Country Resource - Mexico
- Population..........................................................................130,739,927 (2024 est.)
- Population growth rate ..............................................................0.72% (2024 est.)
- Birth rate......................................................14.3 births/1,000 population (2024 est.)
- Death rate......................................................6.5 deaths/1,000 population (2024 est.)
- Net migration rate...................................-0.7 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2024 est.)
- Ethnic groups*.....................................Mestizo (Indigenous-Spanish) 62%, predominantly Indigenous 21%, Indigenous 7%, other 10% (mostly European) (2012 est.)
* Mexico does not collect census data on ethnicity
CIA World Factbook
Mexico is the source of the world’s second-largest migrant population. In recent years the country has found itself at an unexpected crossroads: Managing the transit of growing numbers of asylum seekers and other migrants headed to the United States. Meanwhile, the Mexican-born population in the United States has declined significantly since 2010. This article provides an overview of the major trends and policies.
Recent Activity
Some countries with large diasporas have sought to maximize incoming remittances and channel them into particular sectors. Diaspora engagement policies are not always successful, but research shows that they are generally accompanied by increased remittance sending. This article explains the connection and explores some of the factors affecting remittance levels.
Amid unprecedented migration that began in 2010, Latin America and the Caribbean have entered a new era best defined by volatility. The success of initial policy responses to the displacement of millions of Venezuelans and other migration patterns has dimmed, given incomplete integration outcomes and other pressures. This article details these dynamics across the Caribbean and Central and South America.
Un nivel histórico de migración está transformando las sociedades y la política en América Latina y el Caribe, dando paso a una etapa definida por la volatilidad. Este artículo analiza estas dinámicas en el Caribe y Centroamérica y Sudamérica, y analiza la probabilidad de que la región se acerque a un punto de inflexión en la gestión de la migración.
When organizations, governments, and journalists need a visual image depicting irregular and humanitarian migration, they usually choose from one of two options: Portraying migrants as threats or as victims. This article analyzes the two visual narratives, their implications, and alternative options.
The number of Mexican immigrants in the United States dropped by about 1 million from 2010 to 2022, but has since rebounded to an extent while remaining below its peak. Mexicans are by far the largest group of immigrants in the United States, and more than half live in either California or Texas. This article offers key details of this population and how it is evolving.
Los mexicanos son el mayor grupo de inmigrantes en Estados Unidos, con cerca del 23 por ciento del total de 47.8 millones de residentes nacidos en el extranjero en 2023. Este artículo de enfoque proporciona información sobre la población inmigrante mexicana en Estados Unidos.
Do large-scale deportations lead to safer communities, better jobs, and less irregular migration? Research shows the answer is less clear than leading voices may suggest. This article provides an overview of research about the impacts of removals on destination and origin countries alike, focusing in particular on deportations from the United States to Latin America.
Mexico is the source of the world’s second-largest migrant population. In recent years the country has found itself at an unexpected crossroads: Managing the transit of growing numbers of asylum seekers and other migrants headed to the United States. Meanwhile, the Mexican-born population in the United States has declined significantly since 2010. This article provides an overview of the major trends and policies.
The U.S. immigration enforcement system increasingly depends on other countries to help halt irregular movements through the Americas and accept the return of unauthorized migrants. Foreign governments play a crucial and yet underappreciated role in migration management, and can either aid or frustrate U.S. border-control aims, as this article explores.
Political and economic crises, new free-movement arrangements, and other trends are transforming countries across Latin America and the Caribbean, a region once known primarily for its emigration. The number of immigrants living in the region has nearly doubled since 2010, an incredible change in a short period of time. This article makes sense of a profound transition underway in the Western Hemisphere.
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Countries across the Americas are grappling with how to effectively manage migration. The aim is to facilitate movement in a way that benefits receiving societies, migrants, and their origin countries, while discouraging irregular arrivals. But creating legal pathways that represent real alternatives to irregular migration remains a challenge and will require concerted effort, as this report explores.
Los países a través de las Américas intentan gestionar eficazmente la migración. La meta es facilitar el movimiento a beneficio de las sociedades receptoras, los migrantes y sus países de origen y a la vez disuadir las llegadas irregulares. Pero como explora este informe, crear vías legales que sean alternatives reales a la migración irregular requerirá un esfuerzo concertado.
All eyes are on the U.S.-Mexico border, where shifting migration trends and record migrant arrivals have stretched the U.S. border management system beyond its capabilities. As the Biden administration continues to implement its new regime of incentives for orderly arrivals and disincentives for unauthorized crossings, this report analyzes the rapidly changing policy and migration realities and outlines recommendations for a more effective, durable system of border control.
The massive and rapid displacement of Syrians, Venezuelans, and Ukrainians presented neighboring countries with an impossible task: providing legal status and assistance, even though their asylum systems lacked the capacity to handle such a large influx. This report examines the costs and benefits of the flexible approaches taken to providing status in these three cases, identifying lessons for future crises.
Venezuelan displacement has prompted countries across Latin America and the Caribbean to launch policies and programs to register, regularize, and support the integration of arriving Venezuelans. However, the extent to which regular status has helped Venezuelans find work has varied from country to country, as this report discusses.
El desplazamiento de venezolanos ha llevado a países de toda América Latina y el Caribe a poner en marcha políticas y programas para registrar, regularizar y apoyar la integración de los venezolanos. Sin embargo, la medida en que la regularización ha ayudado a los venezolanos a encontrar trabajo ha variado de un país a otro, como se analiza en este informe.
El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras have long histories of emigration, but are seeing increasing transit and return migration as well. This report explores the stories told within these three countries about migration in all its forms, how these narratives intersect with (and at times, contradict) each other, and how they influence policy decisions and public opinion.
Countries in Latin America and the Caribbean have pragmatically tapped a variety of policy tools to provide legal status to at least half and as many as two-thirds of the more than 6 million displaced Venezuelans in the region. This report explores the extent to which Venezuelans have been able to obtain legal status in the top 15 host countries, their access to labor markets and public services, and where gaps remain.
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Policymakers across the Americas are weighing whether and how to expand legal migration pathways as alternatives to unauthorized movement. But what pathways already exist, and how widely are they used? This fact sheet provides an overview of available pathways to the United States for migrants from Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, and data on the changing use of these channels.
U.S. debates about immigration from Mexico often center on the low skilled, but this analysis shows a population in change. Nearly one in five Mexican immigrants arriving between 2013-17 had a college degree, compared to slightly more than 1 in 20 during the 1996-2000 period. Mexicans now make up the fourth-largest group of highly skilled immigrants. This fact sheet explores their characteristics at U.S. and Texas levels.
This fact sheet uses U.S. and Mexican apprehensions data to trace the evolving trends in unaccompanied child and family migration from Central America through Mexico and to the United States, and discusses the push factors and pull factors responsible for the increase in flows seen in recent years, as well as the growing role of smuggling organizations.
El sector agrícola en los EE.UU., México y Centroamérica se encuentra en medio de una transformación desde hace décadas. La demanda para cultivos intensivos en mano de obra, es decir, frutas, nueces, verduras, melones y especialidades hortícolas, como flores y setas (productos FVH, por sus siglas en inglés), está aumentando junto con la población y el crecimiento de los ingresos en la región.
El imperativo de mantener la competitividad de la industria manufacturera — un sector que se encuentra en rápida transformación y globalización — está impulsando a las empresas y diseñadores de políticas de la región de studio (es decir, en los Estados Unidos, México, El Salvador, Guatemala, y Honduras) a buscar nuevas estrategias para atraer la inversión y desarrollar el capital humano en el sector. Los EE.UU.
Esta ficha informativa analiza los cambios demográficos, los perfiles epidemiológicos y los patrones de migración en El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, México y los Estados Unidos.
This report offers an intricate look at the slowdown in remittance growth experienced by Mexico in 2007 by comparing remittance flow figures among Mexican states, and highlights regions that may be particularly vulnerable to risks associated with remittance fluctuations.
This fact sheet examines the trilateral relationship between the United States, Canada, and Mexico in the decade since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and provides facts and figures relating to trade and migration among the three countries.
This fact sheet provides a snapshot of the demographics, trade relationships, and migration flows between the United States, Canada, and Mexico in 2003.
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No country has been more critical to U.S. border enforcement than Mexico, with Mexican policies central to reductions in irregular border arrivals witnessed since the start of 2024. As the United States and Mexico navigate the next chapter in their long-standing engagement on migration issues, this policy brief provides an account of how migration patterns and policy responses changed in recent years and the challenges ahead.
For most Central Americans forced to flee their homes, traveling to Mexico or the United States to apply for asylum is their only option to seek international protection. To date, refugee resettlement has been used only sparingly in the region. This brief explores what role resettlement and other humanitarian pathways play in meeting these protection needs, and whether and how they could be scaled up.
Para la mayoría de las personas centroamericanas que se ven forzadas a abandonar sus hogares, viajar a México o Estados Unidos para solicitar refugio o asilo es la única opción para buscar protección internacional. A la fecha, el reasentamiento de personas refugiadas ha sido utilizado de manera limitada en la región. Este informe explora el papel que el reasentamiento y otras vías de protección humanitarias desempeñan en atender estas necesidades.
The migration cooperation agreement signed by the Mexican and U.S. governments in June 2019 ushered in an intense period of policy change in Mexico, with effects at their shared border. One year on, this brief takes stock of changes in Mexico’s immigration enforcement and asylum systems. It also explores how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the border and highlights opportunities for future policy development.
El acuerdo de cooperación migratoria firmado por los gobiernos de México y Estados Unidos en junio de 2019 marcó el comienzo de un intenso período de cambio en las políticas mexicanas, con efectos en su frontera compartida. Un año después, el informe examina cambios en los sistemas de control migratorio y protección humanitaria de México. También explora cómo la pandemia del COVID-19 ha afectado la frontera y destaca oportunidades para el desarrollo de políticas en el futuro.
Faced with the arrival of more than 3 million Venezuelans fleeing economic collapse and political upheaval, Latin American countries have responded with creativity and pragmatism. But as the migration spurred by the crisis stretches on, there is a need to look beyond facilitating legal entry and granting temporary status to plan for the long term. This brief explores the policy response thus far and challenges ahead.
Enfrentados con la llegada de más de 3 millones de venezolanos huyendo de una economía colapsada y conflictos políticos, los países latinoamericanos han respondido con creatividad y pragmatismo. Pero, a medida que la crisis venezolana y la migración que ha impulsado se extienden, es necesario examinar más allá de la facilitación de la entrada legal y la otorgación del estatus temporal para planificar a largo plazo.
On January 25, 2017, President Trump signed an executive order laying out a series of border enforcement mandates, including constructing a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and expanding the use of expedited removal. This brief summarizes and analyzes key provisions of the executive order and accompanying Department of Homeland Security implementation guidance, comparing them to earlier policy and practice.
Wall or no wall, deeply intertwined social, economic, business, cultural, and personal relationships mean the U.S.-Mexico border is more like a seam than a barrier, weaving together two economies and cultures, as MPI President Andrew Selee sketches in this book, which draws from his travels and discussions with people from all walks of life in Mexico and the United States.
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