Many Mexicans Say Immigration Inevitable

Farmers Jose Contreras Perez, right, and Emiliano Hernandez pause during work on a field in Atotonilco, Mexico, Tuesday, April 18, 2006. While the United States wrestles painfully for a solution to undocumented immigration, Mexican officials simply say they plan to keep sending their citizens north - and win periodic U.S. amnesties for them. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte) (Marco Ugarte - AP)

"All of the good houses belong to people who have emigrated," said Jose Contreras, whose five children live in the United States. Some of his grandkids were even given American names before they left.

"They named one kid Johnny instead of Juan," the 79-year-old farmer said with a hint of disgust. "They thought it was a good idea."

In the past, only adult men would go, said Escalona Garcia, "but now it's entire families, and boys as young as 14 or 15."

Few in Mexico question the prevailing feeling that Mexicans have an inalienable right to go north, documented or not.

A proposal in the Mexican Senate last year that would have kept migrants away from particularly dangerous border crossings when temperatures soared was denounced as doing the United States' "dirty work." It was withdrawn.

Agustin Escobar, an immigration scholar at Mexico's Center for Research on Social Anthropology, is a maverick. He questions whether migration is good for Mexico, given that on average a migrant puts less money into the economy than a Mexican who stays here.

But he doesn't get much of a hearing. "There is a great deal of resistance on the part of the government to even consider analysis of these issues," Escobar said.

"The policy of not interfering with the flow of migrants has always been the easiest route."