Illegal immigration: our best foreign aid
As long as the southern border divides prosperity and poverty, the natural flow of migrants cannot be stopped.
About 160 million people with incomes a fifth or less than the average U.S. income now reside less than 1,500 miles from our southern border. Given this huge income gap, more border agents and more miles of fence cannot prevent substantial illegal migration. But such migration is actually the United States' most effective foreign aid program, helping some of the poorest people in the world. Some believe such migration should be tolerated, not fought to the death.
A look at history suggests that even as illegal migration ebbs and flows, it will remain a problem for the United States. Before 1800, incomes per person varied by small amounts across borders. Consequently, there was modest pressure for illegal migrations. But since then, the world economy has experienced a process called the "great divergence." Paradoxically, as barriers to the flow of goods and information have declined, the differences in living standards between the rich and poor economies have widened.
The U.S. happens to be located on one of the stark fault lines of the great divergence. Despite the liberalization of the Mexican economy since 1982 and trade liberalization measures such as the North American Free Trade Agreement of 1993, income per person in Mexico has recently declined compared with that in the U.S. Per capita income in Mexico now averages 22% of that in the U.S. -- the biggest gap since 1950. But Mexico is rich compared to Central America and the Caribbean. Other countries have seen more dramatic declines and have incomes per capita less than 10% that of the U.S.: Honduras and Haiti at 6%, Nicaragua at 9%. Mexico now has its own problem of illegal migration from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.
Not only have incomes of our southern neighbors declined relative to those in the U.S., their populations have increased. In 1950, the population of Mexico was only about one-sixth that of the U.S.; now it is more than one-third. The people of Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean are not just poorer than the U.S., they are also more numerous than before.
This divergence of incomes between the U.S. and its southern neighbors makes the enforcement of border controls increasingly difficult. As long as there are huge potential gains, illegal immigrants will be willing to endure more -- and to try more often -- to enter the United States.
Across such a long border, more agents and better technology can slow the inward march of migrants, but it cannot halt it.
