ABSTRACT
Illicit smuggling of vice products and undocumented migration of people have long been staple activities along the U.S.-Mexico border. This chapter highlightes the flow of illicit vice products and the migration of people from Mexico to the United States. The best known of Mexico's vice industries with transnational significance is the notorious illegal narcotics trade. Trafficking in illegal alcohol from Mexico to the United States is another controversial activity in the history of the border. Cigarette smuggling continues to generate profits on the border, although probably on a smaller scale than contraband liquor. Cross-border illicit tobacco trafficking has been driven by the same forces that stimulated the post-1933 smuggling of liquor-quotas and excise and sales taxes. Viewed historically and from an economic perspective, cross-border trafficking in cigarettes, liquor, and drugs has had a much greater impact on Mexico than on the United States. The historical periods that stand out in the history Mexican migration to the United States.
