Posted on 01/16/2009 4:32:51 PM PST by kellynla
Flor Gutierrez has a bird's eye view of how immigrants – 37 percent of California's labor force – are reacting so far to a punishing recession.
She runs El Mercadito Latino in Elk Grove, where Mexicans and Central Americans shop and wire money to family back in their home countries. In December, she said, customers wired the same amount of money as they always have during a holiday month. But Gutierrez is bracing for a plunge.
"They definitely are buying less for themselves," she said. "We may see people getting by with less here, so they can continue to help out those back home who are even worse off."
Gutierrez's observations mirror what researchers at the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan Washington, D.C., think tank, describe in a report issued Wednesday.
"Immigrants and the Current Economic Crisis" reviews statistical research and other information and concludes that there is no hard evidence of illegal or legal immigrants leaving in droves because jobs have dried up.
In addition to agriculture, immigrants are concentrated in construction, manufacturing and services, industries that have been battered by the downturn.
No doubt, tough times have already prompted some to leave U.S. soil and produced a "flattening" in the estimated number of illegal immigrants entering to seek jobs since 2007, said Demetrios Papademetriou, president of the Migration Policy Institute, which studies U.S. and global migration trends and policies.
But home countries, especially those tightly linked to the U.S. economy, such as Mexico and those in Central America, are not hospitable places to search for work, either.
Drug trafficking violence and crime in Mexico are disincentives to returning, as is immigrants' strong sense of responsibility to provide for family, the report says.
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
Why would they leave? Those who hang around will be rewarded with lots and lots of PIE!
Always used to depict a far left group.
i drove thru’ carlsbad and orange county and saw,
what i presume to be,
illegals standing on the streets waiting to be picked up to work.
Why should they? PEBO is going to give each of them welfare "tax cuts" and a citizenship...
yep...these stories that you read about ICE picking up forty or fifty illegals is laughable...I can take ICE to Santa Ana right across the street from the Federal building or downtown L.A. and pick up THOUSANDS of illegals...and lets not forget in front of practically EVERY Home Depot in America!
ping
Actually, when I was in Barcelona, all of the drudge work (street cleaning, vending, housekeeping) was done by the Ecuadorians and Peruvians. Lots of Filipinos in the hospitality industry over there as well. Then you have the African girls plying their tricks on the Ramblas.
Lots of South Americans are going to Italy as well. This is especially true if they can prove at least one Italian grandparent, which all but entitles them to citizenship (lots of Italians settled in South America, you may recall). Lots of Ecuadorians working on construction sites in Milan and Rome until the recent crash in the real estate market over there.
>>PEBO is going to give each of them welfare “tax cuts” and a citizenship... <<
They had a promise of amnesty no matter who won the election. Bush, McCain, BO, all want them to stay here, and apparently want them to keep coming in.
However, IMO BO is foolish if he pushes amnesty before his health care. It should be pretty obvious that adding 20 million illegals who, before they arrived here, had not gotten decent health care, is going to make BO’s health care a lot more expensive. Instead, BO could try to pass his health care program first, and pretend that the illegals are not covered, while sneaking in options to allow covering them.
They’re probably just not getting DLs any more. I don’t know why they want them anyway...they might get ticketed, which they ignore, but don’t get arrested just for not having a DL or insurance. Up here in Ohio, they don’t really need a DL for identification either, most every place accepts a matricular consular card for everything, including banking.
Of course they are not going home. There’s plenty of our tax dollars being used to support them here.
Well let me inform you, they haven't gone home.
Why should they! They drive without insurance & a driver's license and if for some reason they get a ticket, do you think they are gonna show up for court? Nooooooooooooo...
These people are gonna stay here for the free food, free medical care, free housing, free education and NO TAXES! Shezzzzzzzzzzzzzz...would you leave? LOL
We could DEMAND that every person in America who wanted a job speak English & PROVE their presence LEGALLY and these people would just start doing what many are and have been doing for decades...dealing drugs, stealing, robbing... whatever it takes to stay here.
Sooner or later we are gonna have to “take out the trash!”
A neat site for Spanish translation. You can shock a few of them by learning a little spanish. I DID.
http://translation2.paralink.com/
I’m in LA, too, and it sure doesn’t seem like there’s any fewer of them.
“If California had Oklahoma-style laws instead of the welcoming ones they’d leave”
Yep you are sure right on that. And I think Texas companies are beginning to get message. There are a lot leaving Texas also. It’s just we have so many. Thank you WEBER for checking for illegal status. I know a lot of companies are now checking legal status. Now if we can just rid ourselves of the anchor babies. If we could change that one law, I do believe that would stop a lot of the influx.
Illegals are NOT going home. The study that has stated that has no hard statistics to substantiate their claim. The organization that did the study is a Latino immigration committee. They want the Americans to believe their country’s number one problem, illegal immigration, is going away. Oh contrer!!!
Why would illegals leave this country when they get free food stamps, health care, housing,welfare, adnd education? They aren’t going back to the hell hole country they came from where there is no work.
Isn’t Texas getting ready to write Oklahoma legislation, I know they’ve been talking about it? Also there are plans underway to deal with the anchor baby problem in some places like California, where they’re trying to get a ballot initiative going. I agree, something needs to be done about that.
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