The Pew Hispanic Center released a report today that found the flow of Mexican immigrants to the United States has declined significantly since mid-decade. On the other hand, the number of Mexican immigrants returning to their home country since 2006 has remained stable. The report used surveys of families in Mexico as well as Census and U.S. Border Patrol data.
Last year, 433,000 people returned to Mexico, compared with 479,000 two years earlier. Also, the number of people entering the United States decreased significantly last year. “People are essentially staying put at both end,” said Michael Fix, senior vice president of the Migration Policy Institute. He continued, “They’re basically riding out the storm.”
Nearly 8 in 10 of Mexican immigrants in the U.S. are undocumented making it difficult to track the arrivals and departures accurately. The report found that number of Mexican immigrants in the U.S. has steadied in recent years to around 11 million.
The report did not analyze reasons behind the leveling out, but Jeff Passel, a senior demographer at Pew, believes that there are a number of factors, such as the unstable Mexican economy and drug violence along the border, could explain the trend. Plus, Passel added, “the monetary cost of getting into the United States, and the danger, have increased…People who have already spent the money and taken the risk…might try to stay here and ride it out rather than spend the money to go back to Mexico and try again at a later date.”
Although this report focused only on Mexico, an October Pew report found the number of illegal immigrants from other Latin American countries to the U.S. has decreased.
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