Tag: immigrants and the economy

Studies: Immigrants Worldwide Staying Put, Those in U.S. Still "Buying Into the American Dream"

The American Dream - Photo: Perfecto Insecto/Flickr

(Photo: Perfecto Insecto/Flickr - Click to visit)

Immigrants worldwide “are overwhelmingly choosing to stay put in their adopted countries, rather than return home,” in the face of the economic crisis, and those in the U.S. continue to “strongly buy into the American Dream,” said a couple of reports released this week.

Migration and the Global Recession, published Tuesday, done by the Migration Policy Institute for the BBC World Service, reported that “some migration flows, particularly illegal migration, are … down as would-be migrants are being deterred by reduced job prospects in countries that would previously have offered them better opportunities.”

At the same time, A Place to Call Home, released Wednesday by the non-profit group Public Agenda, said that “despite the worst economic crisis in decades, renewed national security concerns in a post-9/11 world and an immigration policy many consider to be broken, …immigrants themselves hold fast to their belief that America remains the land of opportunity and remain committed to becoming U.S. citizens.”

“Seven in ten immigrants say they would do it all over again,” said Scott Bittle, Public Agenda’s executive vice president in a conference call with reporters. “Most say they made the right choice (in migrating.)”

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Reverse Migration: Ecuador Lures Immigrants Back Home from U.S. and Spain

By Merry Pool and Jelena Kopanja, FI2W contributors

After 15 years of living in Europe, Sandra Bustamante was going home to Ecuador on the day of her 40th birthday. For months, she and her husband had not been able to find stable work in Spain and going back to Bustamante’s native country seemed the only option for this family of five. Her 4-year-old daughter Camilla encouraged them with her excitement. Although Camilla had never been to Ecuador, “ever since we’ve told her we’re going, she had been running around the house, waving the Ecuadorian flag and yelling ‘Viva Ecuador!’” Bustamante said.

Ecuadorian Migrants Secretary Lorena Escudero cuts the ribbon at the restaurant Sandra Bustamante (left) opened in Quito. (Photo: SENAMI)

Ecuadorian Migrants Secretary Lorena Escudero cuts the ribbon at the restaurant Sandra Bustamante (left) opened in Quito. (Photo: SENAMI)

That was last August. A year later, it seems that Bustamante’s dream of opening an Italian restaurant in Quito is well on its way, according to an infommercial by the Ecuadorian National Secretariat for Migrants (SENAMI).

Bustamante’s family was one of the first beneficiaries of the recently established Plan Bienvenid@s a Casa (Welcome Home Plan), which offers business subsidies, customs breaks and low-interest loans to Ecuadorian migrants who want to return home.

It is estimated that some 1.5 million Ecuadorians, 11 percent of the country’s natives, now live outside the nation’s borders. The Welcome Home Plan is part of President Rafael Correa’s 2006 campaign commitment to make migrants a central component of his administration’s agenda. Ecuador may well be the only Latin American country trying to lure its citizens home during the global economic crisis.

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Immigrant Neighborhoods in New York Continue to Reel From Mortgage Foreclosures and Job Losses

Photo: The Furman Center

Photo: The Furman Center

By Maibe Gonzalez Fuentes, FI2W contributor

NEW YORK — Four years ago Jorge Guerrero, a 46-year-old Ecuadorian immigrant, realized his dream of buying a house.

“They (real estate brokers) served everything on a silver tray for me,” Guerrero recalled in a phone interview in Spanish. “They told me that because my wife and I had a good income I didn’t even have to use my savings to buy a house, I could get a loan for the full price, rent the upper floor and the basement to pay the mortgage, and refinance to lower the interest rate.”

It seemed too good an opportunity to pass up. He bought a house in Jamaica, Queens for $580,000. But things did not go quite as planned. The upstairs tenants failed to pay their rent for months, and Guerrero lost $10,000 in defaulted rents and legal fees.

“And then the whole economy went down and everything changed,” he said.

His wife, an accountant, was laid off from work in September of 2007; Guerrero suffered an accident at his workplace in July that will prevent him from working for at least six months. Today, after four years of making mortgage payments without a single interruption, he still owes $595,000 — $15,000 more than he spent on the house in 2005, while the actual value of the property has plunged to $500,000.

Guerrero’s options, which he explained with the precision of someone who has spent a lot of time researching, are foreclosure, bankruptcy or loan modification. While the latter is his preference, it is not an easy path. (more…)

“Should I Stay or Should I Go?” – Immigrants in Arizona Weigh Recession and Anti-Immigrant Policies

PHOENIX, Arizona — When things got tough in Arizona, many families decided to leave to avoid being caught in the local illegal immigration crackdown. But Maria Garcia’s family wouldn’t move. When her husband was fired for not having legal documents, they stayed and weathered the storm. After 23 years, the Garcias say they’re here to stay.

“My father passed away, he was sick for many years and I couldn’t see him. Now my mother is sick. But I know that if I leave it would be very dangerous for me to come back,” said the migrant from Colima, Mexico.

The Los Perros swap meet has seen fewer customers lately. (Photo: Valeria Fernández)

The Los Perros swap meet has seen fewer customers lately. (Photo: Valeria Fernández)

Two recent national studies present contradicting data about whether the current recession and anti-immigrant climate are pushing undocumented immigrants to leave the U.S. and return to their home countries.

A new report by the Center for Immigration Studies – a group that advocates lower immigration levels – shows that the illegal immigrant population has fallen by one-third over the past two years. According to the study based on Census Data, Arizona is the state with the highest drop. About 180,000 of the 530,000 undocumented living in Arizona left, according to research conducted by Steven Camarota.

Yet another study released earlier by the Pew Hispanic Center said while that the number of people entering the country illegally is dropping, undocumented migrants who are already here are not returning.

So are immigrants leaving or staying?

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Obama's Focus on Employers Causes Massive Firings, California Immigrant Activists Say

A month ago, Immigration and Customs Enforcement sent letters to 652 businesses across the country to let them know their hiring records would be audited “to determine whether or not they are complying with employment eligibility verification laws and regulations.” The goal was to check whether those companies have been making sure they are not hiring people not authorized to work in the U.S., a.k.a. undocumented immigrants.

Workers protest firings at Overhill Farms - Illustration: Southern California Immigration Coalition

Workers protest firings at Overhill Farms - Illustration: Southern California Immigration Coalition

The initiative apparently has led to firings at some of those companies. Last Saturday, pro-immigration activists and workers demonstrated in Los Angeles to demand that President Obama stop the audits as well as the use of e-Verify, an employee ID verification system widely criticized by immigrant advocates.

ICE’s increased vigilance over employers –it said the number of letters it sent in July exceeds the numbers sent during the entire previous fiscal year– follows Obama’s promises that his approach to enforcing immigration laws would focus more on the labor demand side rather than on the supply, i.e. the undocumented workers who’ve been the target of raids and deportations in the last few years.

But L.A. activists said this particular measure has swollen the ranks of the unemployed in the midst of the economic crisis.

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Study Finds No Evidence of Massive Return Home by Mexican Immigrants

Mexicans migration to and from the U.S. - Source: Pew Hispanic Center

Source: Pew Hispanic Center

Mexicans are not fleeing the U.S. economy in droves to return home, says a report released this week by the Pew Hispanic center. After months of speculation last year and dramatic statements from Mexican state and municipal officials, this is the first broad study of whether the recession has caused a huge wave of reverse migration.

“The current recession has had a harsh impact on employment of Latino immigrants, raising the question of whether an increased number of Mexican-born residents are choosing to return home,” the study says. “This new Hispanic Center analysis finds no support for that hypothesis in government data from the United States or Mexico.”

The Pew study cites the Mexican government’s National Survey of Employment and Occupation, which includes data on household members returning from abroad.

“The number of arrivals home has not increased for any year-to-year period since the Mexican survey began in 2006,” the study says.

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Spain Considers Immigration Reform That Would Make Things Harder for the Undocumented

By Jelena Kopanja, FI2W contributor

MADRID, Spain — A little girl stood in tears amidst the crowd at a protest in front of an immigrant detention center in Madrid, Spain. She was wearing a white shirt with her father’s identification number: 2286. An immigrant from Morocco, the man was apprehended while filling up his car at a gas station and had been in detention at the center for 30 days.

“The kids wake up in the middle of the night asking for their dad,” said the girl’s mother, who asked not to be identified by name.

The detention center near the Aluche subway station in Madrid was the focus of a protest on June 20th, World Refugee Day, against changes to immigration law that Spain is considering.

Watch a slideshow of the protest here:

Unlike the comprehensive immigration reform being discussed in the U.S., Spain’s new laws would make things harder for those undocumented workers already here. The proposed bill would, among other things, make it more difficult for immigrants to reunite with their families, impose fines on those who assist undocumented immigrants and increase the maximum allowed detention time from 40 to 60 days.

The demonstrators –including some undocumented migrants– shouted, “Immigration law makes us unequal, we are in time to stop it!” and “Papers for all!” From behind the walls of the detention center, muffled voices of the detainees rose in gratitude. “Thank you!” they yelled back.

Unlike the United States, where immigration is at the core of the nation’s history, Spain has only recently become a destination for large numbers of foreign people. Historically, it has been a country of emigration, and it was not until a decade or so ago that its growing economy began attracting workers from Africa, its former colonies in Latin America, and more recently, other parts of the European Union. Labor demand facilitated two large-scale legalizations in the past decade in Spain.

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AgJOBS Bill Would Allow Undocumented Farmworkers to Become Legal, Granting Them Labor Rights

By Diego Graglia, FI2W web editor
Two workers pick up tobacco leaves last summer in eastern North Carolina. (Photo: Diego Graglia)

Two workers pick up tobacco leaves last summer in eastern North Carolina. (Photo: Diego Graglia)

A bill now in Congress would allow over a million undocumented farmworkers –or 75 percent of the nation’s agricultural workforce– earn legal status in the U.S.

Similar measures have been proposed several times over the last decade, but its proponents are hoping this time the AgJOBS, or Agricultural Job Opportunities, Benefits and Security Act will become law under what some see as a more favorable climate for immigrants under the Obama Administration.

The introduction of the bill, which has bipartisan support, was hailed by farmworkers advocates:

The AgJOBS compromise was carefully negotiated by the United Farm Workers and major agribusiness employers after years of intense conflict. AgJOBS is endorsed by major labor and management representatives, as well as a broad spectrum of organizations, including Latino community leaders, civil rights organizations, religious groups and farmworkers themselves.

[Harvesting Justice blog]

Just as predictably, the initiative sparked immediate rejection among those who want to limit immigration:

AgJOBS would grant amnesty to at least 2 million illegal alien agricultural workers and “reform” the H-2A temporary agricultural worker program to allow employers easier access to cheap foreign labor.

[FAIR Legislative Update]

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Reversal of Fortunes? In Economic Crisis, Dominican Immigrants in U.S. Receiving Money from Home

By Maibe González, FI2W contributor

The flow of remittances between the Dominican Republic and the U.S. has undergone an interesting change recently, an apparent consequence of the economic recession that has affected many immigrant workers in the U.S.

Remittances — funds that immigrants send back to their home countries — are a major source of income in the Dominican Republic. Now, a leading New York-based money transfer firm, La Nacional, has reported a spectacular increase in the amount of money Dominicans are sending to the U.S.

Washington Heights, the heart of New York's Dominican community. Photo: serhio

Washington Heights, the heart of New York's Dominican community. Photo: serhio

“We have seen a significant increase in the number of money transfers made from the D.R. to the U.S.,” confirmed Reny Pena, supervisor of customer services and transfers at the company’s office in the Upper Manhattan neighborhood of Washington Heights.

Pena said that the volume of transfers from the Dominican Republic to the U.S. grew from between 80 and 120 monthly transfers in 2006 to the current rate of about 150 transfers a day. The increase has prompted the agency to expand the department that deals with U.S.-bound remittances from one to five employees.

“All of a sudden,” Pena said “this service became an important part of our business. In the past, we did not perceive it as profitable.”

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Immigrant Women Have More Power in the Family, Face Big Economic Challenges According to New Poll

By Diego Graglia, FI2W web editor
Immigrant women are keeping families together -- Photo: New America Media.

Immigrant women are keeping families together. (Photo: New America Media)

Immigrant women in the U.S. “face formidable barriers” –lack of language skills, discrimination, low wages, lack of health care–, but still their numbers continue to grow and they are “now on the move as much as men,” a poll released Thursday said.

As they settle in America, traveling great distances and adapting to a new culture, women’s roles in the family have changed too: many assume the role of head of household or start sharing responsibilities and power with their husbands, said the study, commissioned by New America Media (NAM), a group that fosters cooperation between ethnic news organizations.

According to the poll of 1,102 people, Women Immigrants: Stewards of the 21st Century (click for pdf), many female immigrants “acknowledge speaking little or no English, while confronting anti-immigrant discrimination, lack of healthcare and low-paying employment well below the status of the professional work most did in their home countries.”

This problem was reported by large majorities of the women polled –79% percent of Latin American women, 73% of Vietnamese women, 70% of Korean women, and 63% of Chinese women.

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