Moving Beyond the Policy of No Policy: Emigration from Mexico and Central America

Latin American Politics and Society, Winter 2004 by Rosenblum, Marc R

INTERVIEW RESULTS: OPINIONS ON POLICY ISSUES

As a first cut at these issues, this study interviewed 83 policymakers from Mexico (51), El Salvador (18), and Nicaragua (14), along with 5 additional officials from Guatemala (2), Honduras (2), and the Dominican Republic (1). Interview respondents were experts on migration, trade, and development, and most were current or former executive branch or congressional officials with policymaking or diplomatic experience. The interviews averaged 1 hour, 15 minutes in length and consisted of open-ended questions regarding preferences cm migration, trade flows, and relevant policies. For a subset of 45 interviews conducted in 2001, an additional survey-style questionnaire was administered, allowing the calculation of comparative descriptive statistics, although the small, non-random sample does not permit hypothesis testing (see appendix).

Overall Findings

The interviews sought informants' opinions regarding migration, U.S. policy, and how migration fits into broader bilateral relations. Obviously, the questions measured individual perspectives, not those of states; but the resulting data allowed inferences to be drawn about state views.

First, how do migrant-sending states weigh the pros and cons of emigration to the United States? Most of the interview respondents answered this question by identifying a trade-off between political-economic benefits and social-political costs, though neither category was described as one-dimensional. As the literature anticipates, respondents were strongly positive about the provision of hard currency and the reduction of unemployment, and many respondents also emphasized the added human capital borne by returning migrants. Still, these positive responses were usually accompanied by concerns about "brain drain" and more generally about a "culture of dependency" that would discourage migrants from considering domestic alternatives.

Regarding noneconomic factors, the most common concern was the exploitation of migrants generally and of undocumented migrants in particular. But a number of additional issues not emphasized by the literature were also raised, including the erosion of cultural identity and damage to sending-state family structures. Conversely, other respondents saw these same cross-border links as important benefits of emigration.

The relative priority that the 2001 subsample attached to these issues is reflected in respondent rankings of up to three positive and negative aspects of migration. These results are summarized in tables 1 and 2, which include data on these responses, as well as an index weighted by priority. Table 1 confirms that migrant remittances and employment were clearly identified as core benefits of emigration, but that cultural links and migrants' enhanced human capital were also noteworthy. On the negative side, table 2 confirms that migrant exploitation was the top concern for individuals in the sample; but these humanitarian issues were only slightly more important than less well studied family and cultural concerns, and economic costs of emigration were also considered important.