The death of
Arizona: 1990-2013
Hailey Choi
29 March, 2013
Immigration has been
a constant in United States history and there has always been an
immigrant workforce in the American working class. In the nineteenth
century, for example, an explosion of immigrant labor from
Europe—first northern and western Europe, and then southern and
eastern Europe—came to cities like New York and Chicago for new
economic opportunities. Meanwhile, various immigrant populations
moved to the U.S. West, with the Native Americans and Chinese serving
as the first large immigrant workforces and then Japanese, Hindus,
and Filipinos following after them. In the late 1800s and early 1900s
Mexicans migrated to the United States in greater numbers, and today
Mexican-origin people remain a major part of the agricultural labor
force in the U.S. West and Southwest. This paper will focus on
Mexican immigration to U.S and specifically the state of Arizona in
the modern period of 1990 to 2013. Though arguments exist against
this Mexican immigrant workforce for taking jobs away from Americans,
there is evidence that points to the contrary—that immigrants are
an important part of the U.S. working class because they are actually
providing a labor force where there is a shortage of willing American
laborers. However, in Arizona, immigration has come with a price for
Mexicans. With various immigration restrictions put in place by
NAFTA, the economic disparity between the U.S. and Mexico, and
heightened border security, those immigrants without documents
seeking work in the United States face more dangerous and isolated
migration routes, which has resulted in many deaths in the Arizona
desert.
Many U.S citizens
hold a negative view of undocumented Mexican immigration to the
United States because they believe these immigrants are taking jobs
meant for Americans. For example, in West Virginia, although they
have a lower rate of immigration than other states, a poll in
December of 2005, Survey showed
that 60 percent of respondents believed that “immigrants take jobs
away from Americans”.1
Yet this is because of U.S. employers, who are eager to pay
undocumented immigrants cheaper wages and give them priority over
American workers who would demand more in terms of wages and working
conditions. The 2006 documentary film “Crossing Arizona” shows
how certain U.S. citizens have tried to fight back and urge
politicians such as Colorado Representative Tom Tancredo to tighten
the border and prevent further illegal immigration.
Arizona, a state
that lies along the southwestern border of the United States and
Mexico, has become one of the most popular points of entry for
undocumented Mexican immigrants in the past two decades. During
the decade of the 1990s, when approximately 80-85% of the half
million Mexican migrants moved into U.S without documents, the
foreign-born population in Arizona was 245,823.2
However according to US immigration, during 1990 and 2000 Arizona
gained almost 380,000 immigrants including both legal and illegal
migrants from all other nations. 3
In the year 2000, there were approximately 283,000 unauthorized
immigrants, an increase of 222% since 1990 according to the United
States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS).4
During the first decade of the 2000s the foreign-born population in
of Arizona jumped to 271,974.
5
Today, the total immigrant population of Arizona is 856,663 making it
the state with the eleventh-largest immigrant population.6
There are two main
factors that have pushed Mexican immigrants to enter the United
States unauthorized and risk their lives by crossing the dangerous
Sonora Desert of Arizona. First, there is tight border control in
other regions of the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. “Operation
Hold-the-Line” in El Paso in 1993, “Operation Gatekeeper” in
San Diego in 1994, “Operation Rio Grande” in South Texas in 1997,
and “Operation Safeguard” in Tucson sector in 1999 all
contributed to immigrants being forced to use different and more
dangerous migration routes in order to escape border authorities.7
In effect, the heightened militarization of the border has not
stopped immigration from Mexico and it has only funneled it through
more dangerous paths and places, including Arizona’s Sonora Desert.
The other factor
motivating migration is the economic situation between the United
States and Mexico. In Figure 1, although both countries’ GDP per
capita is increasing, the disparity between the two countries is also
increasing. Furthermore, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor
Statistics, hourly wages in Mexico (measured in U.S dollars) were
5.70 in 2009 and 6.48 in 2011. In contrast, hourly compensation in
the U.S was 34.19 in 2009 and 35.54 in 2011.8
This lack of an adequate living wage in Mexico and the economic
attraction of U.S. wages encourage Mexican migrants to try to cross
the border to earn more money.
Another significant
reason that Mexican migration to the U.S continues to happen is the
institution of the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, in
1994. Negotiated between the U.S., Mexico and Canada, NAFTA made many
workers in the agriculture lose jobs in Mexico.
This
was because the tariff barrier between the U.S and Mexico was
removed, making U.S. agricultural imports into Mexico much cheaper
than Mexican-grown crops themselves. This impacted smaller farms in
Mexico because they produced far less than U.S. farms that are highly
mechanized.9
In
contrast to the U.S. where the farming population is less than 2%,
Mexico has a considerable farming population and the majority of
these people lost their jobs due to NAFTA.10
According to the World Bank, after NAFTA was negotiated in 1994, the
GDP per capita of Mexico in current U.S dollars dropped down to 3,107
in 1995 and 3,547 in 1996 compared to 4,650 in 1994. In addition, the
total unemployment of Mexico increased to 6.9% in 1995 and 5.2% in
1996 compared to 4.2% in 1994. Therefore it is not just Mexico that
is responsible for modern immigration, but the United States as well
for being a major trade partner and negotiator in NAFTA.
As unauthorized
migrant workers join legal migrant workers in the U.S. working class,
many residents of the state of Arizona assume that Mexican migrants
are taking jobs away from Americans who deserve them. Likewise, in
other states, politicians like Colorado Republican Representative Tom
Tancredo insist that immigrants are “taking jobs that Americans
could take”.11
However, one can argue that this statement is false. Today,
immigrants are accepting most of the jobs in agriculture, a sector of
the economy in which there is a shortage of American workers. In the
case of Arizona, Mexicans began to migrate to Arizona from the early
1990s to get jobs in the area of “construction, copper, citrus,
cattle and cotton”12
In addition, Sectoral Share in Arizona, 2011 data shows that
agriculture GDP is 0.9% in Arizona which is the lowest percentage
among other sectors and employment is 1.3%.13
In addition to the
disturbing stereotypes and xenophobia exhibited by some U.S. citizens
toward unauthorized Mexican migrants, another disturbing trend has
been the growing numbers of migrant deaths in Arizona’s Sonora
Desert as they attempt to cross into the United States. Sonora desert
is dangerous because of scorpions, rattlesnakes and up to 120°F
temperatures
in the summer.14.
Mexican migrants die while crossing the border because of long
exposure to heat and dehydration during the daytime, and hypothermia
during the cold nights.15The
number of migrant deaths increased dramatically in the decade of the
2000s and continues to increase. According to the Arizona
Daily Star,
the approximate number of migrants who have died attempting to cross
the U.S-Mexico border is 77 in 2001, 147 in 2002, 196 in 2003,
slightly decreased in 2008 as 189, but increased to 249 in 2010
again. The majority tends to be men (85%), and people between the
ages of 20-29 made up 25.9%, or one-fourth, of recorded migrant
deaths.16
U.S citizens view
these Arizona migrant deaths in different ways. The
documentary film “Crossing Arizona”
feature humanitarians who insist that the human rights of migrants,
no matter if they are authorized or unauthorized, entitle them to
water stations along their journey. On the other side of the debate,
many people argue that offering humanitarian aids stimulates further
migration, and they support those politicians who insist on tighter
border enforcement. Some groups, like the Minutemen, have even become
vigilantes and voluntarily serve as a kind of “border patrol”
force for the state of Arizona.
The issue of
immigration has consistently been debated throughout U.S. history
every time a new immigrant population gets absorbed into the American
working class. During the Great Depression of the 1930s Mexicans and
Mexican Americans alike were deported for being one of the biggest
perceived immigrant “threats” and a drain on welfare relief. In
modern times, we are again seeing this targeting of Mexican-origin
people as “aliens” and the ones to blame for taking Americans’
jobs. As the U.S. government tightens border security even further
through laws such as SB 1070 in Arizona in 2010, it will lead Mexican
migrants from the Sonora desert to even more perilous areas and the
vicious cycle of history will continue.
Figure 1.
1
John B. Judis, “Border War: The fight over immigration is a fight
over identity,” The
New Republic Magazine, January
16, 2006.
http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=15&sid=05ee4011-9bdf-4066-86a0-71427d61497f%40sessionmgr112&hid=125&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#db=rch&AN=19413811
2
Steven
A. Camarota, “Immigrants in the United States, 2010: A profile of
America’s Foreign-Born Population,” Center
for Immigration Studies. Last
modified August 2012,
http://www.cis.org/2012-profile-of-americas-foreign-born-population#state
3
Immigration
to Arizona,” usimmigrationsupport.org.
http://www.usimmigrationsupport.org/arizona.html
5
Steven
A. Camarota, “Immigrants in the United States, 2010: A profile of
America’s Foreign-Born Population,” Center
for Immigration Studies. Last
modified August 2012,
http://www.cis.org/2012-profile-of-americas-foreign-born-population#state
7
Stephanie Lawrence and John Wildgen. “Manifold Destiny: Migrant
Deaths and Destinations in the Arizona Desert.” Growth
and Change 43,
no. 3 (2012):482-504.
http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=22&sid=05ee4011-9bdf-4066-86a0-71427d61497f%40sessionmgr112&hid=125&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#db=ecn&AN=1326438
8
“International Labor Comparisons”, Bureau
of Labor Statistics, http://www.bls.gov/fls/#compensation
10
Whitaker,
Julie, 370.
11
John
B. Judis, 16.
12
John
B. Judis, 16.
13
“Industrial Composition”, Arizona
Indicators, last
modified January 5, 2013,
http://arizonaindicators.org/economy/industrial-composition
14
Stephanie
Lawrence, John Wildgen, 483.
15
Whitaker,
Julie, 366.
16
Stephanie
Lawrence, John Wildgen, 483.
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