Migration north: repatriation, braceros and the border
Across the twentieth century Mexican workers are invited, expelled and invited again by the United States, building a Mexican American population of tens of millions and a border that both unites and divides.
- Decade of Betrayal: Mexican Repatriation in the 1930s — Francisco E. Balderrama and Raymond Rodríguez, University of New Mexico Press (2006)
- Braceros: Migrant Citizens and Transnational Subjects in the Postwar United States and Mexico — Deborah Cohen, University of North Carolina Press (2011)
- Line in the Sand: A History of the Western U.S.-Mexico Border — Rachel St. John, Princeton University Press (2011)
- Mexican Immigrants in the United States — Migration Policy Institute (2024)
- Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America — Mae M. Ngai, Princeton University Press (2004)
- Ingresos por remesas (balance of payments statistics) — Banco de México (2025)
- Facts on Hispanics of Mexican origin in the United States, 2021 — Pew Research Center (2023)
For decades after 1848, the border was little more than a line on a map, and people crossed freely to work in mines, railways and fields. The Revolution sent hundreds of thousands north. When the Depression struck, local, state and federal authorities pressured or deported people of Mexican descent in the “repatriation” drives of the 1930s; estimates run from around 400,000 to more than a million, and many, perhaps most, were US-born citizens.
- Line in the Sand: A History of the Western U.S.-Mexico Border — Rachel St. John, Princeton University Press (2011)
- Decade of Betrayal: Mexican Repatriation in the 1930s — Francisco E. Balderrama and Raymond Rodríguez, University of New Mexico Press (2006)
During the Second World War the two governments created the Bracero Program (1942–64), which issued about 4.6 million short-term contracts to Mexican men for farm and railway work, often under harsh conditions. Alongside it came unauthorised migration and mass deportations, notably “Operation Wetback” in 1954.
- Braceros: Migrant Citizens and Transnational Subjects in the Postwar United States and Mexico — Deborah Cohen, University of North Carolina Press (2011)
- Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America — Mae M. Ngai, Princeton University Press (2004)
After the program ended and the 1965 US immigration law capped legal migration from the Americas, circular migration increasingly became unauthorised. The Mexican-born population in the United States peaked at about 11.7 million in 2010, then fell as more Mexicans returned home than arrived; it was about 10.9 million in 2023. Since the 2010s most people crossing the southern border have come from Central America, Venezuela, Haiti and beyond, with Mexico now a transit country under heavy US pressure to stop them.
- Mexican Immigrants in the United States — Migration Policy Institute (2024)
The border region itself, from Tijuana–San Diego to Ciudad Juárez–El Paso, is a shared world of twin cities, factories (maquiladoras), families and Spanglish, now divided by walls and fences. Remittances sent home reached a record of almost $65 billion in 2024, among Mexico’s largest sources of foreign income.
- Line in the Sand: A History of the Western U.S.-Mexico Border — Rachel St. John, Princeton University Press (2011)
- Ingresos por remesas (balance of payments statistics) — Banco de México (2025)
Mexican labour built much of the American Southwest's farms, railways and cities, yet the United States has repeatedly welcomed the workers and then scapegoated and deported them when times turned hard, sometimes even its own citizens of Mexican descent.
- Decade of Betrayal: Mexican Repatriation in the 1930s — Francisco E. Balderrama and Raymond Rodríguez, University of New Mexico Press (2006)
- Braceros: Migrant Citizens and Transnational Subjects in the Postwar United States and Mexico — Deborah Cohen, University of North Carolina Press (2011)
A sovereign nation must control its borders; large-scale unauthorised immigration undercuts wages, strains public services and undermines the rule of law, and legal immigration should be orderly and chosen by Americans.
- Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America — Mae M. Ngai, Princeton University Press (2004)
- Mexican Immigrants in the United States — Migration Policy Institute (2024)
Why it matters today
Almost every Mexican family has someone "del otro lado", on the other side. Remittances from Mexicans in the United States, about $65 billion in 2024, sustain whole towns, and how the US treats migrants is felt in Mexico as a question of national dignity.
About 37 million people of Mexican origin live in the United States, making Mexican Americans one of the country's largest communities, especially in the Southwest, where many families predate the border itself. The border and immigration are among the most heated issues in American politics.