To the editor:

Mark Larson (Public Forum, Feb. 18) blames NAFTA for the surge of illegal immigrants to the United States. He claims that wages have declined for Mexican workers explaining the movements to the north. Reality is more complicated.

In the first place, wages (in U.S. dollars) for the poorest salaried segment of the Mexican population actually increased after NAFTA, from $1,400 per year in 1992 to $1,990 per year in 2004.

In the second place, scholars both in the United States and Mexico agreed on the main causes for migration. First, there was the disastrous devaluation of the peso at the end of 1994, which increased the relative value of the dollar to the Mexican peso almost three times, providing a large incentive to migrate and send U.S. dollars back home. The devaluation was in no way due to NAFTA, which if anything helped Mexico to pull itself out of this economic disaster much faster than would have happened without free trade.

A second important factor is the United States’ toughening of the border control so much that migration has changed from seasonal to permanent. When the likelihood of not being able to cross the border is high, migrants consolidate their families in the United States, rather than keeping them in Mexico.

Bottom line, the role of free trade in a complex phenomenon like migration is not simple and the data does not support Mr. Larson’s interpretation.

Jorge Soberon,

Lawrence