ImmigrationU.S. recession drives Mexican immigration to record lows

With the U.S. economy in a tail spin and violent Mexican drug cartels raging out of control, immigration from Mexico into the United States has fallen to all-time lows.

Mexican census figures show that net migration is close to zero with few Mexicans immigrating to the United States and many returning home. Arrests by U.S. border patrol along the border, a strong indicator for migration patterns, have also fallen sharply to 304,755 for the past year compared to a high of 1.6 million in 2000.

Rene Zenteno, Mexico’s deputy interior secretary for migration matters, said the country is seeing record low immigration numbers.

“Our country is not experiencing the population loss due to migration that was seen for nearly fifty years,” Zenteno said.

According to Douglas Massey, an immigration scholar at Princeton University, surveys indicate that the number of Mexicans making their first trip to the United States is nearly zero.

“We are at a new point in the history of migration between Mexico and the United States,” Massey said.

The recession in the United States is the primary reason why immigration has slowed to a trickle. As jobs in the United States become more scarce, especially in the construction and restaurant industries, fewer Mexicans are compelled to migrate.

In addition, the Mexicans currently living in the United States have been telling family and friends back home that there are few jobs to be had.

“What stimulates migration is the need for workers,” explained Genoveva Roldan, a scholar at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. “Right now, the migrant networks are functioning to say, ‘Don’t come — there’s no work.’ “
Juan Carlos Calleros, a researcher at Mexico’s National Migration Institute, said based on surveys, the majority of Mexican migrants are returning home after just one to two months in the United States due to the scarcity of jobs.

“It keeps getting harder and harder,” said Joel Buzo, a thirty-five year old resident of Guanajuato, Mexico who recently returned from the United States. He spent three months looking for jobs which only resulted in inconsistent, poorly paid work tearing up old railroad tracks in Utah. After six months, he gave up and came home.

Buzo said that while it is hard to get by in Mexico, it is still easier than in the United States and he has no intentions of returning.

“What’s happening up there is happening here,” he said. “But it’s worse there.”