The document discusses Mexican immigration to the United States from 1990 to 2007. It notes that the Mexican immigrant population grew from 4.2 million in 1990 to over 11.6 million in 2007, accounting for 31.1% of all US immigrants. Attempts to stem immigration through laws like IRCA failed to curb the influx. This led to increased anti-immigration sentiment, particularly directed at Mexicans. In response, Mexican-American communities mobilized politically throughout the country to demand more rights for immigrants in the face of restrictive legislation.

2. Mexicanos Galore It is impossible to know how many immigrants are in the United States at any given time because the U.S. Census Bureau, while supplying periodic updates, provides comprehensive statistics only every ten years. What the experts can all agree upon is that at the turn of the twenty-first century the country was in the midst of a period of massive immigration that rivaled the Great Migration that occurred one hundred years ago. By, all estimates, Mexico accounted for the single greatest stream of immigration by a sizable margin. In 1990 the decennial census calculated the Mexican immigrant population at 4,198,000. ten years later, in 2000, it had risen to 8,088,000. The march 2007 Census Bureau’s current population survey indicated the presence of 11,671,000 Mexican immigrants. This is 31.1% of the total immigration of 37,280,000

3. Stemming the Tide The ultimate failure of immigration laws like the IRCA to stem the southern tide once again resurrected xenophobic sentiments, particularly vis-à-vis Mexicans. The immediate aftermath of IRCA proved to be a major disappointment to nativists. The anxiety created around the country by record-setting rates of immigration had a multitude of consequences. The immediate upshot was the escalation of an ongoing national debate on the merits of large-scale immigration, with restrictionists focusing on illegal Mexican immigration, the so called Barbarians at the gate. Under enormous pressure to act, state and federal authorities responded with a variety of solutions, none of them very effective, as a survey pronounced in California, where denunciations if illegal's reached a feverish pitch. In Texas, authorities were much more cautious in handling the immigration problem, possibly because the state’s economy was relatively healthy in the recent years. Meanwhile, as one would anticipate, federal immigration policy also became more stringent. The federal government held out great hopes for Nafta, convinced that once ratified, the pact would in the long run ameliorate or even resolve the immigrant problem.

4. The Awakening Giant: Grassroots Mobilization The threat to their civil liberties led Mexican American communities to mobilize politically throughout the country. This grassroots movement was first seen in California. The state’s anti-immigration propositions, immediately perceived as an assault on the entire ethnic community, prompted Mexicanos to make their displeasure manifest at the ballot box. According to exit polls taken by the national association of Latino elected and appointed officials, about 80% of Hispanics opposed both proposition 187, denying illegal immigrants states services, and proposition 209, outlawing affirmative action, and 65-70 percent opposed proposition 227, ending bilingual education, all of them passed overwhelmingly despite their opposition. The controversial legislation also elicited an angry and immediate response in schools and communities by Mexicanos. The grassroots movement demanding more rights for undocumented workers was a direct response to the increasing militarization of the border, particularly in the aftermath of 9/11. Tellingly, Mexicano participation in the emerging immigrant rights movement was a nation-wide phenomenon, not one solely confined to the tradition of Chicano power. Some observers saw in these grassroots protests the potential for a populist movement similar to that of Chicanos in the 1960’s.