Mexican Immigration Already Down

Michael Barone provides some interesting statistics here. According to his numbers, immigration from Mexico is down 80 percent from just a few years ago. Reasons? Increasing affluence in Mexico, and a birithrate that declined from about 7 children per mother to around 2 children per mother.

I've blogged about this already - but I predicted that the issue of illegal immigration from Mexico would disappear in 20 years. It might occur a lot earlier than that.

I think that the U.S. will be begging for immigrants in a decade or so as our population grows older and as immigration from Mexico (whether legal or illegal) decreases.

I wouldn't be surprised if we started to see immigration incentives again: Bounty payments for immigration, or even political incentives. In the 19th Century states like Washington allowed non-citizens to vote in elections. (Voter qualifications are set by statute. You actually don't need to be a U.S. citizen to be allowed to vote if the state in which you reside allows it.)