WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Time To Emigrate To Mexico?

Fears that America will be overrun by a mass of poor workers from Latin America are looking more and more like yesterday’s news. Birthrates in Mexico are falling, and the economic situation continues to improve. At 5 percent, Mexico’s unemployment rate is nearly three points below ours. In 2012, its GDP grew by nearly 4 percent, and foreign investors, encouraged by the turnaround, poured $57 billion into stocks and bonds in the first nine months. Forthcoming reforms in the telecommunications and energy sectors may also help those industries to boom. The country’s economic forecasts are so promising that the Financial Times has dubbed it the “Aztec tiger.”

This is good news. As the Mexican economy improves, immigration pressures will continue to abate. Who knows? If the trends continue, maybe we’ll even see southbound migrants outnumbering northbound ones.

Well, some say we’re already at net negative immigration. And the powers that be are hard at work, turning America from the kind of country people want to sneak into, to the kind they want to leave.

UPDATE: Jim Bennett emails: “If Canada, Australia, or New Zealand (all of which rank higher than the US on the index of economic freedom) were to refuse to enforce US student loan debt they might see a rush of bright talented young people from the US.”