Beyond the Border Buildup: Towards a New Approach to Mexico-U.S. Migration

September 2005 (The second in a two part series on Rethinking Immigration)
by Douglas S. Massey, Ph.D.

Below is the executive summary of this publication. The complete report is available in pdf.

Executive Summary

A proper understanding of the causes of international migration suggests that punitive immigration and border policies tend to backfire, and this is precisely what has happened in the case of the United States and Mexico. Rather than raising the odds that undocumented immigrants will be apprehended, U.S. border-enforcement policies have reduced the apprehension rate to historical lows and in the process helped transform Mexican immigration from a regional to a national phenomenon. The solution to the problems associated with undocumented migration is not open borders, but frontiers that are reasonably regulated on a binational basis.

Among the findings of this report:

• Between 1986 and 2002 the number of Border Patrol officers tripled and the number of hours they spent patrolling the border grew by a factor of around eight.

• The proportion of migrants to the United States crossing at “non-traditional” sectors along the U.S.-Mexico border rose from 29 percent in 1988 to 64 percent in 2002.

• The probability of apprehension along the U.S.-Mexico border fell from about 33 percent during the 1970s and early 1980s, to 20-30 percent in 1993 and 1994, to an all-time low of 5 percent in 2002.

• The cost of making one arrest along the U.S.-Mexico border increased from $300 in 1992 to $1,700 in 2002, an increase of 467 percent in just a decade.

• From 1980 to 1992, the cost of hiring a coyote (smuggler) averaged around $400 per crossing, but rose to $1,200 in 1999 before leveling off.

• The average probability of return migration among Mexican migrants to the United States declined from around 45 percent prior to 1986 to around 25 percent in 2002.

• Between 1986 and 1996, the number of Mexicans being naturalized in the United States increased by a factor of nine.

• After 1990 the rate of Mexican population growth in the United States shifted sharply upward, with the population growing from 7 million in 1997 to around 10 million in 2002 – an increase of 43 percent in just five years.