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A Phenomenon: Worldwide Immigration Outflow

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By MARION EDWYN HARRISON

Guest columnist

Published: March 6, 2009

World trade more or less quadrupled from 1982 to 2008. Most economists either did not foresee the universal array of economic calamity which dramatically manifested itself in the fourth quarter of 2008 or chose to remain mum.

The immediate consequences are sadly manifest. Among those which could have been predicted is multinational reverse immigration. In other words, in the aggregate hundreds of thousands — well en route to millions — of people who left their homeland to find employment elsewhere are returning jobless.

Some of these consequences empirically and greatly impact our United States of America. Unemployment is up; air traffic is down. In addition, major seaport traffic has fallen — for example, by double digits in the strong seaports of Long Beach, Calif., Norfolk, Va., and Savannah, Ga.

A World Bank estimate projects an additional 53 million people in the "developing" — a politically acceptable aphorism for "poor" — countries are soon to be ensnared in poverty.

The Department of Homeland Security estimates that in a 12-month period concluding January 2009, the number of unlawful immigrants — mostly, of course, Mexican — has declined by about 200,000 in this country from a peak of some 11.8 million people. A recent article in Foreign Policy Magazine estimates that as many as three million Mexicans in our country within the short and foreseeable future will return to Mexico.

Somewhat irrelevantly — unless one lives, visits or does business there — about 11 percent of the state of Nevada's population is comprised of unlawful immigrants and 9 percent of the Arizona population is made up of so-called "undocumented workers."

The return of Mexicans to Mexico is of immense material significance to "Los Estados Unidos de Mexico" — that is, the real Mexico. This is not the Mexico which, to some Mexican politicians, includes the 33 million people now located in the United States.

There are two reasons for this significance. First, the number of Mexican families receiving money from relatives in United States has dropped precipitously, almost 12 percent, and is still dropping. Second, the number of unemployed within Mexico has risen exponentially, and is still rising.These developments, of course, are sad for the millions who suffer. The anguish is aggravated by a government that is attempting, with limited success, to curb the extraordinary quantities and violent qualities of crime — including drug-gang warfare along the Mexican border.

There is little we Americans can or should do to slow this outward migration. We must consider our national self-interest. As a country which lives by law, while welcoming incremental and lawful immigration, we can and should continue vigorously to build effective control of our inbound Mexican border. Regardless of which economists' projections we accept as to the duration of the recession, or possibly depression, eventually a measure of economic normalcy will return. Well before then we should have perfected border-control efficacy to the point where few unlawful immigrants can invade.

According the benefit of the doubt, one must note that there appears to be no major presidential or congressional attention to this subject. The newly installed Secretary of Homeland Security is Janet Napolitano, the popular former governor of Arizona. She has imminent familiarity with border problems. She should take a lead in planning for a future of resurgent unlawful immigration.

This commentary probably already says not less than enough. My prior comments address recent travails regarding border security. They are available on the www.freecongress.org Web site.

Marion Edwyn Harrison is president of, and counsel to, the Free Congress Foundation.

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