Being Undocumented From Mexico is a Right (Part 1)

Metropolitan Detention Center, Downtown Los Angeles, Photo by Richard Vasquez

We are finding out that the “undocumented” are not invisible, are not in hiding, and live among us in plain sight. They live, work, study and play like anyone else. We depend on each other; immigrants bring an endless supply of labor power that thrives where there is economic expansion and opportunity. California is what it is today in large part because of it.

Undocumented immigrants are essential to economic growth and expansion. “One-third of our residential construction labor is undocumented immigrants,” noted Dr. Manuel Pastor, a professor of sociology and American studies and ethnicity at the University of Southern California, and director of the university’s Equity Research Institute. Nearly half of L.A. County’s workforce is foreign-born, he said, and about 60% of children have at least one immigrant parent, with nearly one out of five county residents either being undocumented or living with an undocumented family member, “so about 1/5th of the people here are experiencing this, whether directly or indirectly,”1 Pastor said.

The U.S. has always had a de facto immigration policy specific to Mexicans. It has been in effect since 1848 and, since then, the U.S. economy has always depended on Mexican labor. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) guaranteed Mexicans full U.S. citizenship if they were born and living north of Rio Grande and free access and movement for work and business for Mexicans living south of the Rio Grande. Undocumented immigrants have generational ties to California that reach back to the first settlements under Mexican sovereignty. People with Mexican heritage have family and social networks in the Southwest that precede the founding of the U.S. itself.2

Periodically, when economic pressures and xenophobia have surged due to internal social strife, Mexican labor becomes a convenient scapegoat. The U.S. streak of racism resurfaces every so often. When fomented by demagogues, immigration sweeps and mass deportations ensue. The Great Depression (1929-1932) and Operation Wetback in 1954 were two large-scale examples that included the deportation of U.S. Citizens of Mexican descent.3

LADWP Mural on Spring and 2nd Street, Los Angeles, Photo by Richard Vasquez

Mexican immigrants have always had a dual identity when it came to U.S. immigration policy along the southern border. Mexicans, like many immigrants, came to the U.S. seeking economic relief from oppressive conditions in Mexico resulting from systemic government corruption and the exigencies of a developing economy transitioning from rural agriculture to industrialization. Once here, they were viewed by U.S. businesses as a commodity and valued as “labor power.” The Mexican workforce was critical for constructing and developing industry in the newly acquired territories. Because of their at-will low labor cost, Mexicans have always represented a key strategic asset for U.S. business interests. Mexican workers have been instrumental in creating the wealth that California and the rest of the Southwest U.S. enjoy today.4

When it came to official U.S. Immigration policy, the view was and is myopic and dishonest. There are quotas for people who want to immigrate to the U.S. from other countries. There are quotas for those fleeing oppression from certain countries. Additionally, it is broadly expected that immigrants and refugees will assimilate into the U.S. mainstream. And then, quietly, there was a separate track for Mexican workers who played a vital role in filling labor needs in industry and commerce. Here, historically, becoming assimilated was not a requirement due mostly to Mexicans desire to remain Mexican.

For a century and more, Mexican workers had a de-facto open pass to come when there was a demand for labor power and return to Mexico seasonally. Mexican workers generally never surrendered their Mexican identity or nationality. I remember a story my grandmother used to tell about when she sat for her final interview to become a naturalized U.S. citizen. She failed the interview because she would not renounce her Mexican citizenship, and that was after thirty years of going back and forth between the U.S. and Mexico.

Officially, nothing was ever done to fully understand, explain, or to address this duality. When Washington thinks of immigration policy, they think in monolithic terms, to U.S. policy makers “Hispanic” is all one thing. But it isn’t, there’s Mexican descent which accounts for 60% of “Hispanic” and the remaining 40% from Latin America and the Caribbean.5

“Hispanic” is now “Latino” mostly driven by the fact that more than two-thirds of “Hispanics” (those with a Mexican heritage) have had a very different immigration experience than everyone else. This duality is at the core of the disconnect in our immigration policy and at the center of divisive, xenophobic and racist campaigns inherently spurred by populist backlash against steep declining economic power of the diminishing white working class.

It is time to reimagine U.S. immigration policy. We should use historical data to map the free flowing logical progression of migration between Mexico and the U.S. since 1848 to the present. We must pay heed to promises and guarantees made that were designed to spur and continue the steady and consistent flow of Mexican labor power that drives important sectors of the US economy, namely construction, hospitality and agriculture.

Only then we will begin to see that Mexicans have an exclusive “immigration line,” one based on business priorities, the price of immigrant labor, and not on anything else. The idea that Mexicans should wait in line, wait their turn, and go through the “legal” process ignores the reality on the ground, a reality long recognized by small businesses and major corporations and previous Republican and Democratic administrations.