Study: Immigration wave crashing to a stop

Mexican citizen Gerardo Cano, 54, has crossed into the United States eight times in his life for work but said he won’t be crossing back anymore. “There’s no work there, and California is in a crisis. It’s hard to find work. When I went before, there was a lot of work,” he said in Spanish. “I could switch jobs like nothing. … None of it is the same as it was before. Mexico is better off than before, not great, but better. You can get food there but you can get it here, too.”

What used to be a steady flow of migration from Mexico to the U.S. for decades has all but come to a standstill and may have even reversed, according to a study by the Pew Hispanic Center released Monday.

Roughly 12 million people came to the U.S. from Mexico over the past four decades with about half of them crossing illegally.

Between 1995 and 2000, about 3 million Mexicans immigrated to the U.S. and less than 700,000 Mexicans and their U.S. born-children moved from the U.S. to Mexico, according to the data.

Between 2005 and 2010, about 1.4 million Mexicans immigrated to the U.S. and an equal number, about 1.4 million Mexicans and their U.S. born-children, moved from the U.S. to Mexico, the study shows.

Jose Garcia, 48, said in Spanish that while he’s lived 15 years of his life in the U.S., he’s not going to try to cross back into the U.S.

“California’s run out of money, and there’s no work,” he said. “Nobody wants to cross.”

The drop in net migration is tied to the first significant drop in decades in the number of unauthorized Mexican immigrants living in the U.S., which peaked at nearly 7 million in 2007 and dropped to 6.1 million in 2011.

In that same time, authorized Mexican immigrants rose just a little from 5.6 million in 2007 to 5.8 million in 2011.

Topics familiar to the Valley such as declining U.S. job and housing markets, increased border enforcement, deportations and illegal border crossing dangers have all contributed to the decline, according to the study.

“It’s a lot harder to cross than before. They put more to stop people from crossing than before,” Cano agreed, citing cameras and ground sensors. “Before, there wasn’t anything like this. There was no fence and just wide crossing.”

While apprehensions of Mexicans trying to cross illegally have dropped by more than 70 percent over the past few years, deportations of unauthorized Mexican immigrants has risen “to record levels,” and funding for border enforcement “has risen sharply,” according to the study.

Gerardo Rios Eduardo, 41, said he has crossed 11 times over 22 years, beginning in the late 1980s.

While staying in the Migrant Hotel just a few blocks from the border, he said he sees fewer people trying to cross, but he still will try to cross back in a few weeks in order to return to his same job of 18 years and to be with family.

George Hernandez, 43, lived in the U.S. since he was 2 days old but was deported for the first time when he was in his 20s.

“Yes I am Mexican, but it’s all foreign to me. It’s taking every fiber of my being to adapt to a place like this,” he said while staying at the Migrant Hotel in Mexicali.

More and more unauthorized Mexican immigrants are saying they won’t try to come back to the U.S., according to a study by Mexican authorities of repatriated immigrants. In 2010, 20 percent of labor migrants said they wouldn’t, while 7 percent said that in 2005.

Hernandez doesn’t want to try to cross again but feels unsure of his future in Mexico.

“It got harder after 9/11. Things got a little harder to cross,” he said. “I’d love to go back to my life. This is just a bump in the road. This isn’t the end for me. I’m not used to living like this.

“I’d love to go back to L.A. and get back to work. I got my daughters over there and family but right now my future doesn’t see that. I wouldn’t want to cross through the mountains.”

The long-term decline of Mexico’s birth rates and the country’s changing economic climate have also contributed to the drop in immigration, according to the Pew Hispanic Center study.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon referenced the study while speaking at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday. He cited “the fact is that net migration to the United States is zero” before going on to criticize U.S. immigration policy as unnecessarily restrictive and depriving of U.S. farming needs, Bloomberg News Service reported.

“There’s a swing in terms of the opportunities. The agricultural sector in the United States is losing a lot of competitiveness and opportunities due to restrictions,” Calderon was quoted as saying.

Calderon also cited improved education, job opportunity and broader health-care availability as contributing factors to the reduction in migration to the U.S., according to Bloomberg News.

The Pew Hispanic Center’s analysis used data from five Mexican government sources such as the Mexican Population Counts and the National Survey of Occupation and Employment as well as four U.S. government sources such as the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and 2010 Census.

The U.S. has almost 40 million immigrants, and Mexicans account for 30 percent of U.S. immigrants and 58 percent of unauthorized immigrants living in the U.S.

The next largest country of origin for U.S. immigrants is China, which accounts for 5 percent of the U.S. immigration population.

While Mexico far supersedes any other country in immigration to the U.S. over the past half century, it equals or falls behind the immigration numbers of Germany and Ireland in the late 19th century as a share of the immigrant population at the time.

Staff Writer Chelcey Adami can be reached at 760-337-3452 or cadami@ivpressonline.com

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