Mexico is facing a chronic unemployment crisis. The country needs to generate one million new jobs each year to keep up with the population's employment needs. Only half a million jobs were created in 1999. Some 45 percent of these workers are in the informal sector, but unless the trend is altered, this figure is expected to rise to 70 percent by 2010. Most jobs that are created tend to be of low quality and poorly paid.
Studies indicate that Mexican wage-earners continue to grow poorer.
The Clinton administration, with staunch support from the Republican-led Congress, has increased construction of walls and fences at key border crossing areas, begun using sophisticated surveillance technology, greatly increased the US Border Patrol, and even used the US military in a support role, a factor that has raised concerns that the military may be encroaching on civilian law enforcement authority. The army has been used to construct Border Patrol bases, to help with surveillance and analysis of intelligence, and for a time were even involved in patrolling the border. But despite these measures, the flow continues, even though the risk to would-be immigrants has grown. In an effort to get around the fences and to avoid detection, immigrants are forced to make the crossing attempt in more isolated border areas through mountains and deserts subject to harsh and quickly-changing weather conditions. Hundreds of people die each year of cold, heat, dehydration, and snake bites.