From 2009 to 2014, 1 million Mexicans and their families (including U.S.-born children) left the USA for Mexico, according to data from the 2014 Mexican National Survey of Demographic Dynamics (ENADID). Deportations peaked at 315,000 in 2013, a result of changes in USA policy that made deportations and possible criminal prosecution more likely.
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According to the survey, the reverse migration trend, is mainly due to the slow recovery of the USA economy after the 2008 financial crisis. “Anybody who could come across could get in”, she said.
Xenophobic political rhetoric by some GOP candidates probably doesn’t attract immigrants either.
Few presidential hopefuls, most notably Donald Trump, have gone to great lengths to offend the Hispanic population in the USA, accusing them of stealing jobs and calling them rapists – twice. Through in stricter enforcement of immigration and employment laws, weariness of living under the radar, and other factors also make life harder in the USA for illegal newcomers than the environment former immigrants found. In most of those cases, rejoining family was the reason to move back home. The Obama administration has deported more Mexicans than any other president.
Although the Pew study indicates there has been a net loss in migrants between the United States and Mexico, with more Mexicans leaving than coming in recent years, the numbers involved are still very large.
Not only that, but, according to Pew, a majority of the 1 million Mexicans who have left the United States did so of their own accord, mostly to be reunited with families.
Another estimate based on U.S. census statistics showed approximately 870,000 Mexicans immigrated to the USA from Mexico. Between 2009 and 2014, a net total of 140,000 Mexicans have left the United States and returned to Mexico.
In coming years, he said, the number of Mexicans may increase again if the USA economy continues to improve.
When interviewed in Mexico, 60 percent of those who returned say that family reunification was the main reason to go back home. However, the inflow had already been on the decline, even prior to the USA financial crash in 2008.
“We think Mexican migration is definitely in a new phase, and it will not return to the levels it once had”, Gonzalez-Barrera said.
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The figure Mexicans living in the USA illegally has also decreased, reaching 5.6 million compared to the 6.9 million in 2007. A Pew poll of Americans done earlier this year showed that 56 percent of Republicans “say undocumented immigrants now living in the USA should be allowed to stay in this country legally if they meet certain requirements”.
