Migrants: Most work, survey says

The findings come amid measures calling for tighter border security.
SCRIPPS HOWARD
WASHINGTON -- A new survey of migrant Mexicans shatters the myth that they are largely unemployed farmworkers who struggle to pick up jobs on street corners.
Only 5 percent of the most recent migrants were unemployed before they crossed the border, and 95 percent were working within six months of crossing regardless of whether they speak English or possess U.S. identification.
Newer migrants were just as likely to have worked in construction zones and hotels than in the fields.
Those are the findings released Tuesday by the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonprofit research group, based on questionnaires in Spanish filled out by 4,836 people in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, Raleigh, N.C., and Fresno, Calif., between July 2004 and January.
The report comes as the House is preparing to take up measures to toughen security along the Southwestern border. Some involved in the immigration debate argue that the solution is to improve economic conditions in Mexico.
Better wages
But the Pew report said that although underemployment may be a problem in Mexico in terms of low wages, unemployment is not driving workers to the United States.
"The vast majority of migrants were gainfully employed before they moved to the United States," the report said.
Pew researcher Rakesh Kochhar said that even though half of migrant workers make less than $300 a week in the United States, that is still more than double what they can make in Mexico. He said undocumented workers come to the United States for the same reason as legal immigrants -- "improved work conditions, higher wages and long-term economic opportunity."
"One would imagine that it takes a unique set of circumstances or extreme circumstances to cross the border without documentation, but that does not seem to be the case. They are pretty much like other migrants," said Kochhar.
Two in five migrants who have lived in the United States more than 15 years had a background in farming in Mexico, but that has dropped to one in five for migrants who have been in the United States less than two years. Nearly as many of the recent immigrants -- 19 percent -- have a background in manufacturing.