ABSTRACT
This chapter offers additional proof for the argument that the benefits from undocumented migration do not reach the poorest regions and subpopulations in Mexico. Like many government programs, these benefits do not reach the lowest-status persons in the society. In addition, programs to induce economic development in the poorest parts of Mexico may actually accelerate undocumented migration, in that these programs will give potential migrants the desire and the means to travel to the US Origin patterns are treated as interesting curiosities with little bearing on impact issues, but in fact migrants from different Mexican states and localities differ significantly in their socioeconomic and demographic status, and thus in their impacts on US destinations as well as on Mexican origins. A simplistic answer to the puzzle is that undocumented migrants come from the poorer economic strata in relatively backward regions; they have been the population hardest hit by economic crises in Mexico.
