Posted on 12/10/2012 7:37:11 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Is mass migration from Mexico to the United States a thing of the past?
At least for the moment, it is. Last May, the Pew Hispanic Center, in a study based on U.S. and Mexican statistics, reported that net migration from Mexico to this country had fallen to zero from 2005 to 2010.
Pew said 20,000 more people moved to Mexico from the United States than from there to here in those years. That’s a vivid contrast with the years 1995 to 2000, when net inflow from Mexico was 2.2 million people.
Because there was net Mexican immigration until 2007, when the housing market collapsed and the Great Recession began, it seems clear that there was net outmigration from 2007 to 2010, and that likely has continued in 2011 and 2012.
There’s a widespread assumption that Mexican migration will resume when the U.S. economy starts growing robustly again. But I think there’s reason to doubt that will be the case.
Over the past few years, I have been working on a book, scheduled for publication next fall, on American migrations, internal and immigrant. What I’ve found is that over the years this country has been peopled in large part by surges of migration that have typically lasted just one or two generations.
Almost no one predicted that these surges of migration would occur, and almost no one predicted when they would end.
For example, when our immigration system was opened up in 1965, experts testified that we would not get many immigrants from Latin America or Asia. They assumed that immigrants would come mainly from Europe, as they had in the past.
Experts have also tended to assume that immigrants are motivated primarily by economic factors. And in the years starting in the 1980s, many people in Latin America and Asia — especially in Mexico, which has produced more than 60 percent of Latin American immigrants — saw opportunities to make a better living in this country.
But masses of people do not uproot themselves from familiar territory just to make marginal economic gains. They migrate to pursue dreams or escape nightmares.
Life in Mexico is not a nightmare for many these days. Beneath the headlines about killings in the drug wars, Mexico has become a predominantly middle-class country, as Jorge Castañeda notes in his recent book, Mañana Forever? Its economy is growing faster than ours.
And the dreams that many Mexican immigrants pursued have been shattered.
You can see that if you look at the statistics on mortgage foreclosures, starting with the housing bust in 2007. More than half were in the four “sand states” — California, Nevada, Arizona, and Florida — and within them, as the Pew Hispanic Center noted in a 2009 report, in areas with large numbers of Latino immigrants.
These were places where subprime mortgages were granted, with encouragement from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, to many Latinos unqualified by traditional credit standards.
These new homeowners, many of them construction workers, dreamed of gaining hundreds of thousands of dollars as housing prices inevitably rose. Instead, they collapsed. My estimate is that one-third of those foreclosed on in these years were Latinos. Their dreams turned into nightmares.
We can see further evidence in last month’s Pew research report on the recent decline in U.S. birthrates. The biggest drop was among Mexican-born women, from 455,000 births in 2007 to 346,000 in 2010.
That’s a 24 percent decline, compared with only a 6 percent decline among U.S.-born women. It’s comparable to the sharp decline in U.S. birthrates in the Depression years from 1929 to 1933.
Beneath the cold statistics on foreclosures and births is a human story, a story of people whose personal lives have been deeply affected by economic developments over which they had no control and of which they had no warning.
Those events have prompted many to resort to, in Mitt Romney’s chilly words, “self-deportation.” And their experiences are likely to have reverberations for many others who have learned of their plight.
Surges of migration that have shaped the country sometimes end abruptly. The surge of Southern blacks to Northern cities lasted from 1940 to 1965 — one generation. The surge of Mexicans into the U.S. lasted from 1982 to 2007 — one generation.
The northward surge of American blacks has never resumed. I don’t think the northward surge of Mexicans will, either.
— Michael Barone is senior political analyst for the Washington Examiner.
Since our economy is starting to emulate Mexico’s, why would they take they trouble to leave home?
Thanks. The damage has already been done.
Because most of them are already here!
Since they’ve accomplished ruining a once great nation why bother coming here? In another 4 years we’ll be the same kind of banana republic cess pool that they came from.
Relax, the future President, Sec. of State Hillary Clinton is scouring the souks of Arabia for maladjusted youths to bring in as immigrants.
At least Obama accomplished solving the immigration issue. He made the United States worse that Mexico to live in.
It could be because Mexico’s unemployment rate is hovering around 5%, whereas the US’s unemployment rate is hovering just below 8%.
This from the guy who projected a comfortable victory for Romney? Color me skeptical.
it will be a flood if there is amnesty
Already being done.
I’m not going to get pulled into believing this...
could be a setup to more willingly accept amnesty. The fact is that the border is STILL unsecured and a virtual welcome mat exists of govt handouts. Any lag today will reverse in spades after a 2013 amnesty, in preparation for the one after that...
Too late.
It’s actually true, but leaves out that immigration from Central America has increased quite a bit - and to be honest the average person can’t tell the difference between Guatemalans and Southern Mexicans.
“Illegal Immigrants” must not be part of the reported immigrants he is talking about. Legal immigrants won’t need amnesty.
“...Mexico has become a predominantly middle-class country, ...”
BS Alert, 20% of Mexico is middle class to upper middle class to wealthy, 50% is lower middle class (similar to our welfare class), 30% is in extreme poverty.
Many of those in the 50% lower middle class hold 2 to 3 jobs and struggle to make ends meet.
Mexico is still a 3rd world country with no hope to be anything other than a 3rd world country for a long time. There is nothing economic or societal that would propel Mexico to be a Japan or Germany. Even their petroleum resources are limited. Their economy inspires no innovation, no industrial growth, no natural resource to tap into to start an advancing bonanza. There’s just no there there.
Mexico offers only cheap labor to the world and even that is not competitive with Asia, other nations in Central and South America.
Barone is getting ready to peddle a book. His reputation as a sharp, precise and insightful analyst is wobbling, especially coming off election predictions that were so far out to lunch that any respect accorded him for his broad acumen has left the field.
I think he is also a sympathizer with the pro-gay crowd. He supports gay marriage.
Wasn’t the main reason behind REALLY prosecuting those that hired illegals, enforce the rental laws etc...
If your relatives come to visit you at Thanksgiving and around New Years they are trying to sell their car and suggesting new colors for ‘their’ room, do you suddenly make things a little difficult for them or do you buy the car from them and let them use it, while THEY are still living in YOUR home?
Every contractor industry has its pinpoint source of illegals.
For example, just got a new roof. Workers were Guatemalans.
House cleaning - Brazilian.
I recall years ago getting plaster skim coat. French Canadians - I think that might have changed to some other source, dunno...
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