 For long, Mexican immigration has been the major source of immigration to the United States. And over the last, probably about the last 8, 10 years, you've really seen a major shift, so that from the time of the economic recession that we had, you see a lot of jobs that are lost, particularly in the construction industry. So there are states like Nevada, for example, that lost a lot of jobs and they depend very heavily on Mexican immigration. So you see that kind of decline there. Then you see kind of the violence that is going on in Mexico as well. So that also has had an impact on the volume of migration, particularly for people who are the traditional migrants, that is, individuals who have low levels of education, are going to work in service, construction kind of jobs. And then so those, you have a planar role. And then you have, in terms of that, violence also has shifted in terms of who is coming to the United States. So then you have individuals with resources. Individuals who themselves or family members may have been kidnapped before faced direct violence. And they have the economic resources to be able to move their families. So you really see that shift. And then another part that is also playing a role in the shifts in the demography of Mexican immigrants is the aging that is taking place in Mexico. So Mexico, even though we don't think of it, but Mexico is becoming an older country very rapidly. So we used to have very much of an excess labor force in Mexico simply because there was a high level of fertility. So if we look at back 1960 or so, the average Mexican woman was giving birth to about seven, was having seven babies. And that has dropped now and it's about 2.2 or so compared to about 1.9 in the U.S. So very much similar. But because it occurred so rapidly, you really see, we're going to see a real shift in the aging of the population. And therefore also the workforce, the size of the workforce. Yeah, so that excess labor that Mexico had before, that the U.S. has depended very heavily on. That's shrinking and shrinking and we're going to see more of that. So demographers suggest that kind of the peak that we saw in the 1990s and the early 2000s, we probably won't see that volume again simply because of these forces. And then you also have in Mexico, despite the violence that was taking place and so forth, the economy was picking up. And you also have Mexico investing more in education as well. So Mexico is training a lot of engineers so that the face of immigrants in the coming decades may shift more towards people that we have not seen but have been seen in the Silicon Valley and other kinds of... So higher education, higher skill, lower workforce, smaller workforce but higher education, higher skills. And very much in line with kind of the NAFTA that has opened up borders and so forth. So those are some trends that seem to be afoot. A different kind of immigration. Right. Yeah. And so on one hand we have the economic conditions in the U.S. affecting that. Where the economy declines, then there is less need for the more traditional kinds of immigrants that come up for construction and stuff. But then on the other hand, this new kind of immigrant coming from Mexico who may be more highly skilled and bringing more resources also has an economic effect here. Right. Oh yeah. Just like the immigrants before. Right. So there's been a lot of criticism that immigrants are coming in. They're taking jobs away but they're really adding a lot to the economy in terms of the types of jobs that they're holding. What we pay for example in hotels, what we pay for fruits and vegetables and things like that is being subsidized a lot by Mexico because those workers were educated, they're trained and so forth. They come to the U.S. Yeah. So that is going to play out in the coming years as well. Yeah. So one question is whether this shift that we've seen in terms of, and the volume has really dropped immensely so that the Pew Hispanic Research Center a few years ago had indicated that there was pretty much a balance between the number of Mexicans coming into the U.S. and those that were leaving the U.S. a little bit more people leaving than coming so in that kind of decrease of migration. And for the first time I think it was last year or the year before it was Mexicans were not the largest group apprehended in terms of being heroes and documented immigrants along the border. So you really see these shifts that are taking place. And one question is whether when the economy gets better in the U.S. violence decreases in Mexico whether we're going to see that return and we probably will see more of what it used to be before but not as I indicated not at that high level. Yeah. And I guess one of the fascinating things is that there's been a lot of political rhetoric in this country about troops on the border and keeping and walls and stuff like that. But it seems like the most effective way to stem immigration from Mexico is for the U.S. economy to go down. Yeah. And it seems that way. Yeah. And then so yeah. So those are kind of the when and usually when when the economy is booming in the United States. If we look back 150 years in terms of immigration from Mexico to the United States Mexicans have been welcomed when when the economy is good. During the depression where we have the the repatriation program that Mexicans were uprooted and sent back to Mexico including those that were born in the U.S. at the time that the economy was really bad. Just a few years later the U.S. finds itself in World War Two. And what do we do then we create the Bracero program that brought in 4.8 million contract laborers between 1942 and 1964. So it lasted all that time period. So you always have this economy plays a role. Yeah. That's fascinating. It's absolutely fascinating. And it also sounds a little like perhaps the political rhetoric in the U.S. is lagging the realities. Yeah. And then you always have had the racism that has played a role in terms of that has been pretty consistent that we've seen it against Mexicans in particular. So that's been pretty pretty constant. And you see at the rise you have the spark plugs like Donald Trump and so forth adding to the fire and things like that. But again much of that rhetoric that we find is kind of the old school kind of demography of Mexico at that time was in excess labor force. And one pretty really seen a very different demographic reality right now in Mexico. So again it's not looking at what's happening right now. Yeah. And just reacting and yeah. Yeah. And then you're going to see here in the U.S. we're going to need immigrants more and more simply because we're becoming an aging country just like a lot of the European countries. So we have baby boomers that were born from 1946 all the way to 1964. They're reaching retirement age. 2011 was the first cohort that reached age 65. So between 2011 and 2029 we're going to have this massive increase of elderly in this country. And we're going to have increasingly the need for people who are going to be doing labor service sector kind of jobs that Mexicans in the past have played a significant role. And pulling on now people who are younger than the boomers. Mexico which is a which is a tighter you said a smaller generation. So that's going to be fascinating. Speaking as one of those boomers. Yeah. Awesome. But so there will be an interest in pulling people up. Yeah. And pulling people back to the U.S. Yeah. Yeah. Even against going in the in the face of the of what in other areas of the country is a lot of racism. Right. And going in the face of the political rhetoric they're taking jobs. Yeah. And we've seen kind of the discussion taking place on immigration reform. And we've heard it back in 2007 2008 and so forth. Time period we saw it earlier when George Bush and Vicente Fox were talking about right before 9 11 and so forth. And there's been that over the last few years we've heard immigration reform. But you also have to take a look at who's making money out of. So you have employers for example obviously are making money from cheap people who are here without without proper documentation. But you also have the the rise of the of the detention center industry which is making big money. The groups like the corrections corporation of America CCA the geo group and so forth have really made a massive amount of money on undocumented immigrants. And you have people who are in very powerful positions that that are very much against creating a pathway to citizenship because there's so much money involved here. So I think that that you look at that you and we look at the border for example we look at the escalation of security technology and so forth. So you have all these corporations that are also making money out of out of these these kinds of technologies and the security of the border. And then we talk about people particularly Republicans saying well we want immigration reform. But what they concentrate on is in securing the border that we want to secure the border even more. There's a report that just came out that that was talking about border communities residents complaining that you see border patrol and other individuals that are patrolling the border. They're sitting around idly in rather than necessarily catching the people that as they're coming across. So so you have those those kind of factors I think that that fit into into this bigger equation. So so when people are talking about immigration reform they're talking about the technology of securing the border they're not talking about the dreamers. Exactly yeah and then some people that say OK we'll talk about the pathway to citizenship only when the border is 100% secure which is really one impossible and two impossible to measure as well. Right so when when it's over you can't say when it ever is over so it just postpones it indefinitely. Because you've said you've set up a completely impossible thing to ensure. And that is about the money and the courage. And then there's a political aspect that there's a fear that with the demographic growth of the Latino population that you have people that if you provide them citizenship status they have the right to vote. And then that that will hurt particularly the Republican Party and of course Donald Trump is doing a lot of that to hurt that particular party as well. Yes this is absolutely fascinating. It's a bunch of conflicting things that but ultimately despite all of those all of the money and all of the corporations and stuff there is going to be a societal pull to bring more people in to help to help as as boomers need it as companies need it. So I mean there's this even even among the money class right the companies corporations and stuff there is there is a huge conflict between this the companies who need workers from Mexico whether it's it's more more educated skilled higher skilled workers or whether it is it's people who are into service for boomers. So there's this big conflict from a societal but also from an economic standpoint. Yeah and you look at that aging of the country and we can see what's going on in in Europe before even before the refugees political refugees from Syria coming in that you've had countries for example that have extremely low levels of fertility. We're talking about Germany for example we're talking about France we're talking about Spain Italy these countries that have on average about 1.3 1.4 very few babies and countries that are aging very rapidly. We're about a quarter of the population is already 65 and older and they need workers and then you see workers migrants coming in from from Africa for example from the Middle East and other parts that are coming to these particular locations and increasingly we're going to be faced with that that situation as well but the the our primary workforce immigrant workforce Mexico itself is aging as well and we're not seeing that excess labor. So when when we're looking in this country to bring people in to try to help it may have to come from other places. Central America we've seen the the push in places like Honduras the violence China has always been a massive increasingly a massive source of workforce so we will see those kind of shifts as people will come from other places but that's a very interesting thing to to explain also why on one hand we look at Europe and say they're being so much more generous than we are in the United States with with allowing people to come in and and with with refugees but there's some other reasons for it besides they're just benevolence right we've seen that now the last few days the Obama administration is talking about perhaps opening up for political refugees and we our country has kind of had a hands off kind of a arms length kind of approach saying that this is a European problem but we have been a major source in bringing about the worst warfare and uprooting those those refugees. I mean it kind of there's some fairly straight lines back. Yeah US intervention. Yeah. And it has been then the push by groups that are advocating for the human rights of immigrants and so forth that are pushing the US to take a more active stance in in dealing with the refugee crisis. And there certainly is as you mentioned earlier too with with the refugees coming from Central America as well. There's been a there's been a large push to to the folks who are fleeing the the violence and poverty and horrible conditions there. But again that's also tied up with the Corrections Corporation of America and GEO and private prisons and vested interests who have money to make. Yeah. By incarcerating people. That's it's so do you see either of those sides prevailing the side that needs the workers in this country that needs younger workers in this country or the companies who profit so much from keeping our borders closed. Yeah. There's probably there'll probably be some some shifts we've seen the discussion about guest workers and so forth a guest worker program. Even though people who are advocating for immigrants always talk about the dangers of that. We've seen it in the program and others that there have been the great exploitation of immigrant labor and so forth that is that has taken place. But that might be one area where we'll see some changes because there are a lot of Republicans that are in favor of guest worker kind of programs where the people would come in for a certain period of time. And then they they're returned. Although although if memory serves that's part of the 11 million in the United States. Many of those people came here very legally and and overstate. Yeah. So that is part of. Yeah. And that's a lot of the discussion also that we're putting up all the security along the border. A large majority of people are not coming across illegally. But rather they're coming with proper documentation getting in and then overstaying. Right. So those walls will mean nothing. Right. But for the dollars for corporations they do. Well of course. Yes. You do mean something. That's some pretty good profits along the way. Yeah. So so is there in this research that you did were there things that surprised you? I mean were you surprised to find any any. I think for the most part I think people who have been following Mexican immigration kind of suspected that that this was going on in terms of the one the decline. And that the Pew has been very good in terms of providing updates annual updates. But kind of the shifts in in terms of the economic status associated economic status of Mexican immigrants. I think we knew it but it was more anecdotal kind of information. And here's San Antonio. I think San Antonio we've seen with the violence more people with economic resources are moving from Monterrey and other places settling here. But a lot of this has been anecdotal. But for the first time I think with the American Community Survey data which is the data set that I used it allowed us to kind of capture the before the economic recession and after and have enough enough data and observations to be able to see that shift. And you really do pick it up there in terms of that people who are coming in with higher levels of education people who are more likely to be speaking English. And people who even though it's still relatively small it's something like 7% or so are people who have our U.S. naturalized citizens. But that compares to about 3% in the past. So you almost had a doubling although the base is relatively small. And even though you have men continue to be the primary groups that are immigrating to the United States you see a greater presence of women in this time period than five years earlier. On another historical note though that goes all the way back to the Mexican Revolution and who came to San Antonio at that point. Energy Gonzalez's family came here they had enormous resources because the people who came in that group were publishers, they were doctors, they were lawyers. There were people who had plenty of resources and who came here and who populated parts of the city that are very much in contrast with the stereotypes of immigrants from Mexico. And a hundred years later we see kind of the same phenomenon taking place. That's absolutely fascinating. But it also goes to the relationship that San Antonio has had that is very unique to Mexico which is a very different relationship than just a place where it was unskilled workers. It's a much more complex relationship. Yeah, so very different than other Texas cities, Houston, Dallas. And you look at the demography of the Latino population and the Mexican population in particular in Houston and Dallas compared to San Antonio. It's tremendously different for the most part here in San Antonio. We're talking about more individuals who are multi generations, fifth, sixth generations, many of those coming from the fleeing of the Mexican Revolution. Much more so than the other cities that have been much more recent immigrants that have come to the US. Or seasonal or cyclical. Exactly, yeah. And then the extent to which you've had the economic kind of base of this very selective groups of immigrants that were coming during the Mexican Revolution. They were able to really create an economic base of a middle class here in San Antonio. And we're likely to see that again here. And with NAFTA and these kind of where we're economically at least opening borders that these are going to be individuals. You see the young empresarios here in San Antonio. Some of our own UTSA students are people who are studying business and so forth that are totally bilingual in English and Spanish. They have one foot in Mexico, one foot here. These are going to be individuals really. There are going to be I think movers and shakers in terms of the future and taking advantage of those economic opportunities of the two countries. Being cultural and being cultural and bilingual and all of that. And this is terrific and you're saying that as we come up on the anniversary of the Grita. Yeah.