Migration between Mexico and the United States is part of a historical process of increasing North American
integration. This process acquired new momentum with the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement in
1994, which lowered barriers to the movement of goods, capital, services, and information. But rather than include
labor in this new regime, the United States continues to resist the integration of the labor markets of the two
countries. Instead of easing restrictions on Mexican labor, the United States has militarized its border and adopted
restrictive new policies of immigrant disenfranchisement. Beyond Smoke and Mirrors examines the devastating impact
of these immigration policies on the social and economic fabric of the Mexico and the United States, and calls
for a sweeping reform of the current system.
Beyond Smoke and Mirrors shows how U.S. immigration policies enacted between 1986-1996 -- largely for symbolic
domestic political purposes -- harm the interests of Mexico, the United States, and the people who migrate between
them. The costs have been high. The book documents how the massive expansion of border enforcement has wasted billions
of dollars and hundreds of lives, yet has not deterred increasing numbers of undocumented immigrants from heading
north. The authors also show how the new policies unleashed a host of unintended consequences: a shift away from
seasonal, circular migration toward permanent settlement; the creation of a black market for Mexican labor; the
transformation of Mexican immigration from a regional phenomenon into a broad social movement touching every region
of the country; and even the lowering of wages for legal U.S. residents. What had been a relatively open and benign
labor process before 1986 was transformed into an exploitative underground system of labor coercion, one that lowered
wages and working conditions of undocumented migrants, legal immigrants, and American citizens alike.
Beyond Smoke and Mirrors offers specific proposals for repairing the damage. Rather than denying the reality of
labor migration, the authors recommend regularizing it and working to manage it so as to promote economic development
in Mexico, minimize costs and disruptions for the United States, and maximize benefits for all concerned. This
book provides an essential "user's manual" for readers seeking a historical, theoretical, and substantive
understanding of how U.S. policy on Mexican immigration evolved to its current dysfunctional state, as well as
how it might be fixed.