Resumen:
The current dynamics of South to North migration flows can be
explained by the nature of the ongoing process of capitalist restructuring, but in
order to examine these issues we must approach them from the perspective of
critical development studies. Mexican migration to the USA is paradigmatic of
the regressive consequences of neoliberal structural adjustment policies and
processes of regional integration based on access to cheap labour. From the lens
of the political economy of development the dialectical relationship between
development and migration can be analysed through three major movements:
the dismantling and rearticulation of the productive apparatus, the creation of
vast amounts of surplus population, well beyond the conventional formulation of
the reserve army of the unemployed and the acceleration of migration flows. An
examination of these issues leads us to conclude the following four facts:
capitalist restructuring results in forced migration; immigrants contribute to
capital accumulation in labour-receiving countries; migrants help sustain the
fragile socioeconomic stability of the migrants’ country of origin and, if used as
a tool of social transformation, development can curtail forced migration.