The L.A. Daily News reports on the latest Pew Hispanic Center study that estimates that we've got 10.6 million people living here who were born in Mexico, and over half of those are here illegally. Over a quarter of those live under the poverty line, twice the rate for the native-born. Bear in mind that other estimates of the illegal alien population have been much higher.

I'm sure many other countries with large populations would jump at the chance to do the same thing the Mexican elites have managed to do: export a large chunk of their poor in exchange for money sent back home and even gain political power in the host country. Needless to say, this arrangement also makes political reform in Mexico more difficult.

For some of the effects this has on Mexico, see "Mexico's other migrant wave".