ABSTRACT
International migration is a continuing theme in Mexican history. In the early 1960s, a Mexican author predicted that in the future, blonds from the United States can cross the Rio Grande river to work in Mexico. The US policy response to increasing immigration, legal and otherwise, from Mexico and other countries, was a set of 1996 laws that included the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) and the Welfare Reform Act. Large-scale Mexico, US migration has also had significant impact on the US economy, particularly in the gateway states such as California, Texas, and Illinois, where Mexican immigrants have tended to settle. In a 2003 report, the US Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) estimated that 69 percent of illegal immigrants in the United States are from Mexico. This implies a 2003 population of Mexican undocumented immigrants of around 5.5 million; Other estimates range as high as 7 or 8 million.
