
More Mexicans Leaving Than Coming to the U.S - thehoff
http://www.pewhispanic.org/2015/11/19/more-mexicans-leaving-than-coming-to-the-u-s/
======
jack-r-abbit
> _Measuring migration flows between Mexico and the U.S. is challenging
> because there are no official counts of how many Mexican immigrants enter
> and leave the U.S. each year._

I think this is the biggest problem. I don't really care if people want to
relocate from one country to another. I just care that they do it legally and
the two countries know about it. If you are paying a coyote to sneak you
across a lightly patrolled stretch of the border in the middle of the night...
you should know you are doing it wrong. "Securing the border" does not have to
mean "lock all those dirty Mexicans out." It can just mean "let's make sure we
know who is coming and going." I do recognize that the process can be
problematic and could use an overhaul... but anytime anyone even mentions any
type of reform, they just get shouted down. Because... _racist_!

~~~
Lawtonfogle
>I don't really care if people want to relocate from one country to another. I
just care that they do it legally and the two countries know about it.

The problem is that requiring them to do it legally is requiring many to not
do it at all because those who do care if you can do it have made the laws so
burdensome.

>If you are paying a coyote to sneak you across a lightly patrolled stretch of
the border in the middle of the night... you should know you are doing it
wrong.

If you see people paying someone money to take them on a very dangerous
journey instead of going through your legal process, you should know the legal
process is broken.

~~~
dropit_sphere
I don't think this logic stands up. Does the presence of widespread illegal
activity automatically imply that said illegal activity has the moral high
ground?

Is it impossible to acknowledge that sometimes, people will have conflicts,
but that one has the right to decide how they'll be resolved, and the other
doesn't?

~~~
davidw
It may not have the moral high ground, but you'd better design your systems to
deal with it, rather than pretend that it's possible to stop it.

Also, people moving to seek a better life for themselves and their children is
pretty core to the existence of the US, so I would posit that it's a moral
thing to do if people aren't breaking any other laws. By making legal
immigration easier, you keep people on the side of the law and less tempted to
break other laws, since, hey, in for a penny, in for a pound.

~~~
dropit_sphere
> but you'd better design your systems to deal with it, rather than pretend
> that it's possible to stop it.

Ah, but see, _no one cares what I think_ when designing systems. I'm just
another programmer, you know?

The systems _I_ get to design are things like: my career, my marriage, how I
raise my kids.

And the sensible adaptations of _my_ systems to unbounded immigration are:
improve my lot, possibly at the expense of society's (making a bigger pie
doesn't make sense if that simply attracts more pie eaters), prize relative
status over absolute wealth (for the same reason), carry a gun, decrease my
investment in society and retain options for moving abroad (same reason), and
work hard to afford expensive real estate near "good schools" to send my
children to elite colleges--- _elite_ you understand, not _good enough_ ,
because with enough people, good enough, isn't.

And this is all antisocial behavior, and I don't really like it, and perhaps I
will find a way to refrain from most of it and die in my bed in Oakland after
ten years of philanthropy, surrounded by not only my multilingual
grandchildren who, by dint of the virtues of hard work, collaboration, and
generosity that I've taught, have managed to find their places in society, but
also the neighborhood youths that I've mentored, _Gran Torino_ style. That is
the outcome I would be urged to pursue, and the one I personally find most
fulfilling.

But: perhaps my neighbor Steve the auto mechanic is not so insufferably
capable as I am, and feels betrayed by his country. What Steve feels is his
due is _loyalty_ , which means: discrimination. If loyalty to a company means
that you stay there when you perhaps get a better offer from another, loyalty
to a citizenry means that you favor its interests over some other body of
people. And I do not get the sense that proponents of mass immigration favor
the interests of the citizenry over migrants. _I_ am happily ensconced at my
well-paying tech job, so I will be OK---but what about Steve? What does he
tell his kids when a Mexican (by pure chance---it could have been white, but
this time, it wasn't) kid bullies them at school? Does he feel a moral
obligation to consider the other child's interests? Is he likely to have a
calm chat with the other child's parents?

What I am saying is: "You need to design your systems to deal with it" is
equivalent to saying, "Fuck you," and while the moral and civilized response
to "Fuck you" is "Have a nice day, sir," there are many who will not be able
to afford that answer. Instead, they'll say "Fuck you." And (without the
insulting meaning I ascribed to it earlier) you need to design your systems to
deal with that.

~~~
davidw
I don't really follow the rant, but let me try again:

Some people are poor. They'll risk everything to come to the US or other
wealthy countries. That's the economic reality.

You have several options:

* Become like North Korea. Walls, "papers, please", etc...

* Ignore it and pretend like you can keep them out or that there's a viable "legal path". This is kind of what we're doing now.

* Make it easier for them to come legally so that you can keep track of who is here, kick out the people who actually misbehave, and otherwise run a lawful and orderly country.

This has some parallels with the "war on drugs".

~~~
jack-r-abbit
#1 & #3 are just different implementations of the same idea. Putting up a wall
does make you "North Korea" any more than having a locked front door on your
house does. You can simultaneously make it easier for them to enter legally
AND harder to enter illegally.

~~~
davidw
You don't need a wall if it's easy to get in legally. You still need some
border security, but walls are mostly symbolic and easy enough to route around
in other ways. It's a lot of wasted money.

~~~
jack-r-abbit
Agreed. I don't think we _need_ a wall either. But we do need something. I was
just pointing out that putting up a wall doesn't make you a bad person.

------
tosseraccount
"Measuring migration flows between Mexico and the U.S. is challenging because
there are no official counts".

I suspect many are avoiding official counts.

------
jcslzr
Illegal immigration ends when USA puts people in JAIL for hiring illegal
immigrants.

On the other hand, Canada a couple of years ago started requiring Mexicans a
Visa but now they are backing up and not requiring a Visa anymore....so in
other words: illegal immigration is not a problem its a solution, not for the
average guy on the street but for the guys at the very, very top.

------
DrScump
The outbound number was inflated by counting U.S.-born children as "Mexicans",
going "back" to Mexico.

~~~
WildUtah
I was a US born baby once. Shouldn't they have counted me when I moved to
Mexico? That's how you get a net migration rate. Or don't US Citizens count?

~~~
DrScump
"Shouldn't they have counted me when I moved to Mexico?"

Counted, sure. Counted you _as Mexican_ , no. Remember, this is "Mexican" as
in Mexican national, not latino/Hispanic as in culture or demographics.

------
badloginagain
I wonder if this is actually bad for the US. I don't know enough about US
demographics, but it seems that it has long run on an assumption of near-
constant immigration or desire to immigrate.

If that dynamic changes, or starts to change, I wonder what the effect on US
demographics/culture/etc. will be.

~~~
WildUtah
The Mexicans that have stopped coming and started returning are more than
replaced by Guatemalans, Salvadorans, and Hondurans that have started arriving
in much greater numbers.

Mexico's fertility rate is down to replacement level and the country won't be
sending more.

Guatemala is packing 16MM people into a place the size of Maine, half of it
malarial jungle and half volcanic mountaintop. The fertility rate is 4.0,
setting population to double every generation. Honduras and El Salvador aren't
far behind. Those Central American countries are desperately poor with
illiterate majorities, the world's highest murder rates, and low educational
attainment. Nearly half of Guatemalans don't even speak fluent Spanish.

Meanwhile Mexico is a well educated nation on the verge of first world
incomes.

So the quality of migrants is not looking up. But the quantity certainly is.

~~~
thehoff
It looks like the replacement you're talking about is actually not true. The
numbers that are immigrating is declining across the board.

[http://www.pewhispanic.org/2015/09/15/the-impact-of-
slowing-...](http://www.pewhispanic.org/2015/09/15/the-impact-of-slowing-
immigration-foreign-born-share-falls-among-14-largest-us-hispanic-origin-
groups/)

~~~
DrScump
Did you read your own link? I think you made a conclusion that isn't in the
data, unless I'm misreading something:

"Among all Latinos, there were 14.1 million immigrants in 2000. By 2005, that
number reached 16.8 million, and by 2013, there were 19 million Latino
immigrants in the U.S."

Even in the down-economy period (2005-2013), there was a net _increase_. And
those numbers exclude their US-born children.

~~~
thehoff
I did read it. But maybe I'm misinterpreting.

 _The same pattern is present among all Latino origin groups, though for
three—Ecuadorians, Mexicans and Nicaraguans—the number of immigrants has
declined since 2010 (for details, see Appendix Table A2)._

 _The foreign-born share of Salvadorans, for example, fell from 76% in 2000 to
59% in 2013—the largest percentage point decline of any of the six largest
Hispanic origin groups. Similarly, Dominicans, Guatemalans, and Colombians all
had decreases of over 13 percentage points in their foreign-born shares over
the same period. Mexicans, the nation’s largest Hispanic origin group, also
saw a decline, though it was only 8 percentage points since 2000._

------
agumonkey
Reminds me of refugees stuck in France saying they never wanted to stay there
but go to Germany. Massive national pride drop.

------
kelukelugames
What is the trend for all Hispanics?

~~~
adventured
More people are immigrating to the US from Latin America, than are leaving
back to Latin America.

Mexico specifically appears to have finally hit an economic level of
opportunity where people wanting to leave to the US has slowed down
significantly. However, the rest of Latin America isn't doing nearly as well
as Mexico. Mexico's GDP per capita is now above Russia, Brazil, Turkey; and
their unemployment rate is at 3.8% (4.4% urban). China's manufacturing labor
costs are now above Mexico's; that will continue to increase US manufacturing
shifting some things away from China and to Mexico, bolstering their economic
performance.

~~~
ausjke
When their drug-voilence gets under control fully, it might be the best
place(economically) for start-ups too, why outsource anywhere else when Mexico
is so close and _safe_

~~~
adventured
I think Mexico will probably do _very_ well over the next 20 some years. I
expect we'll see most of the war on drugs come to an end, with Canada / US /
Mexico all legalizing pot and decriminalizing some of the other drugs that
drive a lot of the drug violence. Their GDP per capita will probably double in
just the next 10-12 years, essentially catching up to mid-development European
countries like Portugal, Slovenia and Czech.

~~~
ausjke
Mexico plans to legalized all drugs in 10 years, that definitely will put the
drug war to an end.

------
jedberg
This is not entirely surprising given how hostile the US has been to Mexicans
recently. The fact that one of the top contenders for President is so anti-
Mexican pretty much tells you everything you need to know.

~~~
toomuchtodo
It's not like our economy is exactly friendly to hispanics either.

There was a recent NPR/PRI piece discussing how the only reason the dairy
industry in Wisconsin is still afloat is due to immigrant labor being paid
below legal wage limits. Its not what I'd call "quality of life" for these
folks, and when you're badly hurt in a farming accident (did you know that
farming is one of the most dangerous professions in the US? neither did I),
you've got to take care of it yourself.

Undocumented immigration is an easy problem to solve. If you're a company
employing non-citizens without legal approval, the penalties start at $1
million/employee.

That's not going to happen though, because consumers want services and
products at extremely low prices (which would be pushed up by more expensive
labor) and businesses want to stay in business (who probably couldn't if they
had to pay wages dictated by law).

[http://wisconsinwatch.org/2009/11/a-delicate-existence-
undoc...](http://wisconsinwatch.org/2009/11/a-delicate-existence-undocumented-
and-living-on-a-wisconsin-dairy-farm/)

[http://wisconsinwatch.org/2009/11/immigrants-now-40-of-
state...](http://wisconsinwatch.org/2009/11/immigrants-now-40-of-states-dairy-
workforce/)

[http://www.npr.org/2011/08/31/140086117/e-verify-rattles-
ner...](http://www.npr.org/2011/08/31/140086117/e-verify-rattles-nerves-in-
americas-dairyland)

~~~
davidw
> Its not what I'd call "quality of life" for these folks

If they're taking personal risks and spending their own money to get to places
like that, perhaps it is better than what they left behind.

~~~
pluma
Maybe. Maybe it's not what they came to the US for and that's why they're
going back now.

~~~
davidw
I'm skeptical: it's not as if undocumented workers have had great wages and
working conditions in the past, either. Perhaps things have improved enough in
Mexico that it's no longer worth it.

~~~
brianwawok
Eh you can look at charts

[http://www.tradingeconomics.com/mexico/gdp-
growth](http://www.tradingeconomics.com/mexico/gdp-growth)

GDP has not changed significantly in the past 10 years. With oil supplies
running low, the government is going to have increasing pressure on finding
money.

~~~
WildUtah
Oil money is down, but that always went to fund corruption and plutocrats. The
market economy is growing enough to make up the difference. That's good news
for Mexico's working families.

------
x5n1
Since US stole 1/2 of Mexico from the Mexicans. 1847... Wonder how many
Mexicans were in what is now America at that time. What's with the downvotes,
not as if it's not true.

~~~
vox_mollis
Annexing and then winning the ensuing war is largely how territories have been
claimed throughout human history. Fair purchases are the rare, and recent,
exception.

Singling out the US as some sort of unprecedented evil for doing what
everybody else has always done is likely the cause of the downvotes.

~~~
x5n1
> Singling out the US as some sort of unprecedented evil for doing what
> everybody else has always done is likely the cause of the downvotes.

Touchy. I never did that. But you assume. I am simply pointing out that the
Western States were Mexican. So for Mexicans to come to America to inhabit
them is only natural. Human immigration is also as old as human history.

It's the Americans who have a problem with the Mexicans. Mexicans have no
problem with the fact that the US stole a bunch of their territory a mere 150
years ago. They allow millions of Americans in to their country each year.

~~~
nostromo
> Western States were Mexican

The Apache would like a word with you.

~~~
davidw
For that matter, Oregon, Washington, etc... were never Spanish or Mexican,
although Spain did try to establish a colony in what is now British Columbia:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Cruz_de_Nuca](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Cruz_de_Nuca)

I can't imagine how miserable it must have been for people used to generally
warm and sunny climes to try and eke out an existence in such a cool, wet,
northerly place.

