This thorough, pragmatic review by some of the top migration scholars today portrays Mexican migration to the United States in all its complexity, and not simply as a response to labor supply and demand. The editors advocate for a new policy response consistent with NAFTA and the historical preference given to Mexican labor.

At the Crossroads contains extensive background on what was happening in Mexico that influenced the ebb and flow of emigration over the years. This approach sets this book apart from others on immigration to the United States that have been written from a strictly U.S. point of view. Like other recent books on immigration to this country, however, it honestly and methodically addresses what research can and cannot say about the fundamental policy issues in the current debate, such as the fiscal impacts of immigration (Susan Gonzalez Baker, Robert G. Cushing, and Charles W. Haynes), the changing demographic profile of the U.S. population (Alene H. Gelbard and Marion Carter), the impact of migration on U.S. and Mexican agriculture (Philip Martin), and the relationship between NAFTA and migration (Peter H. Smith).

For a policymaker who needs to “cut to the chase,” the editors’ introduction truly captures the essence of the individual articles in the collection. If you stop there, however, you will miss the fascinating historical overview of development, urbanization, and patterns of economic growth in Mexico—factors that are specifically related to the potential for migration. Whereas Mexicans often see migration as a natural response to U.S. demand for labor, Mexican researcher Agustín Escobar Latapí and U.S. coauthor Bryan R. Roberts conclude that the changes in migration are a function of “greater instability caused by the rise in income inequality and segmentation [in Mexico]” (p. 71). Thus, the authors conclude, to explain the volume and increasingly diverse profile and origin of Mexican migrants requires more analysis of the “push” factors in Mexico, rather than just the “pull” factors in the United States.

Laying a basis for understanding the magnitude of migration, Alene Gelbard and Marion Carter detail the demographic impact of Mexican immigration to the United States. They caution that data on Mexican migrants, especially the undocumented, are precarious and incomplete. As if to illustrate the point, the book itself presents a few inconsistencies, as a result of authors using distinct data sources. The demographers, for example, report that according to the 1986 and 1988 Current Population Surveys, present Mexican migrants appear to have lower education levels than their predecessors (pp. 130, 139). Michael J. Rosenfeld and Marta Tienda, in their chapter on the labor market (p. 190), as well as the various authors who wrote the book’s conclusion (p. 300), report that based on the 1990 census, newer immigrants display a higher level of education than previous migrants. Such discrepancies can be explained by the authors’ use of varied data sets, each of which cover different people at different points in time. Nevertheless, the fact that such ambiguities appear in a book as careful as this one, illustrates just how hard it is for the general public to get to the “truth” about immigration.

In a review of 15 cost-benefit analyses, Susan Gonzalez Baker and her coauthors show that data problems also plague calculations of the fiscal cost of immigration. The cost of immigration has risen, according to most analysts, and this has fueled resentment against new immigrants from Mexico. Nevertheless, the researchers explain, the absence of standards for gauging costs and revenue, coupled with poor data on the undocumented, leaves unacceptably wide margins of error. They cite a $70 billion range in the analyses between the most optimistic contribution of immigrants and the most pessimistic costs to the public. Rather than place too much importance on such flawed studies, the tone of this book highlights the ultimate contribution of immigration over the long term in ways that cannot always be measured by accountants.

Ultimately, the contributors to this volume argue for a cooperative approach to Mexican migration in the spirit of NAFTA. This approach begins by recognizing that undocumented migration cannot be resolved through unilateral action by the United States. As the problem of undocumented migration is likely to continue for some time, the authors insist that the best policy is to try to make migration less contentious for the bilateral relationship by pursuing a multifaceted approach to reducing undocumented migration and by developing more realistic expectations about both the capacity and need to stop Mexican workers from coming to the United States.