Why is there the idea that there is an immigration problem?
Employers want labor.
The current politics are to smear people until most people believe there is a problem. In other words, lying until people believe there is a problem.
I honestly think a lot of illegals bring down wages. But we have illegals right now and wages are going up. We had relatively speaking a lot of illegals in the 1950s and 1960s and wages went up.
The bigger issue are we going to be total morons with our economic decisions regarding our taxes versus growing the GDP. We have proven just how stupid we can get from 1981 till 2020. Will we repeat those mistakes?
The poorest laborers coming into this country are not a make-or-break problem at all in that regard. And might have been making us all along. At least in the 1990s we bragged about low costs in the supermarkets for produce because of how willing Mexicans were to work. But now we have smear ashat politics.
I agree with you that undocumented Mexicans have for decades crossed back and forth across the border, thus may lead to a higher number of encounters, however U.S.-CBP doesn’t keep data on multiple same-encounters. The U.S.-CBP has released only the number of illegal encounters by foreign origin (supplied above for 2023). So, it’s speculation that the high number of Mexican encounters is actually the same Mexican National counted multiple times. The fact is that Mexico is the largest country of birth among the estimated 47 million immigrants living in the U.S. (PEW 2019 American Community Survey). About 24% of all U.S. immigrants were born in Mexico. Between 1965 and 2015, more than 16 million Mexican immigrated into the United States. Many of these have retired and returned to their Home.
It’s difficult to know for certain how many Mexican Nationals have come into the country through non-ports of entry. It’s more certain the count of Mexican Nationals leaving the country, because they use ports of entry to exit. It’s obvious that Mexican Nations (that are undocumented) pass into the the US in much greater number than any group by nationality. We know for sure that U.S.-CBP encounter far more Mexicans (undocumented) than any other group (29%).
According to your link, net-migration has decreased since 2019. But you’re analyzing a population of 12 million. The total population of undocumented Venezuelans in the U.S. is only about 800,000. The fact remains, more Mexicans cross the border without documents than any other nationality.
Because that is how one group frames it in their talking points. It is “red meat” for their idiot followers.
The real problem is climate change/global warming. Much of Central America may become uninhabitable due to extreme heat, humidity, and loss of agricultural land. When the land is not able to produce, whoever had been living there leaves–in order to find a better location. This problem will never go away around the world. There shall be large migrations of “climate refugees” over the coming decades. There is nothing that can be done to stop it. Walls? LOL !!! Dynamite works on walls.
CBP is continuing to surge all available resources to safely process migrants in response to increased levels of migrant encounters at the Southwest Border, fueled by smugglers peddling disinformation to prey on vulnerable individuals. After observing a recent resurgence of smuggling organizations moving migrants through Mexico via freight trains, CBP is taking additional actions to surge personnel and address this concerning development, including in partnership with Mexican authorities.
“Beginning December 18, 2023 at 8:00 AM local time, CBP’s Office of Field Operations will temporarily suspend operations at the international railway crossing bridges in Eagle Pass and El Paso, Texas…
The American Association of Railroads said the El Paso and Eagle Pass railway closures will directly impact Union Pacific and BNSF, which operate 24 trains daily at the crossings, carrying agricultural products, vehicles, automotive parts, chemicals and consumer goods for companies across North America.
“The urgency of reopening these crossings and restoring rail service between the two nations cannot be overstated,” American Association of Railroads President and CEO Ian Jefferies said in a statement. “There are not separate U.S. and Mexican rail networks; there is only one interconnected North American rail network. Every day the border remains closed unleashes a cascade of delay across operations on both sides of the border, impacting customers and ultimately consumers.”
Well, that makes sense as Mexico has the highest population by far among those listed. It’s also the only country listed that shares a border with the US.
Let’s normalize those by population to get a different look at this migration.
Country
Encounters
Population
Encounters per million
Mexico
717,000
121,740,000
5,890
Venezuela
266,000
28,840,000
9,223
Guatemala
220,000
18,640,000
11,803
Honduras
214,000
10,290,000
20,797
Colombia
160,000
46,740,000
3,423
Cuba
142,000
11,260,000
12,611
Ecuador
116,000
18,190,000
6,377
Nicaragua
99,000
6,610,000
14,977
Haiti
76,000
11,450,000
6,638
Peru
76,000
34,350,000
2,213
Looked at this way, Honduras and Nicaragua are much bigger problems than Mexico, which has the 3rd lowest rate among the listed countries.
Yes, Mexico needs attention because of its sheer size and proximity. But Honduras, Nicaragua, Cuba, and Guatemala all need attention as well because of the rate at which their people are heading to the US.
No. But we can influence things a bit. Do we speak out against oppressive regimes? Do we provide some humanitarian aid so folks have less reason to leave their country? Do we work through international organizations like the UN to improve conditions?
What we can do and what needs attention is to decide how we are going to treat people at our border who are coming from these countries. Let’s make some decisions. Do they qualify for asylum or not? If it’s not a blanket asylum, what situations qualify and what don’t? Can some people qualify for a normal immigration process?
Plus we desperately need more judges and administrative personnel to process these folks through our system. First and foremost these are people deserving of some standard of dignity. They just want us to make a decision - can they stay or not? Can we help them get to another country? (Canada, are you listening?) Leaving people in an endless limbo makes things worse for them and for us.
I was replying to the comment, “Refugees are largely not originally from Mexico.”
I also made the point that there are millions and millions of Mexicans in the Untied States that go back and forth, and have been doing so for the last 60 years.
Ahhh…no, that’s never going to happen. There have been six immigration bills starting back in 2004. There were four between 2018 and 2019, the House passed the broadest bipartisan compromise, with a DACA fix and border funding, legal immigration changes that would clarify immigration status for those arriving at legal points of entry, it had bipartisan support in the Senate and Mitch McConnell refused to bring to the floor. He refused to even allow a debate on the Senate Floor. We live with a representative government where One Guy from the poorest, most drug-ridden state can decide everything for 300mil people.
Multiple encounters of the same person is only one explanation. The other is that, yes, that many Mexican nationals are coming into the USA, but that a large number are also leaving. I think I have even seen the claim that, at times, more leave than come.
This is a confusing number when counting undocumented workers from Mexico, and net migration. So as far as I read, Net Migration from Mexico into the US was high from 2000 until the US housing recession in 2008. Net Migration back to Mexico outweighed until covid when, even according to US BP, increased dramatically (and was murky). From '22 until now it has reversed back.
The question about undocumented Mexicans in the United States is even more unclear, because how many have become legal residents since 1965 and are no longer counted as undocumented workers? How many have simply returned, or died? We know that there are a half a million DACA students/workers. Do we count them as undocumented? The biggest question is how many undocumented workers came into the United States from Mexico during Covid? Most sources believe it is far higher than what has been estimated.
I don’t think a wall is going to be effective either but it is nonsensical to claim that a factory that will employ less than 100,000 people is going to deter the MILLIONS of unauthorized border crossings. Your idolatry is showing again.
Pretty sure most of the illegals flew into the country.
The entire border walled off would mean Mexicans can not return. Getting caught to get home would be a huge cost to the US.
I think we will agree to change US law so migrants need to stay in Mexico. We need the labor in Mexico for factories down there. I think a deal will be struck in the new year with aid for Ukraine and Israel and a border policy with more money.
I doubt it. In the same way that “Detroit” became a magnet for blacks migrating from the South because the nascent auto factories would hire them (cheaply), and in the way “Pittsburgh” became a magnet for Polish immigrants because of jobs, I suspect the Gigafactory (and presumably spin-off effects such as suppliers, restaurants, shopping, etc.) will serve as a magnet to draw even more desperate, poor, hungry people from the South to our “near border”, and if/when they are unable to secure employment there many will continue to trek northward.
The only way to win this is to make Mexico a state, then keep going until you get to some narrow isthmus’ like Costa Rica or Panama, where you might have some reasonable chance of having a wall you could patrol and monitor. The borders between Costa Rica and Panama are just a couple hundred miles long, as opposed to the couple thousand between the US and Mexico, and are more hospitable to building an infrastructure.
Just kidding, sort of. Trying to get outside the box, because I’m pretty sure no matter what we do, short of a demilitarized zone with land mines like between the Korea’s, nothing is going to make much difference.
That isn’t the claim as I understand it. The claim as I understand it, is that by Tesla building a giant factory in Mexico, others will then join and build other large and small factories (and other support enterprises) in the area. Then if all goes well, other factories (and other support enterprises) will be built in other areas of Mexico, and will employ lots and lots of people at good jobs. THEN, after all that happens, there will be much less of a reason for people to migrate north as they can find decent jobs there instead.
Won’t matter. I was being generous with the less than 100k people. The gigafactory will employ less than 10,000 people. Even if that draws in 10x the number for other jobs, we are still talking 100k jobs. There are over 1 million crossing the border every year.
Monterey has a population of about 1 million, they are not going to absorb that 1 million, every year.
Mexico (and Mexican citizens) will have little if any incentive in allowing, much less encouraging, people from Venezuela to stop their progress north and come to work in Monterey - any more than the people working at the gigafactory Texas would welcome a bunch of people from Venezuela being imported to work there.
There is evidence that the economic heath of Mexico plays a major role in the number of unauthorized Mexican immigrants.
While Donald Trump railed against illegal immigration from Mexico, it turns out demographics and economic conditions in Mexico had already addressed the issue. “The undocumented population from Mexico declined so much in the past decade that its share dropped to less than half of the total population,” according to [new research] from Robert Warren, a demographer and senior visiting fellow at the Center for Migration Studies. “From 2010 to 2019, the undocumented population from Mexico declined by about 1.9 million… Illegal Immigration In America Has Continued To Decline
An improved Mexico economy demonstrably reduces illegal immigration into the US in ways that have not so far been demonstrated for walls.
Tesla and suppliers are anticipate to add $15B to the Mexico Tesla gigafactory, with the local governor pledging improvements in highways and public works infrastructure. That’s a lot of jobs. The Teslas produced in Mexico will likely be globally exported, taking advantage of Mexico’s membership in a number trade pacts, including the new version of the TPP. That’s a lot more jobs involved in transport and shipment.
The investment by Tesla to create a Mexico gigafactory that will likely rival the Shanghai version is facilitating the transformation of Mexico as the primary EV manufacturing and distribution hub in the Western Hemisphere, with investment coming from all the major car companies, including and perhaps more importantly, the Chinese.
The scale of the Monterrey factory means that Chinese suppliers across Tesla’s supply chain began packing up. Upstream, JL Mag Rare-Earth, a producer of magnets used in electric vehicles (EVs), said it would construct a recycling plant in Monterrey to aid in the manufacturing of its magnets. Similarly, Xusheng Group said it would replicate its industrial chain to make aluminum alloy auto parts about an hour from Monterrey.
As the US becomes more protectionist, Mexico is welcoming foreign investment and will likely experience major manufacturing job growth. This is occurring at a time when it is facing the same aging work force declines faced by most industrial countries. Mexico could soon face major labor shortages, which could benefit all those Central American climate refugees.
Agreed, but you can’t conflate that with the opening of a single, albeit large factory.
Tesla and suppliers are anticipate to add $15B to the Mexico Tesla gigafactory,
I already gave this factory a more than a 10x job multiplier - which is more than even Tesla forecasts. Even if it was 20x, it would not be enough to stem the tide of migration. You have yet to illustrate any dots connecting new jobs in Mexico (Mexico already has lower unemployment than the US) with less migration from non-Mexican countries.
Here try this:
Honda expanded in Mexico in 2014 by doubling their number of employees to over 7000. They occupied 5.66 million sq meters of space with their expanded facility. What impact, if any, did that have on unauthorized border crossings in the years immediately after that expansion? Why would Tesla be any different?
