Wednesday, April 25, 2012
note: (graphically altered photo)
The net flow of immigrants from Mexico to the United States has ended, with just as many, if not more, people now heading south than north.
From 2005 to 2010, about 1.4 million Mexicans moved from the U.S. to Mexico. This total was twice the number who immigrated during the 1990s.
Meanwhile, less than 1.5 million Mexicans relocated to the U.S. during the second half of the last decade.
Douglas Massey, a professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton University and co-director of the Mexican Migration Project, said the days of large-scale migration across the border, from Mexico to the U.S., have ended.
“I think the massive boom in Mexican immigration is over and I don’t think it will ever return to the numbers we saw in the 1990s and 2000s,” Massey told The Washington Post.
According to the Pew Hispanic Center, the change can be attributed to stronger border controls, a weak U.S. economy, a rise in deportations and a decline in Mexican birthrates.
There are currently 12 million Mexican-born immigrants living in the United States, half of then having entered illegally or, having entered legally, have stayed on illegally. This is a decline of about 600,000 since the peak reached between 2007 and 2009.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Net Migration from Mexico Falls to Zero—and Perhaps Less (by Jeffrey Passel, D’Vera Cohn and Ana Gonzalex-Barrera, Pew Hispanic Center) (pdf)
For First Time Since Depression, More Mexicans Leave U.S. Than Enter (by Tara Bahrampour, Washington Post)
Immigration Down, Violence and Business Up at the U.S.-Mexico Border (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)
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