Fewer Mexicans Immigrating to U.S.
Hispanic Business, News Report , Staff, Posted: Jun 04, 2007
Editor's Note: Recent figures show a decrease in the rate of growth of Mexican immigration to the United States. President Bush credits increased border security for the change.
Even as Washington debates compromise immigration reform measures, a new fact sheet developed by the Pew Hispanic Center suggests that the immigration flow from Mexico has been slowing since the middle of last year.
While the Mexican-born population in the United States continues to expand, Pew reports, the rate of growth "appears to have slowed in recent months."
The center cited four indicators to back up its findings, including the size of the Mexican-born population in the United States; the number of Hispanic immigrants employed in the U.S., especially in construction; remittances sent from the U.S. to Mexico as reported by the Bank of Mexico; and the number of apprehensions of people illegally crossing into the U.S. from Mexico.
"Although the size of the change cannot be calculated with precision, the four indicators examined in this fact sheet all suggest less rapid growth" compared to 2004 and 2005, Pew said.
Using a battery of statistical techniques once per quarter, the center estimated that the annual increase in the Mexican immigrant population averaged 495,000 in 2005 and 2006. However, in the first quarter of 2007 the center's techniques suggested annual growth of 288,000.
Looking at percentage growth, the higher numbers produced a growth rate of 8 percent, while the 2007 estimate is 4.2 percent.
Examining the other indicators, Pew found that while immigrant employment trends have been very strong since the latest recession ended in 2003, the first quarter of this year has shown the smallest increase so far. While during that time frame employment of foreign-born Hispanics had been averaging 651,000 a year, the quarterly gain from 2007 suggests the increase will only be 350,000 this year.
The growth in remittances has also slowed. Pew estimates based on Bank of Mexico figures showed remittances growing an average of 26.5 percent in the first three post-recession years. But by 2006 that rate had fallen to 6.5 percent, and so far this year it's 3.4 percent. (Even with that slowdown, the money flowing south is a torrent -- $26 billion was sent to Mexico in 2006, double the figure from 2003.)
An indicator often cited in the immigration debate on Capitol Hill also suggests a slowdown. In the first quarter of 2007, apprehensions by the Border Patrol on the U.S.-Mexico border are off 31 percent compared to 2006. Apprehensions had risen sharply in 2004 and 2005, but started to fall off in the middle of 2006.
The Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act is currently being debated in the Senate. President Bush has been unusually forceful in pushing the compromise measure, which combines what is essentially an amnesty for immigrants who arrived before Jan. 1 with a guest worker program that would require workers to return eventually to their home country.
In stumping for the bill, the president has suggested better enforcement is behind a downturn in apprehensions.
"You can tell when the border is better defended because the number of arrests go down," President Bush told future Border Patrol agents on Tuesday. "In other words, when people know there's a consequence to trying to sneak across, there's less likely to be people sneaking across. Arrests have gone down by 27 percent over the past year on the southern border. That's a sign of progress. It should say to the American people that we're doing what the people expect us to do."
Page
1 of 1
|
