Study: A Lot Fewer Mexican Migrants Left Their Country in the Last Two Years
Fewer and fewer Mexican migrants have left their country in the last couple of years to move to the United States, a study says.
Tag: Mexican immigrants
After Tough Economic Year, Fewer Immigrants Going Home to Mexico for the Holidays
After a tough economic year, many Mexican immigrants who usually return home from the U.S. for Christmas and New Year are more likely to stay home.
AudioStories
Released from Immigration Jail, a Mother Dances to Fulfill her Promise to the Virgin of Guadalupe
Sandra Figueroa, an undocumented immigrant, first heard about the dance of the Matachines while she was in jail. She promised that she would learn it to honor the Virgin of Guadalupe and thank her for helping her to be free and to reunite with her family.
Study Finds No Evidence of Massive Return Home by Mexican Immigrants
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.
Mexicans To Be Majority of Latino New Yorkers By 2024, Study Predicts
By Diego Graglia, FI2W web editor
A taco truck in East Harlem, a traditionally Puerto Rican section which has become more Mexican in recent decades. (Photo: D. Graglia)
Despite the U.S. Latino population’s diversity and widespread presence, certain Hispanic groups have traditionally been associated with specific U.S cities – Mexicans in L.A. and Chicago, Cubans in Miami, Puerto Ricans in New York.
But New York’s Hispanic face is rapidly changing. By 2024, a new study says, New York’s largest Hispanic group will be Mexicans, with Dominicans in second place. The predicted shift is due to both the migration of Puerto Ricans to other states and other parts of the metro area, and the ongoing influx of people from other parts of Latin America and the Caribbean.
Based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau, “The Latino Population of New York City, 2007” was authored by Laura Limonic, research associate at the Center for Latin American, Caribbean and Latino Studies at the City University of New York’s Graduate Center. [You can download it in pdf by clicking here.]
Mexican Migrants' Return Home Not As "Massive" As Expected
Turns out that, if anything, the U.S economic crisis has motivated many Mexican migrants to remain in the U.S., rather than make the expensive trip back home to try to weather the economic storm in an economy that is less well-prepared to deal with it.
Economic Self-Deportation: Mexicans Leaving the U.S., No Longer Just Because of La Migra
By Diego Graglia, FI2W web editor
[Please read an update on this story here.]
Mexico is bracing for the consequences of the U.S. economic crisis. Among these is an increase in Mexican immigrants going back to their home country — chased away by the lack of jobs north of the U.S.-Mexico border, the general economic downturn, as well as tougher enforcement of immigration laws.
Antonio García Conejo, an official from the Mexican state of Michoacán, is one of those pointing to a dramatic increase in Mexicans leaving the U.S. and returning home.
The return of Mexicans has already started, but many more arrivals are expected at the end of the year and in 2009.
Conejo was quoted by the Mexican newspaper El Universal. His state has been a major beneficiary of remittances, money sent home by expatriates living and working in the United States. The level of remittances to Mexico has been falling since last year, initially due to the slowing U.S. housing market.
In another story published Wednesday, El Universal said that 1,400 Mexicans are crossing the border back into Tamaulipas state from Texas every week — double the normal amount, according to a state legislator. The border city of Nuevo Laredo has decided to charter buses to help those people reach their home communities in states to the south to prevent an increase in local unemployment and vagrancy, the official said.
The wave of immigrants returning to an already struggling Mexican economy could be massive. A Milenio newspaper columnist citing an official report from the Puebla state government says about two million Mexicans are expected to go back next year. Deborah Bonello, a reporter blogging for the Los Angeles Times from Mexico City, reports a much lower estimate by Cruz Lopez, head of Mexico’s National Confederation of Farm Workers:
Mexico should prepare itself for both the forced and voluntary return of more than 350,000 of its people currently living in the United States due to the financial crisis north of the border…