On the subject of undocumented immigration...

On the subject of undocumented immigration, Princeton Professor Douglas Massey offers the following in his piece titled, Backfire at the Border: Why Enforcement without Legalization Cannot Stop Illegal Immigration (pdf) , July 13, 2005. This brief, which you can download in its entirety, is a Cato Institute Publication.

Because of my own interest in the development of cross-border institutions that translate the goal of regional integration into cooperative policies and practices in other arenas like education, I'm contemplating these matters. It seems to me that while the issue of immigration and immigrants' rights and responsibilities will be a continuing one, it's also still time to consider in a parallel fashion possibilities across borders through binational programs. While this is not totally unchartered territory, it remains woefully under-developed especially in light of a much more developed discourse on free trade. -Angela


From Prof. Massey's executive summary:


"For the past two decades, the U.S.government has pursued a contradictory policy on North American integration. While the U.S. government has pursued more commercial integration through the North American Free Trade Agreement, it has sought to unilaterally curb the flow of labor across the U.S.-Mexican border. That policy has not only failed to reduce illegal immigration; it has actually made the problem worse.

Increased border enforcement has only succeeded in pushing immigration flows into more remote regions. That has resulted in a tripling of the death rate at the border and, at the same time, a dramatic fall in the rate of apprehension. As a result, the cost to U.S.taxpayers of making one arrest result is that illegal immigrants are less likely to return to their home country, causing an increase in the number of illegal immigrants remaining in the United States. Whatever one thinks about the goal of reducing migration from Mexico, U.S.policies toward that end have clearly failed, and at great cost to U.S.taxpayers. A border policy that relies solely on enforcement is bound to fail.

Congress should build on President Bush’s immigration initiative to enact a temporary visa program that would allow workers from Canada, Mexico, and other countries to work in the United States without restriction for a certain limited time. Undocumented workers already in the United States who do not have a criminal record should be given temporary legal status."

http://www.freetrade.org/pubs/pas/tpa-029.pdf