US-Mexico Immigration Driven by Demography: Analysis

Stratfor Editor-in-Chief David Judson and Founder and Chairman George Friedman discuss the United States and Mexico’s unique relationship, the history of migration between the two and the demographic dynamics that will dominate the future.
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Video Transcript

David Judson: Hi I’m David Judson, Editor-and-Chief at Stratfor. With me today is George Friedman, our Chairman and Founder. George, thank you for joining me and taking some time. I just wanted to take a few minutes to discuss North America generally in light of President Obama’s decree, which is on immigration, which is being much discussed. The issue that I think is worth talking about a bit here is the work you’ve done and we’ve done here at Stratfor on the assumptions that underlie this, that the pressure of migration north from Mexico to the United States is assumed to be a sort of permanent state. Maybe, maybe not?

George Friedman: Well, to begin with, birthrates are falling everywhere in the world. In some cases like Bangladesh it‘ll take a long time to reach zero population growth. In Europe and parts of Asia it is already gone below replacement population decline. In the United States, one of the things stabilizing the population is immigration. One of the things about the United States is we’re very good at metabolizing immigrants. But still, in order to maintain our population at levels we’ve had, which is still a very low density compared to Europe or Asia, we need immigration. That’s a statistical matter. This has nothing to do with whether or not you approve of what Obama did. That was a completely separate issue. But the fact is that immigration into the United States has always been a feature that drove the economy. It was always regarded by those who were already here as a danger, both to the economy paradoxically, but also to the culture that we’d built. And we manage it fairly well. Therefore, whenever we look at Mexican immigration, we need to talk about the general problem, population stabilization and the fact that the Mexicans themselves are going to reach zero population growth by the middle of the century.

About 100 people gather to rally in support of President Barack Obama's executive action on immigration policy in Lafayette Square across from the White House in Washington, DC, on Nov. 21, 2014. Obama announced a plan on Thursday that would ease the threat of deportation for about 4.7 million undocumented immigrants in the United States. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
About 100 people gather to rally in support of President Barack Obama's executive action on immigration policy in Lafayette Square across from the White House in Washington, DC, on Nov. 21, 2014. Obama announced a plan on Thursday that would ease the threat of deportation for about 4.7 million undocumented immigrants in the United States. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images