A sign of the historic times in which we are living are stories that reveal more Mexicans might be leaving the U.S. than are coming here.
The Obama Administration can take credit for this for working diligently to bring our economy down to the level where Mexicans who used to work in jobs Americans don’t do are deciding that it isn’t worth crossing the boarder for jobs America doesn’t have.
Over the last few years, about 1.4 million Mexicans immigrated to the United States, about the same number that went back to Mexico. Some reports show that more are probably leaving than coming.
Since 2008, when the recession was really starting to kick in, the U.S. Census Bureau reports that the number of illegal immigrants from Mexico living in our country has dropped drastically from 7 million to roughly 6.1 million.
During the same time, the number of legal Mexican immigrants living here has increased from 5.6 million to 5.8 million—a good thing. Mexicans are generally hard workers and, let’s face it, there are jobs that Americans won’t do or don’t do well enough that they are worth employing.
Rapides Parish’s lucrative plant nursery industry wouldn’t exist without Mexicans, which make up about 13 percent of Forest Hill’s population by very conservative counts. The industry industry, centered in Forest Hill, contributes over $175 million to the state economy, according to the LSU AgCenter.
While we need hard-working legal Mexican workers help, we don’t need illegal immigrants that we can’t keep track of that might commit other crimes as well as drive up social service cost. Fortunately, less illegals are coming in to our country and more who are here are going back home and choosing to stay there.
A survey conducted by Mexican authorities shows just seven percent of illegal immigrants were planning on returning to the U.S. in 2010, as opposed to 20 percent that said said they would be coming back in 2005.
The number of Mexicans seized trying to cross the boarder has dropped by 70 percent, even though boarder security has been beefed up. More illegals are also being sent back by the U.S. these days.
Key findings from a report using analysis of data from five different Mexican government sources and four U.S. government sources are:
- In the five-year period from 2005 to 2010, about 1.4 million Mexicans immigrated to the United States and about 1.4 million Mexican immigrants and their U.S.-born children moved from the United States to Mexico.
- In the five-year period a decade earlier (1995 to 2000), about 3 million Mexicans had immigrated to the U.S. and fewer than 700,000 Mexicans and their U.S. born-children had moved from the U.S. to Mexico.
- This sharp downward trend in net migration has led to the first significant decrease in at least two decades in the number of unauthorized Mexican immigrants living in the U.S.—to 6.1 million in 2011, down from a peak of nearly 7 million in 2007. Over the same period the number of authorized Mexican immigrants rose modestly, from 5.6 million in 2007 to 5.8 million in 2011.
- Mexicans now comprise about 58% of the unauthorized immigrants living in the United States. They also account for 30% of all U.S. immigrants. The next largest country of origin for U.S. immigrants, China, accounts for just 5% of the nation’s stock of nearly 40 million immigrants.
- Apprehensions of Mexicans trying to cross the border illegally have plummeted by more than 70% in recent years, from more than 1 million in 2005 to 286,000 in 2011—a likely indication that fewer unauthorized immigrants are trying to cross. This decline has occurred at a time when funding in the U.S. for border enforcement—including more agents and more fencing—has risen sharply.
- As apprehensions at the border have declined, deportations of unauthorized Mexican immigrants—some of them picked up at work or after being arrested for other criminal violations—have risen to record levels. In 2010, nearly 400,000 unauthorized immigrants—73% of them Mexicans—were deported by U.S. authorities.
- Although most unauthorized Mexican immigrants sent home by U.S. authorities say they plan to try to return, a growing share say they will not try to come back to the U.S. According to a survey by Mexican authorities of repatriated immigrants, 20% of labor migrants in 2010 said they would not return, compared with just seven percent in 2005.
- Looking back over the entire span of U.S. history, no country has ever sent as many immigrants to this country as Mexico has in the past four decades. However, when measured not in absolute numbers but as a share of the immigrant population at the time, immigration waves from Germany and Ireland in the late 19th century equaled or exceeded the modern wave from Mexico.
The overriding theme here is that a bad economy will cause fewer immigrants to want to come into the country. If Obama gets another term, you might have a situation where Mexico might have to step up boarder security to keep out the flood of gringo immigrants—something that hasn’t happened since Texas belonged to Mexico.
Democrats in the U.S. Senate are dismayed that the drop in illegal immigrants could harm their election chances among two voting blocks—Hispanics and criminals.
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments on Wednesday on the Obama Administrations attempt to throw out Arizona’s new immigration law, but Senate Democrats are working to nullify the law should the Supreme Court rule in Arizona’s favor.
Democrats are working simultaneously to get Obama re-elected, which will only hasten the Mexican exodus. Democrats will need all the criminals they can get to retain power with the way things are going.
With all we have learned, I’m not sure if this is a video of Mexicans caught sneaking north of the boarder or if they were going to other way. You also have to wonder how many are still in the van by the end of the video. My guess is at least twice as many that got away:
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