T he migration flow of Mexicans to the USA is at its lowest level since the 1990s, a study released by Pew Research Centre showed on Thursday.
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Between 2009 and 2014, the Mexican population in the US declined by 140,000 as 1 million left their wealthy northern neighbor to go back to their country of origin, according to the Mexican National Survey of Demographic Dynamics (ENADID).
According to the census data, 61 percent of Mexicans reported returning to Mexico to reunite with their families, but other researchers have suggested that the U.S.’s sluggish economy could have impacted immigration as well.
“Measuring migration flows between Mexico and the U.S. is challenging because there are no official counts of how many Mexican immigrants enter and leave the USA each year”, Pew said.
At the same time Syrians are coming to the United States, a growing number of undocumented migrants from Mexico are leaving.
However, a new report from the Pew Research Center indicates that immigration from Mexico has been dramatically declining for years.
A new study of immigration to the United States shows that more Mexicans have returned home than have arrived here since 2009. As we saw during last year’s migrant crisis, the economic and political conditions in many Central American nations are such that many people are willing to take the long, risky trek north through Mexican deserts and inhospitable climate and geographic conditions for a chance at being granted asylum in the United States.
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. Less than half of Mexicans (48 percent) said that life in the U.S. is better now. Policies toughened even more after 9/11, with the Border Patrol doubling in size and the U.S. erecting hundreds of miles of fences, and Arizona led a backlash in state capitols as Mexicans moved beyond traditional destinations like Los Angeles and Chicago, settling in towns throughout the South and Midwest.
Another telling statistic: 35 percent of adults in Mexico say they have friends or relatives they regularly communicate with or visit in the USA, a Pew survey this year found. That’s down 7 percentage points from 2007. The total declined to 11.7m a year ago. Mexicans are still the largest immigrant group in the country. A small portion, 14 percent, were deported.
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“Fewer jobs available for Mexican immigrants sent a lot of people back home and also attracted less people to come here”.
