NAFTA's Promise and Reality: Lessons from Mexico for the Hemisphere

During the 1990s, NAFTA was promoted by both U.S. and Mexican officials as a means to spur economic growth and job creation in Mexico and thereby reduce the number of unauthorized migrants entering the United States from Mexico each year. But in the ten years following NAFTA’s ratification, illegal immigration from Mexico to the United States grew substantially, more than doubling between 1990 and 2000 alone. Today, it has become increasingly clear that these initial expectations were widely overstated. This report takes a critical look at NAFTA’s impact on regulating migration from Mexico.

Through a detailed examination of the economic and social environments in both countries, the authors find little evidence linking NAFTA to the growth in illegal immigration. Rather, a combination of forces, many having little to do with NAFTA, played a much more consequential role. Specifically, these forces include the Mexican financial crises and subsequent economic restructuring, demographic shifts in Mexico and the failure of Mexican job creation to accommodate a growing workforce, rapid rural-urban migration in Mexico, the economic boom in the United States, and the expansion of strong migrant networks linking the two countries.

Based on these findings, the report concludes that while free trade agreements may not be a panacea for a country’s migration problems, such agreements can serve as a base from which to promote further bilateral and regional cooperation in terms of migration. Such cooperation, the authors contend, offers the only viable solution to present-day disagreements over migration.