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The purpose of this paper is to determine the effect of labor income prior to migration on the income obtained by migrants in the destination economy, in the case of temporary Mexican migrants in the United States. The data used comes from the Emif Norte survey conducted between 1999 and 2009. High relative and absolute mobility is observed. Hourly income is multiplied by a factor of four in the destination economy, while the effect of a 10 % increase in labor income in Mexico results in less than a 1 % increase in labor income in the United States. The results show that labor income in Mexico has little predictive power for the job performance of Mexican migrants in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]