--- Julio Huato <juliohuato at gmail.com> wrote:
> Chris,
>
> > Just out of curiosity, is there much immigration
> INTO Mexico?
>
> I don't know about flows, but officially the stock
> of foreign-born
> people residing in Mexico in 2000 was less than half
> a million (in a
> population of 100 million). By now, the official
> figure must be just
> over half a million (total pop is near 105 million).
> And based on
> 1990 & 2000 census data, the annual percent change
> in that variable is
> 4.4 or 4.5%. By those measures, immigration is not
> very impressive.
>
> However, *undocumented* immigration has thrived in
> the last 20 years.
> That's my assessment based on casual observation and
> extensive
> interviews to taxi drivers, friends, relatives, etc.
> Most of the
> undocumented immigration is from Central America,
> South America, the
> Caribbean, and China -- and it's transitory, a stop
> on the way to the
> U.S. A very small portion settles. Again, most of
> them from Central
> America, South America, the Caribbean, and China.
> There's a bit from
> other Asian and Middle Eastern countries. Very
> little from Africa.
>
> By the way, my impression is that there was an
> upsurge of Russian and
> Eastern European immigration in the early 1990s,
> partly undocumented.
> Then, I thought the Mexican government would try and
> attract highly
> educated Russians and Eastern Europeans, but they
> didn't make the
> attempt. In the spring of 1990, I wrote a little
> note in a little
> sectarian rag suggesting immigration rules had to be
> relaxed to
> attract unemployed ex Soviet engineers and
> scientists.
>
> Mexico and the Mexican left owe much intellectually
> to immigrants --
> from Eastern Europe early in the 20th century,
> Republican Spain and
> Germany in the mid 20th century, and other Latin
> Americans in the post
> WW2 period. My note was blasted saying it was
> stupid to expect much
> from people who had just rejected socialism.
>
> Then, in the the early 1990s, the media ran stories
> about Russian and
> Eastern European women smuggled into the country to
> work in high-class
> bordellos in Mexico City, Guadalajara, Puebla,
> Monterrey, etc.,
> combined with urban legends about the Russian mafia
> invading Mexico.
> I have never found any serious journalistic report
> -- let alone
> studies -- on this.)
>
> I have some Polish and Russian friends in Mexico,
> who moved in this
> period, and they complained of mistreatment by
> Mexico's migration
> authorities. That's routine. But I'm positive that
> the worst cases
> of mistreatment and discrimination are against poor,
> formally
> uneducated, dark-skinned, Indigenous or black,
> Caribbean, Central
> American, and South American immigrants. It's
> really shameful the way
> the Mexican migra, the cops, government officers in
> general, and even
> regular people treat them. And, naturally, life and
> opportunities are
> much better for immigrants in Mexico City, compared
> to the rest of the
> country.
> ___________________________________
>
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