Pew: Extra Mexicans Are Leaving US Than Coming In

The Pew report also says that the number of Mexican immigrants living in the US illegally was down to 5.6 million in 2014 compared to its peak of 6.9 million in 2005.

US census data for the same period show an estimated 870,000 Mexican nationals left Mexico to come to the U.S.

The overwhelming reason for returning to Mexico was to reunite with family or after starting a family. Wanting to be with family members was the main reason cited for returning to Mexico, with 61 percent of those responding to a questionnaire citing that as their primary motivation. But in September, the school offered something new – English classes for people who recently arrived and don’t yet speak the language. “I would not say that Mexico has more of a pull”, said Pew research associate Ana Gonzalez-Barrera, who was the study’s author.

In addition, Lopez said, immigrants from China, India and other Asian nations are coming as students and high-tech workers. In fact, there has been so much of them crossing the border back to Mexico that the USA has experienced a net loss of 140,000 immigrants between 2009 and 2014.

From 2005 to 2009, census data from the US and Mexico cited by Pew showed about the same number of Mexican nationals entering the country as leaving.

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.

The United States has seen a record number of Central Americans fleeing violence in the past few years, straining the country’s ability to process their requests for asylum.

Generations of immigrants have headed to the U.S.in pursuit of the American Dream or at least a better life than the one available in their homeland.

Additionally, Pew found the Mexican-born population in the US declined to 11.7 million in 2014, down from 12.8 million in 2007.

According to the Pew study, more than 16 million Mexicans left their home country to come to the United States over the course of the last 50 years.

Immigration is a hot topic as the USA presidential campaigns heat up, especially after Republican billionaire Donald Trump claimed that Mexican immigrants include drug traffickers and rapists.

One influential factor in the decline of Mexican citizens entering the country might be a residual effect from the financial crisis, the Pew Center said. It is rooted not in any practical support for legal immigration, but in xenophobia and nativism.