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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | November 2007 
Fewer Mexicans Seeking Work in U.S., According to Survey
 Laurence Iliff & Alfredo Corchado - The Dallas Morning News
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 |  | The coyotes are too expensive, the crossing is more dangerous than ever and the hatred is scary.
- Raul Faustino Reyes |  | |
Mexico City - Would-be immigrants may be staying home in significant numbers, a Mexican government survey says, a trend that analysts attributed to a crackdown on illegal border crossers, raids at employment sites, and a slowing U.S. economy, particularly in the construction industry.
The third-quarter survey, used to determine the employment rate because many workers are off the tax rolls, showed a 30 percent drop in the number of people planning to work abroad or to cross the border from the third quarter of 2005.
About 76,000 Mexicans were "looking for a job in another country or preparing to cross the border," according to the survey by the National Institute for Statistics and Geography, or INEGI for its initials in Spanish.
Two years earlier, that number was 107,500. INEGI pollsters use a formula to make those estimates based on the percentage of Mexicans age 14 and older who said they would seek work abroad. The survey's overall margin of error is plus-or-minus 1.5 percent.
An INEGI spokesman said the government agency is not making any predictions on the topic but simply reporting its data.
Some pollsters said the government's survey is not designed to predict immigration trends and thus is not trustworthy on the subject.
In the U.S., some groups opposed to illegal immigration said the numbers show that the crackdown is working.
"Wow!" said Roy Beck, the executive director of Numbers USA, another immigration restrictionist group. "That is really big. It is a very good time for attrition through enforcement."
"It sounds like the kind of word getting into Mexico is just causing people to change the balance sheet in their mind," he added.
Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, another immigration restrictionist group, said the poll falls in line with his organization's predictions - that harsher conditions for illegal immigrants would lead to less immigration.
Congress' failure to enact comprehensive immigration legislation this summer prompted many cities and a handful of states to take matters into their own hands. Some have passed ordinances stiffening requirements on housing; employment and state contracting.
On the Texas-Mexico border, Raul Faustino Reyes, 28, said he is one of the many immigrants wondering whether the relatively high pay in the United States is worth the hassle.
Reyes had just crossed into Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, from El Paso after working for two years in the Midland oil industry. He said he may not cross back into the U.S. after the Christmas holidays, as he has in the past.
"The coyotes are too expensive, the crossing is more dangerous than ever and the hatred is scary," said Reyes, who sent money to his parents in Chihuahua City to start a ranch. "The gringos will have a hard time without our cheap labor. I think they will see through their own hypocrisy."
Analysts who watch immigration trends say such anecdotal evidence is widespread but there have been few scientific studies to back it up.
The INEGI poll could be an important piece of the puzzle, but does not tell the whole story, said Andres Rozental, a former Mexican deputy foreign minister who now studies bi-national trends.
"What this poll is showing is that there is increased apprehension about going to the U.S., especially without (working) papers," said Rozental. "People hear the news about how Mexicans are being mistreated, how the immigration officials are cracking down and conducting raids, separating families and generally making life difficult."
Immigrant smugglers, or coyotes, are charging up to $5,000 per person at a time when the chances of getting caught and losing that money are rising, Rozental said.
On the other hand, U.S. jobs pay up to 10 times as much as jobs in Mexico and that magnet could overcome even the current intense crackdown. "It's a bit too early to rush to judgment on this issue because this is a recent phenomenon," Rozental said.
Another factor could be an improving job climate in Mexico.
President Felipe Calderon has said that nearly 1 million new jobs have been created so far this year and that such growth - in the medium- and long-term - would reduce immigration.
There was no immediate comment on the INEGI poll from the President's Office or the Foreign Ministry.
Rozental said the job numbers in Mexico could be one of several factors affecting migration trends. "Many of these are temporary jobs, but they are still jobs."
But Dan Lund, head of the polling firm Mund Americas, isn't buying the government's job numbers or the INEGI survey - released last week - that suggests falling immigration.
Of the 1 million new jobs, Lund said, "there's not any evidence of it other than that they are saying it."
And the INEGI survey numbers, he said, showed too much variation from quarter-to-quarter to be trustworthy on the question of intent to migrate.
Lund also said that would-be immigrants are less likely than in the past to be honest about their plans to travel illegally to the United States, given the increasingly clandestine nature of the journey.
"People are much more discreet and perhaps they are thinking twice, but having thought twice, I think they are going to go," Lund said.
Although economic activity and construction are down in the U.S., that's not true of all parts of the country and immigrants have little choice but take their chances since in Mexico there are "no new jobs," Lund said.
Carlos Ordonez, head of polling for the Mexico City newspaper El Universal, said he knew of no other recent surveys on intentions to migrate to the United States.
However, he said, INEGI is known for its serious work and its huge samples would reduce much margin for error. "INEGI does very good work; it's one of the indicators that I would take into account," said Ordonez.
The sample size in the latest survey of 120,000 households "is very robust," he added.
Many respected national polls use survey samples of 1,000 or less in-home interviews.
As the analysts and the pollsters tried to figure out the trends, there was a stream of immigrants returning to Mexico who said they were giving up on the American dream - for now.
Santiago Crespo, 28, stopped in Santa Teresa, N.M., Tuesday while on his way to Valle de Santiago, Guanajuato, in central Mexico.
He and his three buddies, all traveling from Denver where they worked picking crops, planned on driving 14 hours straight to their hometown.
None planned on returning to the U.S. next year.
"The employers are asking for social security numbers, proof of ID, stuff they know we don't have," Crespo said. "I could get some fake papers, but when you don't feel welcome anymore, why return to a place where they close the door on you?"
He said he had worked in Denver for 10 years and saved enough money to open his own grocery store, and even buy a tractor so he can cultivate a four-acre plot.
Crespo was bringing gifts, including two bikes and a TV, to his wife and two kids.
"I still think I can hold out for another six, eight months and then we'll see," he said. "But the United States is not the wonderful country that it was. The people are hypocritical and don't value our sweat."
Dallas Morning News staff writer Dianne Solis in Dallas contributed to this report.
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