Mexico's Immigrants

http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe/document?_m=cbf543bbee9e6ebd0ca939797e2b0b79&_docnum=1&wchp=dGLzVzz-zSkVb&_md5=774df2d1c79b20843943b710e39801d2

After the last post, someone told me a procedure for making smaller links. I paid attention, but now, when I blog again, the button, which I remember seeing before and was told to use, is no longer there. Ah well.

This is a link to an article in the New York Times on Lexis-Nexis. The author argues that because Mexicans have the option of illegally entering the US for relatively well-paid physical labor, they have a reduced incentive to acquire education. Because they're illegal and employed short term, employers have no incentive to train illegal immigrants. We should tighten the border and increase allowed legal immigration, but require more education, incentivizing education in Mexico and increasing the economic benefit to the US of immigration.

This article argues from two standpoints. One is for the benefit of the US. From that standpoint, the argument is valid--we would derive greater benefit from legal, well-educated immigrants than from illegal immigrants who can only get jobs doing manual labor. Economically, the reduced number of immigrants (since the thousands of immigrants who enter the country illegally each year would certainly not meet our standards) might reduce this benefit or even bring the net economic impact of this policy into the negatives. But politically, we would have immigrants who would demand less of our welfare system and compete less with our poorest (unionised) workers.

The second standpoint is for the benefit of Mexican laborers. This appeals to me less; poor Mexican farmers can't always afford to send children to school. Their labor might be needed on the farm, which is just scraping by. People care about their children, and when they can afford to educate them, they do. The best way of making that education affordable, for the government as well as for the family, is to maximize economic growth and benefits from trade, not trying to change education in Mexico through policy in the United States.