New Research Examines Link Between Poverty and Latin Americans’ Unauthorized Immigration to the US
Despite unprecedented levels of U.S. government spending on guarding the border with Mexico, unauthorized or illegal immigration into the United States continues. Here, there are millions of jobs that legal workers do not fill—even in times of recession. Poverty and hardship are the main drivers pushing Latin Americans to search for better lives in the United States. New research from Bread for the World Institute, “Development and Migration in Rural Mexico,” examines the links between poverty and inequality in rural Mexico and unauthorized immigration.
“Hunger and poverty, the driving forces of unauthorized migration to the United States, are often overlooked in the immigration debate,” said Andrew Wainer, immigration policy analyst for Bread for the World Institute. “In order to comprehensively address immigration reform policies, the United States needs to implement foreign