More Mexicans Leaving Than Coming to US

More Mexican immigrants have returned to Mexico from the USA than have migrated here since the end of the Great Recession, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of newly available government data from both countries.

Pew found that more than 1 million Mexican immigrants and their families, including American-born children, left the US for Mexico from 2009 to 2014.

From 2009 to 2014, researchers found that there was a net loss of 140,000 Mexican national in the US – a finding that is sure to factor heavily into the USA presidential race, where immigration policy has proved to be an enduring and factious policy point.

In addition, the same data sources from Mexico and the USA showed that the overall flow of Mexicans between the two countries is the smallest it has been since the 1990s. The country also accounts for the largest undocumented immigrant population in the USA, the Pew Research Center reported. “It’s been nearly 10 years that migration from Mexico has really slowed down”. Even without a big, attractive wall on the border, the number of documented and undocumented Mexican immigrants in the United States is declining, leaving behind older, more established families. The answers to this question provide an estimated count of the number of people who moved from the U.S.to Mexico during the five years prior to the survey date.

Additionally, his administration focused enforcement on people who had been removed previously from the country and were caught trying to re-enter illegally.

The top reason for returning to Mexico is family reunification, according to the study. The figures include unauthorized immigrants. At the same time, increased enforcement in the USA has led to an increase in the number of Mexican immigrants who have been deported from the US since 2005 (U.S. Department of Homeland Security, 2014). About 6 per cent said they had found jobs there.

Mexican immigrants have been at the center of one of the largest mass migrations in modern history.

In the 50-year wave of migration since 1965, more than 16 million Mexicans came here, far more than from any other country, Pew has reported. The total declined to 11.7m previous year.

The drop is mostly due to a decrease of more than 1m unauthorised immigrants from a peak of 6.9m in 2007 to 5.6m in 2014, Pew said.

The slowdown in Mexican migration also means that the profile of Mexican-born immigrants in the United States has changed dramatically. But strikingly, an increasing number of Mexicans interviewed for the study said that life north of the border was no better or worse than in Mexico itself. By 2014, 33 percent made the same assessment.

In another first, the Border Patrol arrested more non-Mexicans than Mexicans in the 2014 fiscal year, as more Central Americans came to the USA, mostly through South Texas, and many of them turned themselves in to authorities.

The report said most of the Mexican leaving the U.S. were doing so voluntarily to reunite with their family or else to start one.