Despite increased enforcement at theU.S.-Mexican border beginning in t - PDF document

Despite increased enforcement at theU.S.-Mexican border beginning in the1980s,the number of foreign-born work-ers entering the United States illegallyeach year has not diminished.Today an Executive Summary Pelosi,Cannon,Flake,Kolbe,and Gutierrez.Although none of those proposals madeprogress in 2004,after the elections PresidentBush restated his commitment to achievingimmigration reform in his second term.To lay the groundwork for a reasoned con-sideration of policy options,this studydescribes how the United States got into itscurrent predicament with respect to Mexicanimmigration.It then outlines the sorts of poli-cies that that must be implemented if we are toRoots of the Current ProblemThe year 1986 was pivotal for the politicaleconomy of North America.Two things hap-era and the beginning of another.In Mexico,anew political elite succeeded in overcoming his-torical opposition within the ruling party tosecure the country’s entry into the GeneralAgreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).Building on that initiative,President CarlosSalinas approached the United States in 1988 tomake the economic reforms permanent by forg-ing a continentwide alliance to create a free tradezone stretching from Central America to theArctic,which ultimately resulted in the NorthAmerican Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).While trade liberalization took a step for-ward in 1986,labor market mobility took a stepbackward.Even as U.S.officials worked withMexican authorities to integrate NorthAmerican markets for goods,capital,informa-tion,raw materials,and services,they simulta-neously acted to prevent the integration ofMexican and American labor markets.Ratherthan incorporating the movement of workersinto the new free trade agreement,the U.S.gov-ernment sought to unilaterally restrict themovement of workers.To underscore its resolve,in 1986 Congress passed the ImmigrationReform and Control Act,which criminalizedthe hiring of undocumented workers by U.S.employers and increased funding for the U.S.Border Patrol.Then,in 1993,Border Patrolofficials launched Operation Blockade in ElPaso,followed by Operation Gatekeeper in SanDiego.Those operations mobilized massiveresources in two border sectors to preventundocumented border crossings.Thereafter the United States pursued anincreasingly contradictory set of policies,movingtoward integration while insisting on separation,moving headlong toward the consolidation of allNorth American markets save one:labor.Inorder to maintain the pretense that such selectiveintegration could be achieved and to demon-strate that the border was “under control,”theU.S.government devoted increasing financialand human resources to a show of force along theMexico-U.S.border,a repressive impulse thatonly increased in the wake of September 11.Unfortunately,those measures have not deterredMexicans from coming to the United States orprevented them from settling here.The adoption of economic reforms inMexico in 1986 accelerated cross-border flowsof all sorts,and those flows increased dramati-cally after NAFTA took effect in 1994.Consider,for example,trends in total tradebetween Mexico and the United States.Fromnations increased by a factor of eight,reachingOver the same period,the num-ber of Mexicans entering the United States onbusiness visas more than tripled,from 128,000to 438,000 annually,while the number of intra-company transferees rose even more rapidly,from 4,300 to 16,000.From just 73 Mexican“treaty investors”in 1986 the number grewexponentially to 4,700 persons in 2003.(Treatyinvestors manage operations of an enterprisewithin the United States in which they are anactive investor.) This growth of trade and business migrationcross-border movements.Over the same period,the number of Mexican tourists entering theUnited States increased six-fold to 3.6 million,while the number entering the United States asstudents doubled to 22,500,and the number ofeducational and cultural exchange visitors morethan doubled,from about 3,000 to 6,600. Even as U.S.offi-Mexican authori-North Americanmarkets,theysimultaneouslyacted to preventMexican andAmerican labor layers of fencing in San Diego and enactingtougher penalties for smugglers,undocumentedmigrants,and visitors who entered the countrylegally but then overstayed their visas.It alsoincluded funding for the purchase of new mili-tary technology and provided funds for hiring1,000 Border Patrol agents per year through2001 to bring the total strength of the BorderPatrol up to 10,000 officers.Naturalization Service stood at just $474 mil-lion,and that of the Border Patrol was $151million.IRCA began a modest acceleration offunding for border enforcement,but it was theinnovation of border blockades in 1993 thatreally opened the spigot of money.By 2002 theBorder Patrol’s budget had reached $1.6 billionand that of the INS stood at $6.2 billion,10and 13 times their 1986 values,respectively.With this additional revenue,more BorderPatrol officers were hired.Between 1986 and2002 the number of Border Patrol officerstripled,and the number of hours they spentpatrolling the border (“linewatch hours”) grewThe Consequences ofAs the foregoing data clearly show,the 1990swere a period of growing self-contradiction inU.S.policy toward Mexico.On the one hand,under NAFTA the United States committeditself to lowering barriers to the cross-bordermovement of goods,capital,raw materials,information,and services.As a result,the vol-ume of binational trade increased dramatically asdid cross-border movements of people.On theother hand,the United States attempted toharden the border against the movement oflabor by criminalizing the hiring of undocu-mented workers and fortifying the frontier withmassive increases in money,personnel,andequipment.By 2002 the Border Patrol was thelargest arms-bearing branch of the U.S.govern-ment next to the military itself.Few in Washington stopped to consider thefundamental contradiction involved in militariz-ing a long border with a friendly,peaceful nationthat posed no conceivable strategic threat to thecountry and was,in fact,an ally and a large trad-ing partner.Despite the fact that politicians soldNAFTA as a way for Mexico “to export goodsand not people,”everything that occurs in thecourse of integrating the North American marketmakes the cross-border movement of people—including workers—more rather than less likelyin the short and medium run.The expandingbinational network of transportation and com-munication that evolves to facilitate trade alsomakes the movement of people easier and cheap-er.The interpersonal connections formedbetween Mexicans and Americans in the courseof daily business transactions create a social infra-structure of friendship and kinship that encouragemigration and facilitate further movement.Moreover,it is not as if there were no move-ments of migrants across the border whenNAFTA took effect.Large-scale migrationfrom Mexico has been a fact of life in NorthAmerica since 1942,when the United Statesinitiated the bracero guest worker program thatThat program ultimately spon-sored the short-term entry of nearly five millionworkers,and when it was shut down in 1964,movement continued through other channels.Thousands of former guest workers simplyadjusted status to acquire permanent residentvisas,and a growing number migrated withoutdocuments.From 1942 to the present,the circu-States has been widespread and continuous.Bythe end of the 20th century,two-thirds of allMexicans knew someone who had been to theUnited States and almost 60 percent weresocially connected to someone living in theUnited States.This huge stock of social capital connectingStates,combined with the acceleration of eco-nomic integration along multiple fronts,pre-sents a huge obstacle for U.S.efforts to seal theborder selectively with respect to the move-ment of workers.That the policy would fail wasalmost preordained and should not be surpris-ing to anyone who understands the nature ofmarkets and their integration over time andacross international borders.What many do Few in Washingtoninvolved in milita-rizing a long borderwith a friendly,to the country. the United States illegally fluctuate between 1.5and 2.5 percent,with variations being closelyborder.Although the likelihood of femalemigration is much lower,the trend is virtuallyThe available data thus indicate that theinflow of undocumented migrants from Mexicocontinues apace,albeit with variations linked toeconomic cycles,but that once they are at theborder the odds of being apprehended are muchlower.As a result,more undocumented migrantsare gaining entry to the United States than everbefore.Over the same time period,legal immi-gration from Mexico has also grown,despitemeasures enacted by Congress to make it moredifficult to qualify for documents and to reducethe rights and privileges of legal immigrantsonce they are here.Wasted MoneyThus,although the size of the Border Patrol’sbudget increased by a factor of 10 between 1986and 2002,and the number of Border Patrolagents has tripled,more Mexican migrants—both documented and undocumented—are arriv-ing than ever before.The combination of hugebudget increases with rising migration rates sug-gests a marked deterioration in the efficiency ofU.S.border enforcement operations.Americantaxpayers are spending vastly more to achieve lit-tle in the way of deterrence and much less in theway of arrests along the border.One measure of the efficiency of enforcementis the cost of arresting one undocumentedmigrant,estimated by dividing the Border Patrol’sannual budget by the number of apprehensionsachieved along the Mexico-U.S.border.Before1986 the cost of one apprehension was roughlyconstant at around $100 per arrest.Beginningwith the passage of IRCA in 1986,however,thecost of enforcement began to rise,tripling toaround $300 per arrest in 1989 before stabilizingfor a time.Beginning with the launching of oper-ations Blockade and Gatekeeper in 1993 and1994,however,the cost of making one arrestimmediately jumped to more than $400 and thengradually trended upward to reach $600 in 1999.The events of September 11,2001,broughtanother huge infusion of resources to the BorderPatrol that was in no way connected to the threatof either terrorism or undocumented migration Rather thanU.S.border policieshave reduced them 10%20%30%40%50%60%70%198019821984198619881990199219941996199820002002 Figure 1Trends in Use of Nontraditional Crossing Points and Probability ofApprehension, 1980–2002 IRCAEnacted Operation Blockade Douglas S. Massey, Jorge Durand, and Nolan J. Malone, Beyond Smoke and Mirrors: Mexican Immigration in an Era of(New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2002), pp. 107 and 128; and computations by the author Probability of Apprehension Proportion of Nontraditional Crossings emanating from south of the border,and the mar-ginal cost of apprehension skyrocketed.Whereasthe cost of making one arrest along the borderstood at just $300 in 1992,10 years later itreached $1,700,an increase of 467 percent in justa decade.If this increase in the cost of enforcement,high as it was,had slowed the flow of undocu-mented migrants,one might consider it moneywell spent.But as we have already seen,in 2002the probability of apprehension was lower thanat any point in the modern history of Mexico-U.S.migration,and the number of Mexicansentering the United States was greater thanever.Whatever one thinks about the goal ofreducing migration from Mexico,U.S.policiestoward that end have clearly failed,and at greatcost to U.S.taxpayers.The allocation of fundsto border enforcement since 1986 has resultedin the waste of billions of dollars.Data presented so far have shown thatdespite massive increases in the personnel andbudget devoted to border enforcement andcongressional actions undertaken to discouragelegal immigration,the number of legal and ille-gal entries from Mexico has continued to grow,implying the waste of billions of dollars (not tomention hundreds of lives each year) in thefutile effort to prevent the movement of laborwithin a rapidly integrating North Americaneconomy.As grim as this assessment may be,itgets worse.Not only have U.S.policies failed toreduce the inflow of people from Mexico,theyhave perversely reduced the outflow to producean unprecedented increase in the undocument-ed population of the United States.America’sunilateral effort to prevent a decades-old flowfrom continuing has paradoxically transformeda circular flow of Mexican workers into a set-More SettlementThe unilateral militarization of the U.S.-Mexican border has been successful in achiev-ing one outcome:it has dramatically increasedthe costs and risks of border crossing.By chan-neling undocumented flows into remote andmore hazardous regions of the border,the bor-der blockades have tripled the risk of deathduring crossing.The increased mortal dangerwas offset,however,by a declining likelihoodof apprehension,so that few migrants weredeterred from making the attempt.Rather than choosing not to enter the UnitedStates illegally,undocumented migrants quiterationally invested more money to minimize therisks and maximize the odds of a successful bor-der crossing.As U.S.authorities deployed a moreformidable array of personnel and materiel at keypoints along the border,smugglers on theMexican side upgraded the package of servicesthey offered.Instead of simply accompanyingsmall parties of undocumented migrants on footacross well-trod pathways from Tijuana to SanDiego and delivering them to an anonymousurban setting,smugglers now had to transportpeople to remote sectors of the border,guidethem across,and have them met on the otherside by personnel who would arrange transportto destinations throughout the United States.The net effect of U.S.policies,in otherwords,was to increase the quality but also theprice of border-smuggling services.After thevarious blockades were launched,undocu-mented migrants faced rising out-of-pocketcosts to ensure a successful border crossing.The extent of this increase is indicated by esti-mates of the average amount of money thatsmuggle them into the United States by year.From 1980 to 1992 the cost of hiring a coyotepollero(as smugglers are colloquially labeled)was relatively flat,averaging around $400 percrossing.With the launching of the new strat-egy of prevention through deterrence in 1993,however,the cost of purchasing a smuggler’sservices rose to around $1,200 in 1999,beforeleveling off.Compared to 1990 and before,in otherwords,by the year 2000 it cost undocumentedmigrants three times as much to gain entry tothe United States.If the first order of businesson any trip to the United States is to recoverthat cost,then holding constant the rate ofremuneration and hours worked per week,thestay would have to be three times as long.Although beefing up the Border Patrol maynot have reduced the inflow,therefore,it did Whereas the cost of1992,10 years laterpercent in just adecade. How to Curb IllegalPresident Bush’s policy proposals are a step inthe right direction,but a tentative step.Moreover,the proposals are vague about thenumbers of immigrants eligible for the variousprograms of legalization and temporary labor.But there is a set of policies that could reduce thedisincentives that prevent Mexicans fromreturning to their home country,minimize thecosts of migration to U.S.citizens,maximize thepotential of migrant remittances to promoteeconomic growth in Mexico,and reduce the costin lives and money of U.S.border enforcement.Specifically,in order to bring current flows ofMexican labor into the open,Congress shouldcreate a new category of temporary visa that per-mits the bearer to enter,live,and work in thecountry without restriction for two years,withan option for renewal once in the lifetime of themigrant,but only after he or she has returnedhome.The visas would be issued to persons andnot tied to specific jobs.Such a program wouldguarantee the rights of temporary migrants,pro-tect the interests of American workers,and sat-isfy the demands of employers by movingtoward a relatively free and open NorthAmerican labor market.These new visas should be generously avail-able to residents of Canada and Mexico.If300,000 two-year visas were issued annually,there would be 600,000 temporary migrantsworking in the United States at any time,a smallshare of the U.S.workforce but a large fractionof undocumented migrants.Moreover,the U.S.government should charge a $400 fee tomigrants for each visa issued,to be paid up-front in cash or in low-interest installments fromthe migrant’s U.S.earnings.This money couldselves,in ways described below.The data pre-sented above indicate that migrants are perfect-ly willing to pay this amount to gain entry to theUnited States,but until now the money hasgone into the pockets of border smugglers ratherthan toward more beneficial purposes.A $400fee paid by 300,000 temporary migrants per yearwould yield annual revenues of $120 million.As an additional source of revenue,the gov-ernment could earmark federal taxes (SocialSecurity,Medicare,and income taxes) withheldfrom the paychecks of temporary migrants forimmigration-related initiatives.If 600,000 tem-porary migrants were to earn annual incomes of25 percent,the annual revenues would be $225million per year.Additional resources could befreed by reducing the personnel and resourcesdevoted to border enforcement.There is no evi-dence whatsoever that the costly expansion ofBorder Patrol personnel has raised the odds of President Bush’spolicy proposals area step in the rightdirection,but atentative step. 2,0004,0006,0008,00010,00012,000198019821984198619881990199219941996199820002002 Figure 3Numberof Mexicans in the United States, 1980–2002 Mexicans in United States Operation Blockade IRCAEnacted growth and development within Mexico willgradually eliminate most of the incentives forinternational migration.We should seek not tostamp out the inevitable migratory flows but tohelp Mexico get over what Philip Martin atthe University of California at Davis calls the“migration hump”as quickly and painlessly aspossible.This will move North Americatoward a more balanced economy in whichfewer Mexicans will experience the need tomigrate northward.ConclusionIf the United States had set out to design adysfunctional immigration policy,it couldhardly have done a better job than what it didbetween 1986 and the present.U.S.citizensfruitless efforts at border enforcement as theefficiency of Border Patrol operations reachedall-time lows.Despite its extravagance,theexpensive post-IRCA enforcement regime hadno detectable effect either in deterring undoc-umented migrants from coming to the UnitedStates or raising their probability of apprehen-sion at the border.Indeed,the probability ofapprehension has never been lower.The record of the past two decades demon-strates that merely enforcing current U.S.immigration law is bound to fail.Current lawitself is fundamentally at odds with the realityof the North American economy and labormarket.As long as that remains true,enforce-ment alone will fail to stem the flow andgrowth of illegal immigration to the UnitedStates.U.S.policies have been effective,however,in causing hundreds of migrant deaths eachyear and dramatically increasing the out-of-pocket monetary costs of border crossing.These “successes,”however,have not had thedesired effect.They have only increased thelength of trips to the United States and low-ered the probability of return migration,there-by transforming a circular movement of work-ers into a settled population of families.Fueledby plummeting rates of return,migrationamong undocumented migrants,and the rapidgrowth of legal immigration sponsored bynewly naturalized citizens,the Mexican popu-lation in the United States grew at unprece-dented rates during the past decade.Thus,repressive U.S.immigration and bor-der policies toward Mexico have backfired,producing more rather than less Mexican pop-ulation growth in the United States.This para-doxical outcome stems from the unwillingnessof the United States to accept the reality ofNorth American integration.In NAFTA thenation committed itself to a joint frameworkfor the continentwide integration of marketsfor goods,capital,information,commodities,and services;but since then it has refused torecognize the inevitable fact that labor marketswill also merge in an integrated economy.Inpractical if not logical terms,it is impossible tocreate a single North American market charac-terized by the free movement of all factors ofproduction except one.Rather than bringing labor migration intothe open and managing the inevitable flows inways that might maximize the benefits andminimize the costs,the United States hasemployed increasingly repressive means andgrowing amounts of money to drive the flowsunderground to maintain the illusion of a “con-trolled”border—one that is miraculouslyporous with respect to all movements exceptthose of labor.Maintaining this pretense,how-ever,has become increasingly costly.The timeis thus ripe for the United States to abandon itsillusions and to accept the reality,indeed thenecessity,of North American integration.Notes1. Jeffrey S. Passel, “Estimates of the Size andCharacteristics of the Undocumented Population,”Pew Hispanic Center, March 21, 2005, p. 2.2. The White House, “The State of the UnionAddress,” February 2, 2005, www.whitehouse.gov/news/releas es/2005/02/20050202-11.html.3. Douglas S. Massey, Jorge Durand, and NolanBeyond Smoke and Mirrors: MexicanImmigration in an Era of Economic Integration (NewYork: Russell Sage Foundation, 2002), p. 133. The record of thepast two decadesdemonstrates thatmerely enforcingcurrent U.S. 35. Audrey Singer and Douglas S. Massey, “TheSocial Process of Undocumented Border Crossing,”International Migration Review 36 See the Mexican Migration Project database,http://mmp.opr.princeton.edu/.37. See Douglas S. Massey, “March of Folly: U.S.Immigration Policy under NAFTA,” Douglas S. Massey, “Borderline Sanity,” pp. 28–31;and Massey, Durand, and Malone, pp. 142–64.38. Philip Martin, “Economic Integration andMigration: The Mexico-US Case,” World Institutefor Development Economics Research, DiscussionPaper no. 2003/35, pp. 9–13, www.wider.unu.edu/ 14 Board of AdvisersColumbia UniversityDonald J.BoudreauxGeorge Mason UniversityJames K.GlassmanAmerican EnterpriseDouglas A.IrwinDartmouth CollegeLawrence KudlowKudlow & Co.José PiñeraInternational Center forPension ReformRussell RobertsGeorge Mason UniversityRazeen SallyLondon School ofGeorge P.ShultzHoover InstitutionClayton YeutterFormer U.S.TradeRepresentative Nothing in Trade Policy Analysis should be construed as necessarily reflecting the views of theCenter for Trade Policy Studies or the Cato Institute or as an attempt to aid or hinder the pas-sage of any bill before Congress.Contact the Cato Institute for reprint permission.Additionalcopies of Trade Policy Analysis are $6 each ($3 for five or more).To order,contact the CatoInstitute,1000 Massachusetts Avenue,N.W.,Washington,D.C.20001.(202) 842-0200,fax(202) 842-3490,www.cato.org. he mission of the Cato Institute’s Center for Trade Policy Studies is to increase publicunderstanding of the benefits of free trade and the costs of protectionism.The centerpublishes briefing papers,policy analyses,and books and hosts frequent policy forums andconferences on the full range of trade policy issues.Scholars at the Cato trade policy center recognize that open markets mean wider choicesand lower prices for businesses and consumers,as well as more vigorous competition thatencourages greater productivity and innovation.Those benefits are available to any countrythat adopts free trade policies;they are not contingent upon “fair trade”or a “level playingfield”in other countries.Moreover,the case for free trade goes beyond economic efficiency.The freedom to trade is a basic human liberty,and its exercise across political borders unitespeople in peaceful cooperation and mutual prosperity.The center is part of the Cato Institute,an independent policy research organization inWashington,D.C.The Cato Institute pursues a broad-based research program rooted in thetraditional American principles of individual liberty and limited government. 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