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 News from Around the Americas | March 2008 
Mexican Immigration to US May Have Peaked
 Jeremy Schwartz - Austin American-Statesman
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| | Are we are at the beginning of a gradual decrease in illegal immigration from Mexico? | | |
Has immigration from Mexico peaked? Will future years see a slowly dwindling number of Mexicans crossing the border? Mexican experts studying immigration trends say the United States might be entering a new stage in the century-old movement of Mexicans northward.
"We have probably arrived at peak numbers of migrants from Mexico going to the U.S.," Gustavo Verduzco, a sociology professor at the College of Mexico, said during a recent conference in Mexico City on regional integration co-sponsored by the University of Texas. "It's a change that we need to think about."
Such a statement jibes with other indicators: The amount of money sent back to Mexico by migrants was stagnant last year after nearly a decade of sharp increases. And the U.S. Border Patrol is catching fewer illegal immigrants, something U.S. officials argue reflects a diminished stream of people illegally crossing the border.
The trend dates at least to May, when the Pew Research Center released a report showing a marked decline in border apprehensions: 288,000 in January to March 2007 compared with 404,000 in the same period of 2006.
Such temporary dips have been seen before, but a growing number of experts say the U.S. is at the beginning of a slow, gradual decrease in immigration.
Verduzco noted such a paradigm shift could have serious consequences for Mexico, which has depended on immigration to the United States for huge amounts of income and to relieve labor pressures within its struggling economy.
Remittances are Mexico's third-largest source of income after oil and tourism, and any sharp decline could be disastrous for the Mexican economy, especially in poor rural towns.
And Mexico could see increased social strife if fewer Mexicans leave or if more return to Mexico to compete for a pool of jobs that stubbornly refuses to expand.
What's less clear is what is driving the decline. Homeland Security officials credit increased enforcement — ranging from placing National Guard troops along the border to electronic surveillance to "zero tolerance" criminal prosecution in places such as Del Rio — for reducing illegal immigration.
But some immigration experts say a more important factor is the U.S. economy. The downturn, especially in the construction industry, has convinced some would-be immigrants to sit and wait in Mexico, the argument goes.
Several towns that traditionally send immigrants to the United States have reported local residents returning from the U.S. because of slowing job opportunities, worries about crossing the border, and a rash of locally enacted anti-immigration measures.
Perhaps the least likely explanation is any kind of improvement in daily life in Mexico. As a host of researchers at the UT conference explained, lack of jobs remains acute, and the real value of salaries has actually decreased since 1970.
Orlandina Olivera, a UT grad teaching at the College of Mexico, said young people have an even harder time finding a job in Mexico than the general population. "If the youth don't have access to jobs, they can't plan their future," she said.
But if immigration is slowing in general, the trend is the opposite in Austin, said Bryan Roberts, director of UT's Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies. Roberts said Austin has become what he called a "gateway city" and, along with Dallas and Houston, is replacing traditional Texas receptors along the border and in San Antonio.
Roberts said 45 percent of Mexican immigrants in Texas now settle in the cities of Dallas, Houston and Austin.
Driving migration to Austin, Roberts said, is a booming construction industry and growth in high-wage jobs that has left many Austinites with the money to hire a gardener or housekeeper.
Roberts said the reality of the Texas immigrant is far different from the traditional view of single men crowded into apartments or working in the fields.
Instead, the immigrant population is overwhelmingly urban — only 2 percent of Texas immigrants work in agriculture — and more immigrants own their homes (58 percent) than live in apartments (just 31 percent).
Roberts' research did not differentiate between legal and undocumented immigrants.
Perhaps most surprisingly, 67 percent live with their spouse, a number that far surpasses the white population, in which only about half are married.
"What did that was the tightening of border security," Roberts said. "If you can't go back, you stay, and if you stay, the next thing you do is bring up your wife and children. The other pattern is, you marry within the (U.S.). The formation of families among immigrants is also part of the coping strategy."
jschwartz(at)coxnews.com |
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