Immigration and free trade with Mexico: protecting American workers against double jeopardy

Abstract

Free trade may well increase immigration from Mexico to the United States before ultimately slowing it down. Rapid population growth, unemployment or underemployment of half the labor force, and vast ethnic and kinship links to the United States have given Mexican migration a stubborn momentum. Increased prosperity from free trade will give many would-be migrants the means to resettle in the U. S. Foreign competition will displace Mexican workers in small farms, state-owned enterprises, and less competitive industries, forcing some to migrate. The noneconomic incentives and expectations driving migration will also remain strong. Mexicans may see free trade as making the border a mere formality or as conferring an entitlement to live in the United States. On the U. S. side, free trade may well deepen the government's traditional complacency about border controls. Over the long-term, however, a successful free trade agreement could reduce immigration by improving Mexico's democracy and the quality of life, diminishing the prospects of mass asylum movements from Mexico, creating a better climate for effective family planning, and luring marginal, immigration-magnet industries from the U. S. to Mexico. In the United States, less- skilled American workers in some industries and regions can expect job displacement and other disruptions from free trade. Particularly vulnerable will be workers in perishable crop agriculture, border retail trade, construction, apparel, and light manufacturing such as furniture, auto parts and glass. Continued heavy immigration of Mexican and other foreign workers into those industries and communities will further impede the adjustment of resident workers by competing for jobs and consuming public resources needed for retraining and job search. To ease the adjustment of displaced workers, the U. S. must make Mexico's cooperation in restraining immigration a condition for free trade. Mexico's cooperation should include enforcement of its own laws against clandestine border crossing; action against alien smugglers, document forgers and transiting illegal aliens from Central America; and curbs on the reentry of aliens deported from the United States. U.S. initiatives that would cushion vulnerable American workers against the added disruption of immigration would be: better identification and screening of applicants for public assistance; tightened enforcement of safety and labor standards in immigrant-impacted firms and provision of legal workers to such firms; protection of public assistance resources through better screening and identification of applicants; and curbs on imports of temporary foreign workers for firms that will now have access to Mexican labor in Mexico. Finally, the United States must consistently press Mexico for higher safety, environmental and labor standards at the workplace to improve the job satisfaction and quality of life of working Mexicans who might otherwise migrate, as well as to narrow Mexico's labor cost advantages over the United States.