As for the debate on immigration reform we once again recently witnessed the tragic loss of the opportunity to push for reforms in public policy that advance real justice for migrants in the United States and their families in Mexico.
In this debate what is most unfortunate is the lack of a transnational vision that would redefine the context in which the phenomenon of migration is no longer understood as a purely domestic problem but linked to the now almost complete economic integration between Mexico and the United States.
We must recognize on both sides of the border between Mexico and the United States that migration is here to stay as it is the result of economic and social processes reflecting the social integration between the two countries that has occurred without any serious discussion of the social terms under which the process unfolds.
The lack of debate on the social terms of this economic integration and the resulting poverty that has been propagated among the Indigenous and Mexican campesino communities has resulted in the invisibility of thousands of people displaced by these same economic forces who resurface as victims only when they become tagged as “illegal migrants” in the United States.
Indeed the debate on migration policies in the United States is but a discussion on the results and the visible effects of deeper problems that have been developing and intensifying over the past three decades – this is the growing economic inequality suffered internally in Mexico and more specifically the lack of economic alternatives for rural communities in Mexico.
It is commonplace to say that rural Mexico has lived in a permanent economic crisis since the early eighties. However, very little is said about the human dimensions of this crisis. When the elites of the United States and Mexico decided to agree on a framework of economic integration that would allow the free movement of capital and goods between Mexico and the United States, while leaving the issue of labor migration outside of the framework of North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the results were the foundations for the current situation of displacement of campesino and indigenous rural Mexicans and the almost impossible task of sustaining local economies in rural areas.
ENTIRE ARTICLE HERE: The Right Not to Migrate | mexmigration: History and Politics of Mexican Immigration.