Study finds more Mexicans leaving the US than coming

More Mexicans are now leaving the United States than are entering, resulting in a net loss of 130,000 from 2009 to 2014, according to a new study by the Pew Research Center. However, a Pew Research Analysis released on November 19th, revealed that more Mexicans are leaving the United States than the number coming in.

In 2012, Pew had conducted another study, concluding that net migration between the two countries was nearing zero.

The primary reason for the decline, Pew said, is the desire of immigrants to reunite with their families in Mexico.

According to the report, from 2009-2014, an estimated one million Mexicans left the US with their families, while only 870,000 migrated to the U.S. The increased cost and difficulty of crossing the border, coupled with the USA economy’s slow recovery after the recession, are also driving numbers down.

Six percent of ENADID’s survey respondents said they returned to Mexico due to employment circumstances, while 14 percent admitted they were deported from the U.S. More than three in four had been in the USA for more than a decade, compared to only half in 1990.

The study also found that, contrary to popular belief, a large number of Mexicans don’t see life on the northern side of the border as necessarily better. The tougher enforcement of immigration laws at the border and in the country are playing a major factor. Others cited job opportunities in Mexico.

An appeal’s court decision recently blocked a series of executive orders signed by President Obama in November 2014 that were created to protect a few 5 million undocumented immigrants from the immediate threat of deportation. Seeking a way to earn money, children and adults younger than 30 made up 50 percent of immigrants into the US from Mexico in 1990, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau and its American Community Survey. (See Table 1 here.) But newer data, through the second quarter of 2015 (see Table 1 here) shows a big jump from the previous year, registering the highest quarterly total ever. Pew said there were 11.7 million Mexicans living in the USA last year, down from a peak of 12.8 million in 2007.

Looking into the future, Prida says fewer Mexicans could migrate to North Carolina because of birth rates in the country.

A new study documents a historic shift in Mexican immigration to the United States.

“The influence on the American worker is pretty much the same, whether they are coming from Mexico or any place else”, he said. In 2007, 42% of Mexicans surveyed by Pew said they kept in contact with friends or family in the United States.