The Signing of NAFTA in 1994 and Its Effects on Migration

As can be seen from above, Mexico had pursued a closed economic model for a long time but with the collapse of economic system in the 1980 Debt Crisis, Mexican state had put forward some effort to change the conduct.

This long changing process gave its biggest turn in in 1990s. Mexico has been undergoing a long process of transformation away from protectionist policies, a process which has merely intensified in recent years. This transformation represents a shift away from a policy of high tariffs and licensing restrictions meant to encourage industrial development and import substitution (Axelrad, 1993, p.204).

The rapid increase of Mexican population within the scarce economic opportunities was a serious problem for the state and this was the main cause of migration flows. As of 1990, Mexico's labor force of 30 million persons was growing at a rate of one million persons per year, while only 300,000 to 400,000 jobs were being created per year in the formal economy (UNCTAD, 1990). In the 1990s, Mexican state completed the long-going economic transformation and turned towards liberal economic structure under Salinas de Gortari administration to solve these problems. When Gortari’s efforts in domestic arena could not solve the economic problems in the country, they moved towards liberalizing the closed economy and seeking for establishing cooperation with their wealthy neighbors.

Within this context, Gortari and American president at the time George Herbert Walker Bush started to negotiate for a free trade area. With their initiation, preparations for NAFTA started and Canada joined in the negotiations in 1991.

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After negotiations and regulations, the agreement was signed on 1994. On the contrary of the high expectations, NAFTA did not solve the economic problems of Mexico for the large scale but it helped to liberalize the economy faster than it would without the agreement and it attracted foreign investment over time. Since it eliminated tariffs, made the borders easier to pass for businesses and produced mechanisms which would protect the property rights of foreign investors. The effect was not as dramatic as expected. It helped the manufacturing sector and foreign direct investment for this sector increased 53% between 1994 and 2005 with the effect of the agreement but other sectors such as construction, mining, agriculture, electric power generation could attract foreign investment almost close to nothing. Overall per capita economic growth of Mexico was only 1 percent between 1994 and 2001.

Both parties of the agreement were expecting from NAFTA to develop Mexican economy and to slow down labor migration to the United States. Economic relations grew as expected; United States export numbers rose from 47 billion $ to 91 billion $ and U.S. imports from Mexico rose from 45 billion $ to 131 billion $.

However, this growth of numbers did not affect the migration numbers, human flow from Mexico to the United States did not stop and even became easier with the development of communication and transportation options between two countries. Unauthorized migrant number was 2 million in 1990, before the signing of NAFTA but it rose up to 4.8 million in 2000. As Martin summarizes;

Many of the evaluations of NAFTA’s first decade conclude that trade-led growth was not sufficient to bring prosperity to Mexico: real wages in Mexico were lower in 2001 than in 1994 despite higher productivity, income inequality was greater, and Mexico-U.S. migration rose (Martin, P. 2008, p.85).

“Thus, instead of deterring Mexicans from moving to the neighboring country, they have promoted a more rapid growth in the size of the undocumented population” (Massey, 2005). After the establishment of NAFTA, the number of

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Mexican migrants, both legal and irregular, increased even more. According to the numbers of U.S. Census Bureau, in the timeline between 1980s and early 1990s, Mexican population in the United States grew steadily. As mentioned above, President Salinas de Gortarti had changed the ‘policy of no policy’ perspective towards migration and got involved in American policies towards migration.

Mexican state gained power and instead of following American policies, involved in the process and presented its position and regarded its interests.

In 1990, in the context of a general improvement in bilateral relations under Bush and Salinas, the Immigration Sub Group was elevated to Working Group status, and Mexicans involved in the Working Group describe a fundamental philosophical shift from the goal of scoring rhetorical points on subjects of disagreement, to looking for areas of common ground, including maximizing the proportion of migrants which traveled legally, minimizing smuggling, and protecting human rights (Rosenblum, 2002, p.22).

After 1990, the number increased quite rapidly and this trend continued through the decade. American government tried to control the numbers by passing the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA).

This law made it possible to legalize irregular migrants, strengthened border controls by increasing the number of personnel, bringing new high-technological control mechanisms to the border and also directed the building of a fence through San Diego border. As a counter effect of this act, human smuggling through the border and document frauds and bribery increased greatly and Mexican migrants continued to cross the border one way or another.

During 1990s, 514,000 workers entered the U.S. land per year. U.S. Census Bureau gives the numbers of Mexican-born people of the U.S.A. as 4.3 million people in 1990, 9 million people in 2000 and 10.6 million people in 2004. The statistics show that 7 million Mexicans in 1997 which increased up to 10 million in 2002; which coincides to 43% of a growth rate only within a 5-year time period (U.S. Census Bureau, 2005, p.37). While the American federal government tried to

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lower down the number of irregular migrants via regulations and treaties and similar policies, these efforts had a reverse effect and Mexican irregular migration continued to grow.

The North American Free Trade Agreement and the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, together with intensified enforcement along the southern U.S.

border, were aimed wholly or partially at curtailing the flow of unauthorized Mexico-to-U.S. migration (Borjas, 2007, p. 269).

Yet again, the result did not meet the expectations. Along with the incoming migrant numbers, the number of the settling Mexicans increased. With the effect of the new control mechanisms and regulations, it was hard for the temporary workers to go home and come back to United States. Thus, many temporary workers settled down in order to avoid the hardship of passing the border. “In 1992, an estimated 20 percent of unauthorized Mexicans in the United States returned to Mexico within six months; by 1997, the return rate was down to 15 percent within six months, and by 2002, only 7 percent” (Martin, P. 2008, p.75).

United States administration turned into economic support strategy for Mexican economic development and migration management. United States established

‘New International Financial Architecture’ (NIFA) initiation in 1999 and supported many countries’ economic development, and Mexico was one of these countries. “NIFA constitutes a transnational class-based strategy to reproduce the power of financial capital in the world economy and in effect, the structural power of the United States” (Soederberg, 2004, p.176). Neither the preventive policy efforts nor the efforts to develop Mexican economy and decrease unemployment rates in order to eliminate the problem of Mexican migrants gave efficient results.

These efforts even backfired and increased the number of Mexican unauthorized migrants to settle down in United States.

So and so forth, with the effect of the changes in the presidential offices in both of the countries, the focus of the administrations turned into accepting Mexican

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migrants and improving their life conditions and regulate the phenomenon when it came to the year 2000. However, with the crucial event in the beginning of the twenty-first century; with the 9/11 attack to the World Trade Center in 2001, American policies towards migrants became even more strict thereby affecting general structure of American diversity based policies and the situation of Mexican migrants and the new migratory waves.

2.6. The Third Wave of Migration: Migration in the 21^st Century