February 16, 2006
Memo From Mexico, By Allan Wall
Mexico’s Surprising Admission—Emigration Not Necessary

Are Mexican illegal aliens such desperately poor people that they will die of starvation unless we let them into the United States?

Or is the truth a little more complicated?

The pro-open borders government of Mexico recently made a surprising public admission.

Not surprising for its content, but surprising that they publicly admitted it.

On January 9th, at a press conference in Los Pinos (the Mexican White House), Fox administration spokesman Ruben Aguilar was asked about emigration.

Here is part of what he said,

“In some cases it [emigration] has to do with real problems of poverty, and in others it answers to other types of personal interest. Statistics reveal that a very, very high number of the persons who emigrate to the United Status had work in Mexico. They don’t emigrate to get a job, but they emigrate for another series of conditions also of a cultural character, because they hope for a better condition of life despite the fact that they had work here. They aren’t going because they don’t have work in Mexico." (En algunos casos tiene que ver con problemas reales de pobreza, y en otros responde a otro tipo de intereses de las personas. Las estadÃ*sticas revelan que un número muy, muy alto, de las personas que emigran a los Estados Unidos tenÃ*an trabajo en México, no emigran por no tener trabajo, sino emigran por otra serie de condiciones también de carácter cultural, porque esperan una mejor condición de vida a pesar de que aquÃ* tenÃ*an trabajo, no se están yendo porque no tengan trabajo en México.) [Press conference transcript]

This fits in with a recent report released by the Pew Hispanic Center entitled Unemployment Plays Small Role in Spurring Mexican Migration to the U.S.

The material for this study was based on surveys of Mexican immigrants applying for matricula consular cards in the U.S., which means nearly all of them were illegal aliens.

The polling was conducted in 7 U.S. cities (Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, Raleigh and Fresno) from the East Coast to the West Coast.

Pew’s press release begins:

"The vast majority of undocumented migrants from Mexico were gainfully employed before they left for the United States, according to a Pew Hispanic Center report released today. The report suggests that failure to find work at home does not seem to be the primary reason that the estimated 6.3 million undocumented migrants from Mexico have come to the U.S.â€