to-U.S. migration in five periods. Early in the 20th century, there was the era of \u201cthe hook,\u201d when Japan stopped sending workers to the U.S. and the mining, agriculture and railroad industries begged Mexican laborers to replace them. It\u2019s called \u201cthe hook\u201d because laborers were recruited with promises of high wages, signing bonuses, transportation and lodging, most of which either never materialized or were deducted from their paychecks.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Then, during the Roaring Twenties, came \u201cflood tide\u201d \u2014 almost 650,000 Mexican workers came legally, causing the number of Mexicans in the U.S. to rocket to almost 750,000 in 1929 from 100,000 in 1900.
\nThe Great Depression ended all that. Jobless Americans took out their anger on jobless Mexicans, and thus began the \u201cera of deportations.\u201d From 1929 to 1939, 469,000 Mexicans were expelled from the U.S.; by 1940, the Mexican-born population had fallen to 377,000.<\/p>\n
Enter World War II. With so many American men fighting overseas, Mexican labor was once again in high demand. The U.S. and Mexico negotiated the Bracero Program, which gave Mexican workers access to temporary U.S. visas. That kicked off the \u201cBracero era.\u201d In 1945, the program brought in 50,000 Mexican guest workers. By 1956, it was up to 445,000. Mexico was also freed from quota limitations on legal immigration, so by 1963, more than 50,000 Mexicans were immigrating each year. With so many legal ways to enter the country, illegal immigration was virtually unknown.<\/p>\n
In 1965, the U.S. ended the Bracero program and began to limit Mexican immigration. The number of guest-worker permits dropped to 1,725 in 1979 from more than 400,000 in 1959. The number of residence visas declined to 20,000 after previously being unlimited. But the demand for Mexican labor remained strong. And so the \u201cera of undocumented migration\u201d began. Border apprehensions rose to 1.7 million in 1986 from 55,000 in 1965. But even as millions of Mexicans entered the U.S. illegally, millions also returned. About 85 percent of new entries were offset by departures. Consequently, the growth of the undocumented population was slow.<\/p>\n
After passage of a comprehensive immigration law in 1986, the U.S. began militarizing the border with Mexico even as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and, later, the North American Free Trade Agreement strengthened economic ties with Mexico. From 1986 to 2000, trade with Mexico increased eightfold.
\nUntil this point, there isn\u2019t much to dispute in Massey\u2019s narrative. But here his immigration story takes a turn that confounds Washington\u2019s conventional wisdom and makes a mockery of the current political debate.
\nAccording to Massey, the rise of America\u2019s large undocumented population is a direct result of the militarization of the border. While undocumented workers once traveled back and forth from Mexico with relative ease, after the border was garrisoned, immigrants from Mexico crossed the border and stayed.
\n\u201cMigrants quite rationally responded to the increased costs and risks by minimizing the number of times they crossed the border,\u201d Massey wrote in his 2007 paper \u201cUnderstanding America\u2019s Immigration \u2018Crisis.\u2019\u201d \u201cBut they achieved this goal not by remaining in Mexico and abandoning their intention to migrate to the U.S., but by hunkering down and staying once they had run the gauntlet at the border and made it to their final destination.\u201d<\/p>\n
The data support Massey\u2019s thesis: In 1980, 46 percent of undocumented Mexican migrants returned to Mexico within 12 months. By 2007, that was down to 7 percent. As a result, the permanent undocumented population exploded.<\/p>\n
The militarization also had another unintended consequence: It dispersed the undocumented population. Prior to 1986, about 85 percent of Mexicans who entered the U.S. settled in California, Texas or Illinois, and more than two-thirds entered through either the San Diego-Tijuana entry point or the El Paso-Juarez entry point. As the U.S. blockaded those areas, undocumented migrants found new ways in \u2014 and new places to settle. By 2002, two-thirds of undocumented migrants were entering at a non-San Diego\/El Paso entry point and settling in a \u201cnontraditional\u201d state.<\/p>\n
In recent years, the net inflow of new undocumented immigrants arriving from Mexico has fallen to zero. Some of the decline is due to the U.S. recession and a falloff in construction, which employed a lot of migrant workers. But some is due to an improving economy in Mexico, where unemployment is 5 percent and wages have been rising. \u201cI personally think the huge boom in Mexican immigration is over,\u201d Massey said.<\/p>\n
Yet the political debate over immigration is stuck in 1985. Congress is focused above all on how to further militarize an already militarized border \u2014 despite the fact that doubling the size of the border patrol since 2004 and installing hundreds of miles of barriers and surveillance equipment appears to have been counterproductive. At any rate, the flow of unauthorized immigration has slowed dramatically. \u201cListening to the Republicans, you\u2019d think waves of people are crossing the border,\u201d Massey said. \u201cBut illegal migration stopped four years ago and has been zero since.\u201d<\/p>\n
In light of these facts, the debate is backward. Republicans in the House of Representatives are focused on further militarizing the border against the people who are no longer crossing it; at the same time, they are loath to do anything about the millions of real undocumented immigrants who are the legacy of the last buildup. At best, we can hope to waste tens of billions of dollars on further enforcement in return for a lengthy and complicated path to citizenship. At worst, we\u2019ll do nothing \u2014 in which case this will be known as the era of wasted opportunity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Article: Everything you know about immigration is wrong by Ezra Klein in The Washington Post. The Text: Everything you know about immigration, particularly unauthorized immigration, is wrong. So says Princeton University\u2019s Doug Massey, anyway. Massey is one of the nation\u2019s preeminent immigration scholars. And he thinks we\u2019ve wasted a whole lot of money on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[259],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n
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![\"Immigration](\"http:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/immigration-wrong.jpg\")
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