Abstract
This paper analyzes why some Mexican immigrants, especially undocumented residents, plan to remain permanently in the United States, whereas others plan to return to Mexico. If Mexican migrants, especially those who are living in the United States without proper legal documentation to do so, plan to remain in the United States permanently, there will be far greater consequences on US society and public policies than if the migrants are only planning to reside and work in the United States for a short period. We use logistic regression analysis to analyze a data set of 492 Mexican and seasonal farmworkers (MSFWs). Two-thirds of the survey respondents lacked documents to live in the United States, and the remaining one-third indicated that they were US “legal permanent residents.” Specifically, those who planned to remain permanently in the United States appeared to be strongly influenced by “cutting ties” to their sending communities, as well as by “planting roots” in their host, and potentially adopted, community. Importantly, we also find that their documented status had very little effect on their intent to remain permanently in the United States.
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Notes
http://www.uscis.gov/graphics/shared/statistics/publications/ILL_PE_2005.pdf; US Census Bureau. “The Foreign-Born Population in the United States: 2003.” (P20-551) Issued August 2004. Available at http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/foreign.html.
We recognize that it is possible that some of the respondents could hold H2a Visas, but it was our research teams’ experience that holding H2a Visas was often viewed as being synonymous with having permanent resident status.
The research assistants, then all seniors at Boise State University, were either Mexican or Mexican American. They reviewed the draft of the survey instruments and helped us to modify the survey to reflect contemporary and common usages of phrases. Our 85 per cent response rate was due, in large part, to the fact that all three researchers identified strongly with the MSFW population – all three had family members who were then or had been MSFWs. One research assistant was born in Idaho but spent much of his youth in the central Mexican state of Michoacan. Another research assistant was Mexican. He came to the United States as a teenager and had worked as a MSFW. The third research was born and raised in Idaho and her family worked in Idaho's dairy industry. All surveys, which included 30 questions, were conducted in person.
Previous studies have measured the time spent in the United States as years. On the matter of precision, Shively (1998) writes that “The Cardinal Rule of Precision might read: Use measurements that are as precise as possible, given the subject you are studying; do not waste information by imprecise measurement” (p. 54, emphasis in original). King et al (1994) advise researchers “to use the measure that is most appropriate to our theoretical purposes” (p. 153). In studying MSFWs, whose behavior we seek to analyze is conducted within the span of one calendar year, we found it possible and more appropriate to use the more precise measure of months.
Standard attitudinal and behavioral models usually include education as a measure of control. The survey participants from this study varied little in terms of education. Over 90 per cent had a high school education or less, most of whom completed elementary and middle school, very few of whom had post high-school education. We concluded that there was insufficient variation in our measure of education to justify its inclusion into any of the models.
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Wampler, B., Chávez, M. & Pedraza, F. Should I Stay or Should I Go? Explaining Why Most Mexican Immigrants are Choosing to Remain Permanently in the United States. Lat Stud 7, 83–104 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1057/lst.2008.63
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/lst.2008.63