Half of Mexico Wants to Move to the U.S.

Arizona followed suit and declared a state of emergency on Monday.

The surveys of Mexican citizens by the Pew Hispanic Center also found that increased education and an improved standard of living won't dampen the stampede of illegals coming across the border.

The two surveys conducted in Mexico asked: "If at this moment you had the means and opportunity to go to live in the USA, would you go?" Almost half - 46 percent - said yes.

When asked if they would be inclined to work and live in the USA "without authorization," meaning illegally, 21 percent said they would.

Showing that interest in emigrating isn't confined to the poor, more than one-third of Mexican college graduates said they would move to the U.S. if they could, and more than one in eight said they'd be willing to migrate even if they had to enter the country illegally.

"People with college degrees believe they have greater economic opportunities by migration to the U.S. – even illegally – than they would staying at home," Roberto Suro, director of the Pew Hispanic Center, a research group in Washington, told USA Today.

Mexicans wishing to come to the U.S. are "distributed across the whole breadth of Mexican society," he added.

Six in 10 Hispanics born in the U.S. favor requirements that people show proof of citizenship or legal residency before they can get a driver's license, but only 29 percent of foreign-born Hispanics agree.

An estimated 10 million Mexicans now live in the U.S., more than half of them illegally, according to Suro.

The unfettered movement of illegals across our southern border is costing American taxpayers dearly:

"Millions of people are going to keep coming every decade unless we restrict it," said Steven Camarota, director of research at the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies, which favors strict enforcement of immigration laws.

"That's the bottom line."

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