Migration from Mexico to united states

Migration is a subject that is studied on all levels when dealing with humanity and its idiosyncrasies. In order to understand migration we must understand the various components involved in migration, including internal migration, external migration, immigration and both refugees and Internally Displaced Persons. We must attempt to understand the reasons to migrate and how laws affect the various forms of migration and if there would be solutions to this practice of migration. The objective is to study the problems, the solutions and the reasoning behind migration as a whole.

In order to understand the reasons behind migration of people we must first define the various components of migration. Migration refers to the movement of an individual from his or her home country, also known as the source country to another country as his or her destination. The two main movements are involved include immigration and emigration.

Immigration would be the movement of individuals into a country. Emigration is the movement of individuals from their home country. The balance between emigration and immigration would be known as net migration and this can be either positive or negative. Positive would be when immigration exceeds emigration and negative would be the reverse of that process. (Kar, 2006, 187)

There are many different influences and consequences relative to migration for anyone that moves from where they originated. Factors that would have to do with migration include the economic growth and development of the country that people are leaving, specifically GDP, the level of domestic development, and finally income and quality of life within the countries.

Another two factors include how urbanized an area would be and variations in that consideration along with levels of education that would in fact be available for children across the country of origin in place of isolated areas. Occasionally, the amount of US influence on a country can either adversely or conversely affect the amount of migration.

We see this today as we build walls along the US and Mexican border. We see it in the denials for migrants that are entering this country from all over the world as the numbers increase exponentially. The US has gone so far as to create the Homeland Security office to ensure that human trafficking is policed, and have created new laws to create fencing between the US and Mexican border to prevent more immigrants from entering the country illegally.

An attempt at appeasement for Mexico in regard to what was known as the bill to create a guest worker program failed in gaining the necessary acceptance. (Fletcher, 2003, 343) Migration from Mexico has generated a sizeable Mexican-born population in the United States. Mexican estimates compute this population in the range of 8 to 8.5 million, of which the non-authorized component is estimated between 3 and 3.5 million. The US Census Bureau estimates that there are more than nine million Mexican immigrants living in the United States. Of these, approximately 4.7 million, or over half, are undocumented. However, about 1.6 million, or one in five Mexicans, are naturalized US citizens (MPI, 2002, 1).

Regulation and policing will only go so far in slowing the amount of migration. Force rarely facilitates the ability to have residents of one country to remain in that country and there have been no recent incentives to have many of them stay in their own countries. The US may provide aid, and this may actually end up causing further migration in place of bringing a halt to it. Aid is not always the answer, unless that aid is universal in content coming from many donors in place of one.

References

Fletcher, R; (2003); Beliefs and Knowledge: Believing and Knowing; Howard & Price.

Kar, P; (2006); History and related application of Migration; Dasgupta & Chatterjee.

Migration Policy Institute (MPI). (2002) Mexico: A Crucial Crossroads. Retrieved 1/9/2007