What are the full reasons (beyond wages) why immigrants from Mexico risk life to come to the USA?

Question

I'm curious why they would risk everything to come here. I know they come to work for very low wages-the reason is? What are the economic reasons, political reasons, etc. There has to be more to it that just dollars a day.

Answer 1

Money=Greed

Those are not the sick and starving jumping the fences we see on TV, they are young and healthy most of them-.

Answer 2

You should ask an illegal immgrant...

Money talks. Low wages in America, as in your opinion, are higher than medium to moderate wages in Mexico. Minimum wage here is like making $800 bux a week in Mexico. Not too many Mexicans make that much. And, it's a lot of cash under the table, if you're an illegal immigrant. So no taxes to pay.

It's not so much they come here just to earn it, but to send it back to family so that they may have more, and live a little better.

They KNOW they can get a job pays 5 times as much as the same job in Mexico would. This is how poor the economy of Mexico is.

America always has been, and always will be, the Land of Opportunity.

God Bless the USA!!!!

Answer 3

This is a very complicated question and you'll get as many different answers as you get people answering this. Or you might get the standard answers.

There is truth that a poor illegal immigrant would make more in the U.S. than in their own country. Many come here to make money to send back to family.

But there is so much more to it. Many countries all over the world are not free. Without freedom, you get desperation. That is what often drives people to come here. Chinese in freight containers, Cubans on rafts, Mexicans across the desert and Russians through the Canadian snow, they come here for the same reason the Puritans, the Italians, and the Jews did. They want to be free.

Money is what we think it is because we, as Americans, can only relate to wealth, not freedom. We think Tyrany is when we are pulled over by the police for going 60 in a 35 mile per hour zone. We can barely relate to being oppressed, so we think people risk their lives to come here to get rich.

But with the open border policy comes chaos and lawlessness. a controled flow is needed or we will lose our soverignty. We may even degrade into a "wild west" lifestyle where the government can't do anything, much the was Afgahnistan can't control anywhere but its capital city.

Answer 4

coz US $ are worth more than mexican pesos.

For every dollar they save, they got 11 pesos back home.

Things cost less in mexico too.

So - if you earn 500 $ a month, you're as good as living under a bridge - but if you live 10 to a room while in the USA, save 500 $ and send it home to mexico, that'll pay 6 months rent in a proper apartment. See what I mean?

A mexican works at ridiculously low wages in the USA, but his family lives better than their neighbors back home in mexico.

It really is just dollars a day.

In the longer term, if they can stay in the US and not just work+send money home, they know that their kids can have a better education and more opportunities in the US. If someone has good ideas and is willing to work hard, the chances of him "making it" are higher in the US than in mexico where corruption is high and the infrastructure is majorly lacking i.e. even if you have the drive and the ideas, and no-one tries to rip you off or force you to make bribes for the simplest actions, even then it's hard to get a business up and running when there is no electricity or roads or whatever.

Answer 5

The risk coming here for a number of reasons.

1. They are taught from an early age that Americans stole their lands in 1848 and it is their birthright to get that land back to Mexico.

2. The Mexican government trains and teaches them that they can come here without prosecution and can even register to vote (which they do) without ever being a citizen.

3. Instead of Mexico dealing with it's social problems, they send them up here to have free medical, free training, and and other free advantages that you and I pay for with our tax dollars to the tune of over 10 million a year in California alone, now add that to all the states they enter illegally. Of all the children born in LA and Texas, 66% are born as anchor babies at no cost to them but with your tax dollars. Once one is a citizen, the rest of the extended family can stay and recieve free benefits and have no incentive or need to become citizens.

4. The process is called La Reconquista. You see, it's not an immigration problem beyond numbers, it's a home security, colonization, and citizen issue. Your rights as a citizen are at stake in Congress right now. The current plan will allow 60 out of 100 million Mexicans to enter the USA in a number of years. While their birthrate is five to six times higher than the rest of the population, the Census Bureau has reported that there will be three times more Mexican/Hispanic population than all other American segments of the population in 50 years.. Mexico has stated that in 20 years all politicians in that state will be Hispanic. In my opinion that will destroy diversity, will allow La Reconista to suceed expanding the country of Mexico, and may lead us to another cival war, should our leaders choose to protect us. If they don't, we will lost those states.

Answer 6

First and foremost, it is not just Mexicans. It is any illegal immigrant from ANY country.

The issue is complicated and never simple, but some of the reasons people come here is access to health care via emergency rooms and clinics, public education for their childrenn, civil rights laws that are generally observed, a law enforcement and criminal justice system that is (for the most part) decades or centuries ahead of many other nations, the opportunity for childre born here to have an unhindered future, and ultimately wage gets included.

Of course, one of the other aspects is that people risk it because they know we never enforce laws consistently, uniformly or for long periods. So ultimately they see it as a low risk/ high return endeavor.

Answer 7

The higher standard of living, the better, subsidized health care and education...

All of which we pay for. There have been many studies on whether immigrants are a net benefit or a net detriment to the economy. Essentially, it pencils out that skilled immigrants are a net benefit and unskilled immigrants are a net detriment. That doesn't take into account the dislocations, such as that those getting the benefit (the employers) do not pay for the costs such as to education or health care.

Even so, we do take some unskilled immigrants. Because it is a better deal for them than for us, we don't take as many as want to come, so they have to wait before we will subsidize their education, etc. At least if they come legally.

Answer 8

Most come to avoid the povery, corruption and exploitation of daily life for many in Mexico. This included exploitation by multinational corporations using them there as they are here to provide substandard wages that do not meet the basic needs for survival.

The right wing says that undocumented immigrants are responsible for crime in the U.S. This is a charge that has been used against the foreign born throughout the history of the U.S.--and it’s been a gross distortion in all cases.

First of all, it’s a fact that immigrants contribute more to the U.S. economy than they take out. “The U.S. economy is expanding by a long-term average rate of 3.5 percent per year,” according to a February 22, 2005, report in The Globalist. “More than one percentage point of this increase can be attributed to the increase in population through immigration.”

On top of that, immigrants pay into the system with their contributions in taxes--while they rarely take advantage of government services and programs such as Social Security if they are undocumented.

The same right-wing myths continue to be recycled--that undocumented immigrants are too “lazy” to go through legal channels to get a green card; that the border is being “overrun”; and that immigrants “steal” jobs from native-born workers.

The truth, however, is that immigrants face tremendous hurdles in applying for status as legal immigrants. Currently, the wait for an employment-based green card is more than five years on average.

Answer 9

I am going to make this simple as I can . People with high mind who want to live better ways, having a car,house, clothing, nice furniture,hot and cold water,food,free don of speech,money in their pocket,jobs, let say a young lady in beautiful Jamaica which have good climate all year round, Just graduate from high school
trying to get a job and cant find one,get a chance to come to the us,work in the day and go to school in the evening within one year she become a LPN,She call her girl friend in Jamaica an say
child I am now a nurse,the news spread to all her friend, what you think is going to happen from their,every body want to come to America to be a nurse in one year with a high school Diploma,get it.

Answer 10

for better opportunities, better life, reunite with family members that are here in the United States, make more money to send back to family members back in Mexico.(I don't know how people can think that illegal immigrants are here to take over the country after all the life threatening obstacles they have to go through just for a chance to get here)

Answer 11

they cross the border and I wonder where do they get the money to be taken to the states. some do it on their own but there are people paying thousands to get across. me? a middle class mexican dont even have the 2 or 3 thousand they pay!! it would take me at least 2 months to get the money (working) but i guess they sale their houses or their cows or whatever they have to come to the states and start working in the things they used to do back home. agriculture is big in Mexico but some states dont have water anymore, in those states the goverment do sh*it to help them and since thats the only thing they know how to do they come to the states to do the same, to pick up veggies. our president fox did some pretty good things for the country but he forgot to make a rule for all those who wanted to cross the border with us illegaly. he didnt have the "huevos" to ask your president to make things easier in order to get visas. even for me it's difficult! no wonder why the poor poor mexicans dont even try.