APPROXIMATELY 70,000 persons cross the Mexican border daily to work in the United States. Of these, 20,000 are U.S. citizens living in Mexico; about 50,000 are Mexican immigrants who have valid U.S. immigration documents but who, for various reasons, continue to live in Mexico while they work in the United States. The majority of those who cross the border work in nine U.S. border cities, where, in some cases, they make up a significant part of the local labor force. These commuters contribute to the labor surplus situation prevailing on the U.S. side of the border, which has a depressing effect on wages and on trade union organizing campaigns.

Various proposals have been made in Congress and elsewhere to alleviate the economic and social hardships commuters are said to cause in U.S. border towns. But the present commuter system also has defenders who point out that retail and wholesale trade in towns on the U.S. side of the border is dependent upon the purchases of Mexican workers who earn U.S. wages. There is a great deal of interchange between the US. and Mexican border cities in all aspects of trade, commerce, and tourism. The cities are engaged in many joint undertakings, mutually beneficial to the social and cultural developinent of the people as well as to their economic and social development. This article examines the impact of commuters on commerce, employment, wags, and trade union organization, and possible remedies to counteract problems created by the commuter system.

The commuter

The Immigration and Naturalization Service refers to commuters as those aliens who lawfully have the privilege of residing in the United States but who choose to reside in foreign contiguous

territory and commute to their jobs in the United States. The practice of commuting internationally grew up because many towns along the Canadian and Mexican borders are really single communities separated by the international boundaries. The immigration laws of the 1920's, which were designed in large part to protect American labor tandards, gave Mexicans and Canadians who worked in the United States admission as nonresident aliens corning to the United States for purposes of "busir ess" or "pleasure," within the meaning of the inmigration law. In April 1927, immigration authorities changed position and declared that aliens coming to work in the United States would be classified as immigrants and would have to acquire commuter status. This interpretation of the immigration law was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1929.

The first step in acquiring commuter status is to achieve lawful adriission to the United States as an immigrant. Since 1965, the immigrant applicant has also had to obtain a labor certification unless he is the parent, spouse, or child of a U.S. citizen or resident alien. The immigrant's certification specifies that there is a shortage of workers in his particular occupation in the United States and that his employment will not adversely affect wages and working conditions of U.S. residents.

Upon admission to the United States, the commuter is registed as an immigrant and is given an Alien Registration Receipt Card (Form I-151), known as a "green card" from its former color. This card certifies his immigrant status and

Anna-Stina Ericson is deputy chief of the Foreign Manpower Policy Staff, Manpower Administration. She has been the Department of Labor's representative to the U.S.-Mexico Commission for Border Development and Friendship.

SOURCE: Immigration and Naturalization Service, U.S. Department of Justice, and Manpower Administration, U.S. Department of Labor.

permits his reentry into the United States following temporary absences of less than 1 year. An alien is entitled to commuter status only if he has a job in this country and can lose this status if he is unemployed in the United States for more than 6 months.

In the past, the Immigration and Naturalization Service took periodic 1-day counts of alien commuters and has kept a continuous unduplicated count since a survey it conducted in NovemberDecember 1967. At that time, all "green cards," as they were presented at the border ports of entry, were picked up for verification and were grommetted to identify commuter status. In NovemberDecember 1967, 40,176 alien Mexican commuters were registered. By the end of December 1969, their number had grown to 49,770, as shown in table 1.

In addition to immigrants who commute to jobs in the United States from their Mexican residences, about 20,000 U.S. citizens also commute from Mexico to U.S. jobs. Most of these citizens were born of Mexican or Mexican

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American parents and probably never lived in the United States or lived there only briefly.

Border area residents also classify as commuters those nonimmigrant visitors who possess nonimmigrant visas or border crossing cards and work illegally in the United States. The largest number of these commuters have 72-hour border crossing cards. valid for purposes of business or pleasure within a 25-mile area from the border. These card do not authorize their holders to live or work in the United States, but many do.

The numbers who work without proper authorization are difficult to determine. In fiscal year 1969 over 200,000 Mexicans were apprehended for being in this country illegally. Of this number, roughly one-fourth had been in the United States from 1 month to a year, long enough to have been employed. The largest group (80 percent) of deportable Mexican aliens apprehended had ontered without inspection. The next largest group (14 percent) were those holding visitor border crossing cards. Obviously, not all people who have border crossing cards work in the United States, but a sufficient number do to cause U.S. border residents to consider the practice widespread.

Employment and earnings

Employment in the border area is heavily concentrated in low-wage, low-skill industries: Agriculture, services, wholesale and retail trade, government, and light manufacturing. The San Diego area differs from the general pattern because there is more heavy manufacturing and higher wage industries.

There is limited information available about the jobs held by legal commuters, the "green carders." What is available was collected by the Immigration and Naturalization Servie at the time of the 1967 survey of commuters. Commuters are found in the same types of occupations in which resident workers are found. Studies reveal that commuters generally receive the same wages resident workers receive when working in the same enterprise.

OCCUPATIONAL DISTRIBUTION. Forty percent of the commuters in November-December 1967 said they did farm work, 9 percent were general laborers, 8 percent were in clerical and sales occupations, 7 percent were maids in private households, 6 percent were in construction, and 5.6 percent were in hotel and restaurant occupations. Other signifi

cant occupational groupings were the following: Metalworkers, 4 percent; sewing machine operators, 4 percent; and truckdrivers, 2.7 percent.

Farm work was particularly important among commuters entering in California and Arizona. It accounted for 60 percent or more of all commuters in those States. Calexico in Imperial County, Calif., and San Luis in Yuma County, Ariz., received the bulk of Mexican commuter farm workers; over 80 percent of all commuters entering these ports were farm workers. In Texas, only 18 percent of the commuters listed farm work as their occupation. The important Texas ports of entry for farm workers were Eagle Pass in Maverick County and Hidalgo in Hidalgo County (the port of entry for McAllen) in the Lower Rio Grande Valley. Commuters entering other Texas ports of entry were more likely to be general laborers, clerical and salesworkers, domestic servants, construction workers, metalworkers, or hotel and restaurant workers.

Commuters are found working with resident workers and competing with them for available jobs. Resident workers may occasionally find themselves at a disadvantage in the job market because some employers favor commuter workers. A study of the El Paso garment industry revealed that some employers prefer commuters because they believe they are superior workers, are more cooperative, less troublesome, and more reliable because "they have to work."

EARNINGS. In the border cities, wage rates are lower than in the rest of the border States and lower than national averages for similar industries or occupations. Statutory minimum wages, where they apply, tend to be the prevailing wages, and there are numerous examples of prevailing wages below the statutory minimum where the legal minimum wage does not apply. A minority of workers are paid at wage rates above the minimum.

In January 1968 the Department of Labor made a survey of wages paid to conmuters and U.S. residents in the same occupations in Laredo, Tex. Data were obtained from 95 establishments for 1,075 residents and 608 commuters in 48 broad occupational groupings. The establishments surveyed employed at least 5 commuters at the time of the Immigration and Naturalization Service survey in November and December 1967.'

MONTHLY LABOR REVIEW, AUGUST 1970

Twenty-five occupations, in which 5 commuters or more were employed, accounted for 84 percent of the residents and 94 percent of the commuters in the sample. The occupations in which the commuters were concentrated paralleled those reported in the Immigration and Naturalization Service survey, except that the Department of Labor study covered establishments only, excluding farm workers and domestics. Average hourly carnings for the 25 surveyed occupations ranged from $0.81 for busboys and $0.86 for service station attendants to $2.10 for customs appraisers. Commuters and resident workers in the same establishment received identical wages in each occupational classification.

The Federal minimum wage in effect at the time ($1.40 an hour) was the rate most commonly paid to the commuters; 48 percent of the commuters surveyed received precisely that amount, and 28 percent received less. The ready supply of workers (both residents and alien commuters) kept the prevailing wage at the Federal minimum where it applied and below that level for the number who worked in occupations not covered.

Since this study was completed, a study was conducted to determine the impact of the commuter on the El Paso apparel industry in 196869. It found that wages in the apparel industry in El Paso "were low compared to wages in the same industry for other States and regions in the United States and, in addition, when compared with the same industry in other cities in Texas." Most of the workers surveyed received the minimum wage or just slightly more. The study concluded that the Federal minimum wage for the industry was actually the maximum because of the large number of workers willing to work at this wage. Those workers included commuters, Mexican nationals with temporary visitor permits, "wetbacks," and the unemployed and underemployed residents of El Paso-all of whom have a depressing effect on wages in El Paso. Some employers do not differentiate between these categories of persons but consider them all from the same labor pool.

Besides being an area where the prevailing wages are at or below the Federal minimum wage, the border also has a relatively high incidence of Federal wage-hour violations. Almost one-fourth of the workers living in the border States who were paid less than the statutory