The newfound urgency among Republicans to improve their standing among Hispanic voters is not the only reason that an immigration policy overhaul may have a better chance this year than in 2007, when Congress last tried to confront the issue and failed.
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By some key measures, the problems underlying illegal immigration — the economic and demographic pressures that have drawn Mexicans north for decades in search of jobs and a better life, and the challenges for the United States of securing its borders — have diminished over the past six years.
The Mexican economy, while still riddled with inefficiency and inequality, is nonetheless humming along, providing many more job opportunities for Mexican workers. And in Mexico, the source of about 6 in 10 illegal immigrants in the United States, the birthrate has plummeted over the last few decades, shrinking the pool of potential emigrants.
Graphic
Changes Affecting Illegal Immigration
Several underlying factors contributing to illegal immigration have changed since Congress last considered a bill on the issue in 2007.
“We are at a moment when the underlying drivers of what has been persistent, growing illegal immigration for 40 years have shifted,” said Doris Meissner, a commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization
Service under President Bill Clinton and now a fellow at the Migration Policy Institute, a research group. “There are some fundamental new realities.”
At the same
time, one of the most contentious elements in previous battles over the issue — border security — has also become less of a partisan flash point. Even among border-state Republicans, there is optimism
that the billions of dollars spent in recent years on fences, additional agents, surveillance drones and other measures is having a real effect.
“Yes, there’s been improvement in border security, and, yes, it helps a lot,” Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, who is a leader of the bipartisan group seeking compromise legislation, said when asked whether the politics of getting a deal this time around would be easier because of stepped-up enforcement.
There is still debate about whether the changes are permanent or would be reversed in the event of another sharp economic downturn in Mexico or across Latin America — or a strong rebound in economic growth and demand for labor in the United States.
But for now the population of illegal immigrants in the United States shows little sign of growth. It fell to 11.1 million in 2011, the most recent year for which figures are available, from a peak of 12 million in 2007, the Pew Hispanic Center said in a report on Tuesday. By one new estimate, the number of people who managed to cross the Mexican border illegally into the United States fell to 85,000 in 2011, down from 600,000 five years earlier.
With the scale of the problem stabilizing for the moment, or even shrinking, some experts say, there is more room for political compromise than the last time around.
“The immigration debate in recent years, as it has played out in the last two presidential campaigns, has not kept pace with the facts on the ground,” said Paul Taylor, the director of the Pew Hispanic Center. “I do sense that the nature of the debate is changing and catching up with the reality.”
Mexico’s population growth has fallen to an annual rate of 1.1 percent in the first decade of this century from 3.2 percent in the 1960s, according to the Migration Policy Institute. The number of people under 15 years old is declining in Mexico, and the number of people ages 15 to 29 will start doing so in the coming years, an important shift given that most illegal immigrants arrive in the United States before age 30.
Children are staying in school longer, an indication of an intention not to emigrate in search of low-skill employment, and the development of a middle class has further depleted the numbers of Mexicans compelled to seek a livelihood in the United States.
The statistics at the border are also striking evidence of a diminished flow of people seeking to cross into the United States illegally. Reflecting in part the deterrent effect of tighter border patrols, as well as the economic and demographic shifts, the number of apprehensions along the border has fallen sharply. Those people who have gotten through are being caught and deported at record-high rates.
Some analysts say the drop in apprehensions reflects not so much greater control of the border as a recognition by potential immigrants that the chances of finding a job in the United States have fallen over the past few years. And in any case the decline does not alter the most compelling fact of the debate to both sides, which is that there are 11 million undocumented people already living in the United States whose status must be addressed in any comprehensive legislation.
But even though the economic and demographic changes have remained largely in the background of the debate, analysts say they could offer more reassurance to conservatives in particular that giving legal status to those immigrants would not simply produce another wave of them.
Still, some skepticism about changes to immigration policy remains. Mexico continues to suffer from social instability, and the prolonged weakness in the American labor market makes it harder to draw long-term conclusions about the relative attraction of coming to the United States. Many Republicans continue to view Mexico warily, seeing in the government’s difficulties in controlling the violence and general lawlessness created by drug cartels a dangerous instability that could create deeper cross-border troubles.
“Mexico is on fire and about to blow up,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, a supporter of the bipartisan package, expressing concern about whether the positive trends in illegal immigration were permanent.