Mexican Immigration

In California Mexican immigration is often discussed as if it is extremely easy for individuals to enter the U.S. illegally. It is made out to be that anyone who wishes to come into the U.S. has the opportunity to do so. That is why it was very surprising for me during our class discussion on Tuesday to hear that people die and experience terrible hardship to enter the U.S. I decided to do some research on this. One stastic that I found intersting is that at least 4,000 people die a year while attempting to enter the U.S. illegally. Two interesting things to note is that the percentage of women who send money back to Mexico is very high. It is 60% as compared to 39% for men. Women and men migrate 50-50 out of Latin American countries. This represents a demographic split from the past. Perhaps because of this the number of unaccompanied minors entering the U.S. is also much higher. This is a disturbing trend that must have severe social repercutions in Mexico. Here is a link to the article if you want to view it: http://www.nmsu.edu/~frontera/immi.html