But using a national household survey and census data from both countries, the research came up with pretty reliable count.
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The study found that between 2009 and 2014, 870,000 Mexicans left their country to move to the United States, while 1 million Mexicans left the United States to return home. Between 2009 and 2014, a net total of 140,000 Mexicans have left the United States and returned to Mexico.
The ENADID survey also indicated that family ties had played a large part in the rising numbers of Mexicans moving back south of the border: six in 10 of those who said they had lived in the USA five years ago but were back in Mexico as of last year cited reunification with loved ones as the main reason.
Contrary to what Donald Trump’s proposal to erect a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border may suggest, the number of Mexican immigrants entering the USA actually isn’t increasing.
In another first, the Border Patrol arrested more non-Mexicans than Mexicans in fiscal 2014, as more Central Americans came to the USA, mostly through southern Texas, and many of them surrendered to authorities. Pew Research Center estimated that in 2014 there were about 5.6 million Mexicans residing in the USA illegally.
The era of mass migration from Mexico is “at an end”, declared Mark Hugo Lopez, Pew’s director of Hispanic research.
In coming years, he said, the amount of Mexicans may rise again in case the USA market continues to enhance.
Mexicans have been the largest source of migrants to the United States for decades, with 16 million Mexicans moving to the U.S. between 1965 and 2015. That was attributable mostly to the lack of Mexicans entering the United States.
Pew said that their results confirm a tendency toward less Mexican migration and more such nationals returning home.
While nearly half (48%) of adults in Mexico believe life is better in the USA, a growing share says it is neither better nor worse than life in Mexico. There is no Mexican invasion of undocumented immigrants pouring into the country. A sluggish US recovery from the Great Recession also contributed.
The net outflow appears to be due to a combination of factors including stricter US immigration enforcement and the negative impact of the economic recession that began in 2008.
Pew noted that the number of Mexicans now living in the United States stands at about 11.7 million, down from a peak of 12.8 million in 2007.
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Although there’s been an increase of Mexican immigrants who have been deported since 2005, in comparison to previous years, the report cites, the threat of deportation doesn’t seem to be the biggest motivation.
