Mexican migration to U.S. at standstill

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SAN ANTONIO - The decades-long march of Mexican immigrants into the U.S., the greatest influx in this country's history, has apparently ground to a halt.

For the first time since the 1930s, the number of Mexican immigrants - legal and illegal - coming to the U.S. from 2005 to 2010 was less than the number leaving, according to a report released Monday by the Pew Hispanic Center.

In the five-year period, 1.37 million people from Mexico moved to the U.S. while 1.39 million Mexicans and their U.S.-born children living here moved back to Mexico.

"This is an historic wave, which at least over the last five years has come to a standstill," said Paul Taylor, director at the center, a nonpartisan research group based in Washington, D.C. "And considering how important immigration has been and will continue to be for this country, that seems quite significant."

At 12 million, this country's Mexican population outstrips any other immigrant group. Slightly more than half are here illegally.

"Indeed the United States has more immigrants from Mexico alone than any other country in the world has from all the countries of the world," Taylor said.

Crime, border security

The report, based on Mexican and U.S. government sources, including census reports, didn't analyze what caused Mexican migration to the U.S. to hit a plateau.

The authors speculated that factors such as increased U.S. border security - as well as the growing danger posed by organized crime along the border - lower fertility rates and an improved economic outlook in Mexico might be factors.

The study found that the number of Mexican immigrants living in the U.S. illegally fell to 6.1 million from its peak of 7 million in 2007, while the number coming here legally increased from about 5.6 million in 2007 to 5.8 million in 2011. Pew reported last year that the total number of legal immigrants in the country had fallen, but the number living in Texas had increased from 2007 to 2010.

The study also found that attitudes about entering the country illegally had changed.

"There's been a change in the intentions of people when they get back to Mexico, what they're going to do," said Jeffery Passel, the center's senior demographer. "Around 2005, '06 and '07, about 80 percent of those people who were sent back said they were going to try to get back into the U.S. in a week. By 2010, that had dropped to about 60 percent."

According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a record number of illegal immigrants, about 397,000, were deported last year. And the Border Patrol reported detaining a record-low number of people entering the country illegally, about 340,000.

Because they believe economic factors played a part in the slowdown of Mexican immigration, the study's authors said they don't know what will happen as the U.S. economy recovers.

"We don't know whether the wave will resume, but we do know that the current standstill is more than just a temporary pause," Taylor said.

Not missed, for now

Increased security on the border makes it unlikely the U.S. will experience an influx of workers from Mexico, said Pia Orrenius, an economist for the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. For the time being, those workers aren't missed, Orrenius said.

"Right now there's not a great need for these workers. It's actually having a beneficial effect because the labor market's been so weak," she said "The problem is going to be in the medium to long-term, when there will be a recovery in construction" and with it a demand for cheap labor.

jbuch@express-news.net