www.latimes.com

July 31, 2005
THINKING OUT LOUD: IMMIGRATION
A 'free market' includes labor
By Douglas S. Massey, Douglas S. Massey is a professor of sociology and public policy at Princeton University.


There is a fundamental contradiction at the heart of U.S. relations with Mexico. Together, our nations have created an integrated market characterized by the relatively free flow of capital, goods, services and information across our borders. Since 1986, the volume of trade with Mexico has increased eightfold. But we also have sought, since 1986, to block the movement of workers by criminalizing the hiring of undocumented laborers. The size of the Border Patrol has tripled, and its budget has risen tenfold.

A change in the rate of undocumented Mexican migration did not prompt this escalation of border enforcement. Rather, it was the attempt by U.S. policymakers to finesse the contradiction created by integrating all markets except labor. The result is that migration has continued under terms harmful to the U.S., damaging to Mexico, injurious to U.S. workers and inhumane to migrants.

The militarization of the Mexico-U.S. border has not increased the rate of arrest. Rather, it has reduced the probability of catching migrants to a 40-year low by channeling them to remote areas where their chances of capture are very small. . At remote border locations, however, the risk of death is greater. The mortality rate has tripled; 300 to 400 migrants die annually.

U.S. efforts have failed to discourage undocumented migrants from coming â€â€