Shared Border, Shared Future: A Blueprint for Regulating US-Mexico Labor Mobility

What is the challenge?

The last bilateral cooperation to regulate flows between the United States and Mexico ended in 1964. Since then, unauthorized migration has dramatically increased. Of Mexican-born individuals who arrived in the United States after 1990, 80 percent did not have legal authorization at the time they arrived.

The black market for labor has brought harm on both sides of the border. For the United States, which hosts approximately five million Mexican workers without legal status, the black market can reduce wages and erode working conditions for all workers in many sectors of the economy, because unauthorized workers receive little protection from labor laws and thus tend to bid down wages and working conditions. This reduces income tax revenue, hinders law enforcement, and raises the cost of healthcare—as people without legal status often recur to emergency rooms—among other harms. Unauthorized migrants from Mexico who overcome greater barriers to enter the United States remain there longer. For this reason, even well-intended surges of enforcement effort can perversely increase the stock of migrants in the United States who entered unlawfully, as well as funneling greater smuggling revenue to organized criminals,[i] increasing document fraud, and raising deaths at the border. The black market furthermore represents an important threat to the security of the United States, since it thrives on secrecy and anonymity for massive numbers of people entering and leaving the country.

For Mexico, the black market has brought frequent abuse and exploitation of its citizens, created large income streams for violent organized criminals, contributed to corruption of local officials, and tarnished the country’s global image. Most horribly, it has brought death: from 1998 to 2014, US Customs and Border Protection collected an average of 372 bodies each year in the Desert Southwest. Over time, the black market has eroded support for cooperation between two neighbors that need each other. The Shared Border, Shared Future working group sees the black market for labor, and its consequences, as a result of policy failures and a lack of bilateral cooperation. Thus, this working group was convened to assess a reasonable and rationale blueprint for a path forward for both countries.  

What is a possible solution? 

1. Temporary mobility between Mexican and US territory is older than either country, and requires regulations tailored to that shared history and destiny.
2. Labor mobility between the two countries can bring shared economic benefits
3. Most recent labor mobility has been unlawful, which has harmed workers and national security in both countries.
4. Despite the rising importance of other countries, cross-border flows of Mexican labor will continue.
5. History teaches that flexible regulation and bilateral cooperation are the only lasting solution, but the flaws of past agreements show that proper design is a necessary ingredient. 

How did the group operate?