![handle is hein.journals/imgratv9 and id is 1 raw text is:
Illegal Migration from Mexico
to the United States:
A Longitudinal Analysis
by Parker Frisbie*
Migration is one of the most significant of all human behaviors, and a
wide range of variables has been spanned in the search for possible
determinants of the redistribution of population. It has been suggested,
for example, that demographic,' political,' and psychological' factors
exert a significant causal influence. However, regardless of what other
variables may be operating, migratory streams generally seem to flow
from a place of origin where economic opportunities are restricted to
destinations where economic opportunities are comparatively great.' In
the present research, the economic dimension will constitute the basis for
an investigation of an intriguing case of international migration-the
movement of illegal migrants from Mexico to the United States.5
The research is longitudinal, encompassing the period 1946 through
1965. Specifically, an effort is made to account for changes in migration
rates6 in terms of changes in certain predictor variables. To illustrate, the
*Dr. Parker Frisbie is Associate Director, Population Research Center, The University of
Texas at Austin.
)Cf. Julian Samora, Los Mojados: The Wetback Story (Notre Dame, University of Notre
Dame Press, 1971); Texas Good Neighbor Commission, Alien Labor and Immigration,
Texas Migrant Labor, Annual Report, 1971.
2W. Petersen, A General Typology of Migration, American Sociological Review, Vol. 23
(June 1958), pp. 256-266; Leo Grebler, et al., The Mexican-American People (New York,
The Free Press, 1970), Chapter 4; Samora, op. cit., especially Appendix 1.
'See R. C. Taylor, Migration and Motivation: A Study of Determinants and Types, in
J. A. Jackson (ed.) Migration (Cambridge, The University Press, 1969), pp. 99-133.
4Empirical evidence can be adduced in support of this proposition as it applies to
international migration. Dorothy S. Thomas [Social and Economic Aspects of Swedish
Population Movements, 1750-1933 (New York, MacMillan, 1941), pp. 166-169]
demonstrated that Swedish migration to the United States flowed in response to business
cycles with high levels of movement occurring only with the combination of a depressed
Swedish economy and favorable economic conditions in the U.S. A similar interpretation
has been given with respect to immigration of Mexicans to the U.S. (Texas Good Neighbor
Commission, op. cit.; Grebler, et al., op. cit., pp. 75-77).
5In ignoring other categories of explanatory variables, the implication is not that only
economic variables are of significance. It is assumed that economic factors are of sufficient
importance to warrant analytical focus.
'Rates (based on population at origin) are, for most purposes, much more useful as a
measure of migration than absolute numbers. As Donald Bogue and W. S. Thompson point
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