Thread: {SOB} U.S. housing slump hits home

MEXICO
U.S. housing slump hits home
As construction jobs drop off, immigrant workers' families to the south are feeling the pinch.

By Marla Dickerson, Times Staff Writer
April 26, 2007

MEXICO CITY — When California's housing market was booming, Lucretia Diaz could feel the good vibrations 2,200 miles away in her rural hamlet in southern Mexico.

Her husband, Carlos Romero, an illegal immigrant living in Los Angeles, wired her $600 a month from his labors hanging drywall and pounding shingles. The remittances bought meat for tacos, sneakers for the kids and a few extras for the family's home in tiny Juquila, Oaxaca.

No more. With U.S. home building in the dumps, Romero is working sporadically and sending little money. Diaz and her three young boys are eating rice and beans. She is watching every centavo.

So are economists who track this crucial southward flow of currency. They are worried by what they see.

Remittances are the financial lifeblood for millions of Mexican families and a crucial source of foreign exchange for their government. The $23 billion that maids, cooks, gardeners and others sent home last year — almost all from the U.S. — topped the amount that multinationals invested in Mexico. But fallout from the U.S. construction industry, which employs 1 in 5 Latino immigrants, is now rippling south of the border. Growth in remittances to Mexico has slowed to a trickle.

After increasing an average of just over 23% a year since 2000, remittances for the first two months of 2007 were just 5.5% ahead of the same period last year, according to Mexico's central bank. The figure peaked in May at $2.3 billion and has drifted downward ever since.

Analysts say tougher border enforcement and workplace crackdowns by U.S. immigration authorities may be playing a role. Still, the remittance slowdown has moved virtually in lock step with the stumble in U.S. home building. Housing starts hit their 2006 peak in May before tumbling 50% by year-end.

Mexico isn't the only country feeling the effect. Growth in money wired to Guatemala, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic and other Latin American nations has followed the housing market slowdown.

Romero, who has been in the U.S. for 10 years, hasn't had steady construction work in six months, and the jobs he has found pay a lot less than they used to. A buddy just gave him a tip about a night position at a Los Angeles restaurant. He isn't thrilled at the prospect of washing dishes or slinging hash on the graveyard shift. But Romero is running out of options.

"Even one day without work is bad. I've gone four days without work already this week," the 38-year-old said anxiously by telephone from Los Angeles recently. "The situation is very bad for me and my family."

It bodes ill for Mexico as well.

The deceleration in remittances is coming just as Mexico's economy is weakening, oil revenue is falling and unemployment is on the rise. In the past, tough times pushed more migrants north and remittances increased, helping cushion downturns in the Mexican economy, said Gray Newman, chief Latin America economist for Morgan Stanley.

But with more U.S. agents patrolling the border and fewer construction jobs waiting on the other side, Newman said, Mexico might be in for a bumpier landing this time. He is projecting 3.3% economic growth for Mexico this year, down from 4.8% in 2006.

"In the past this was the one flow that acted as sort of a shock absorber," Newman said of remittances. "This could be a double whammy."

Nearly 3 million Latinos were employed in the U.S. housing industry in 2006, according to a study by the Washington-based Pew Hispanic Center. Three-quarters of them were foreign-born. Nearly 30% had been in the United States six years or fewer.

Within the construction business, lower-skilled immigrants are more prevalent in the residential sector, which has shed nearly 28,000 jobs since September, a 2.7% decline, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Some experts believe that the slide is actually much worse because the activities of off-the-books day laborers aren't fully reflected in official statistics.

Construction work typically pays better than farm and service jobs, a little over $20 an hour on average, according to government data. Many illegal immigrants toil for less. Still, the industry is considered a big step up from stoop labor in the fields.

Illinois bricklayer Francisco Godinez, a legal resident who arrived from Mexico in 1997, considers himself blessed to have a skilled trade. He landed so much work building subdivisions over the last few years that he wired nearly $25,000 to his family in Michoacan to build their own dream house south of the border.

His tools are mostly idle these days. The paint and flooring on the family's new place will have to wait. Right now his wife and three children in Mexico need money for food and other essentials.

"I'm hoping to find work and send $200 or $300 in a week or so," said Godinez, 38. "Things are really slow."

Money-transfer companies are likewise feeling the pinch. Colorado-based Western Union reported that wire transactions to Mexico increased just 2% in the first quarter compared with the first three months of 2006. Minnesota-based MoneyGram doesn't release volume figures. But spokeswoman Cathy Rebuffoni acknowledged "a slowdown in that market" largely because of sluggish U.S. construction activity.

Both firms also mentioned heightened tensions over illegal immigration as a factor cutting into sales. Analyst Gwenn Bezard, who follows the money-transfer industry, said he believed that tougher border enforcement was crimping the flow of new arrivals to the United States and that employment raids and deportations had spooked undocumented workers. He said some were avoiding places where immigrants congregate, such as major money-wiring chains.

"A lot of people are just staying home because they are afraid of being caught," said Bezard, research director at Aite Group, a Boston-based financial services consulting firm. "The political climate has a lot to do with it."

But in Los Angeles, Romero said his biggest fear was that his family was going without. He prays that the housing market will recover.

"I can do anything. Haul construction materials, put up walls," he said. "At this point, I'll take whatever construction job I can get."

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-r ... -headlines

Well, the construction slowdown is definately having a good effect for our cause and good timing too.

As the availability of jobs dwindles, the illegals will have to self-deport. Mexicon and latin America will have to take care of their problems.

"I can do anything. Haul construction materials, put up walls," he said. "At this point, I'll take whatever construction job I can get."

Yeah, I was saying the EXACT same thing 10 years ago when your illegal azz came here and took MY job!

I hope you STARVE, you thieving piece of crap!

Not only that, but in my area at least, they were selling houses to illegals. Now, my old neighborhood is in the epicenter of the Colorado foreclosure crisis. I'd say the saturation of unsold homes is around a year's worth, and individuals who want to sell have to compete with the banks unloading vacant homes for a song. If I could have sold in 05 I might have gotten in the 180s, now it would be in the 130s-140s - if I could sell at all. I had it for sale last summer: in three months I had four showings, and I had cut the price 30K. An entire economic ecosystem is collapsing before our eyes. If they had not gone crazy to build houses and hire illegals to do it, much misery could have been avoided.

Her husband, Carlos Romero, an illegal immigrant living in Los Angeles, wired her $600 a month

He's able to send $600.00 a month! It must be nice to work tax free and get free health care etc. If this story is supposed to make me feel sorry for this &#@#$ it ain' t working!

I agree guys! This guy gets to build his dreamhome in Mexico!

They have no intention of putting their heart and soul into this country. They don't want to be American. They are just using America.

Hi Had_Enuf,

Let's get this clear now - correct me if I'm missing something...

Housing slump

• Blue collar workers lose their jobs to illegals[/*:m:l600igtz]
• Info Tech workers continue to lose their jobs to H-1B non-immigrants[/*:m:l600igtz]
• Info Tech workers continue to lose their jobs to workers in Bangalore[/*:m:l600igtz]
• Mass layoffs in favor of India - Example Citicorp fired/replaced 9500[/*:m:l600igtz]
• Unemployment/forclosures force white and blue collar workers to the streets[/*:m:l600igtz]

The causes (as we all know by now)

• Bribes, graft, corruption, blackmail of politicians[/*:m:l600igtz]
• Heavy handed lobby influence (example: Hill and Knowlton)[/*:m:l600igtz]
• Subversive organizations (ie. Nat'l Communist La Raza, NASSCOM, Friends of India Caucus)[/*:m:l600igtz]
• Hiring and employment preference goes to illegals[/*:m:l600igtz]
• Hiring and employment preference belongs to non-immigrant H-1Bs and L-1s[/*:m:l600igtz]
• Same preferences go to H-1B overstays (hundreds of thousands who forgot to go home)[/*:m:l600igtz]
• Age Discrimination and age bias (with no enforcement whatsoever)[/*:m:l600igtz]
• No enforcement of illegal hiring practices favors H-1Bs, illegals, and L-1s[/*:m:l600igtz]

Those with the jobs - Illegals, H-1Bs (NON-immigrants), and L-1s

• Illegal invaders send most of their income to Mexico[/*:m:l600igtz]
• H-1Bs and L-1s send most of their income to India (need proof?)[/*:m:l600igtz]
• Illegals' leaders demand ethnic cleansing (AZT Land)[/*:m:l600igtz]
• They're blood-suckers! They take and they give back nothing in return. [/*:m:l600igtz]
• Less jobs for illegals = Increased CRIME sprees![/*:m:l600igtz]

Any changes, corrections, additions to all this?

Originally Posted by Coto

Any changes, corrections, additions to all this?

Hi Coto,

Nope. I think you've pretty much summed up the whole stinking mess.

Originally Posted by Coto

Hi Had_Enuf,

Let's get this clear now - correct me if I'm missing something...

Housing slump

• Blue collar workers lose their jobs to illegals[/*:m:23tco3z9]
• Info Tech workers continue to lose their jobs to H-1B non-immigrants[/*:m:23tco3z9]
• Info Tech workers continue to lose their jobs to workers in Bangalore[/*:m:23tco3z9]
• Mass layoffs in favor of India - Example Citicorp fired/replaced 9500[/*:m:23tco3z9]
• Unemployment/forclosures force white and blue collar workers to the streets[/*:m:23tco3z9]

The causes (as we all know by now)

• Bribes, graft, corruption, blackmail of politicians[/*:m:23tco3z9]
• Heavy handed lobby influence (example: Hill and Knowlton)[/*:m:23tco3z9]
• Subversive organizations (ie. Nat'l Communist La Raza, NASSCOM, Friends of India Caucus)[/*:m:23tco3z9]
• Hiring and employment preference goes to illegals[/*:m:23tco3z9]
• Hiring and employment preference belongs to non-immigrant H-1Bs and L-1s[/*:m:23tco3z9]
• Same preferences go to H-1B overstays (hundreds of thousands who forgot to go home)[/*:m:23tco3z9]
• Age Discrimination and age bias (with no enforcement whatsoever)[/*:m:23tco3z9]
• No enforcement of illegal hiring practices favors H-1Bs, illegals, and L-1s[/*:m:23tco3z9]

Those with the jobs - Illegals, H-1Bs (NON-immigrants), and L-1s

• Illegal invaders send most of their income to Mexico[/*:m:23tco3z9]
• H-1Bs and L-1s send most of their income to India (need proof?)[/*:m:23tco3z9]
• Illegals' leaders demand ethnic cleansing (AZT Land)[/*:m:23tco3z9]
• They're blood-suckers! They take and they give back nothing in return. [/*:m:23tco3z9]
• Less jobs for illegals = Increased CRIME sprees![/*:m:23tco3z9]

Any changes, corrections, additions to all this?

The latest new crimes being committed here in good old Mexifornia:

The elderly have been the focus lately of a group forcing themselves into homes and robbing them.

http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/11424985/detail.html

A Del Taco had its door tore off the other night and the ATM was dragged out of store by wrapping chain around it and just driving off with it.

April 2007
ATM taken from eatery
San Diego police said thieves stole an ATM machine from a fast-food restaurant this morning in Clairemont. A security guard at a nearby supermarket called police shortly after 5 a.m. to report that the machine had been taken from a Del Taco on Clairemont Drive near Balboa Avenue by someone who fled in a large white van.
"I'm not sure if they pulled the door in or put the car in through the door," said Sgt. Jim Schorr.
Posted by Karen Kucher April 25, 2007 06:15


Thieves gain access to the roofs of schools and remove all copper wiring and some copper device attached to Air Conditioners. Copper sells for $3.00 a pound.

http://www.nbcsandiego.com/education/12 ... etail.html

I have no idea if these were commented by Illegal aliens One thing I do know is that, any time construction has a slow down, crime rises. Based with that fact, since most Construction workers lately are Illegal Aliens one could think that their shall be a rise in crime from that group.

Hi SD_Hog

Originally Posted by sd_hog

The latest new crimes being committed here in good old Mexifornia:

The elderly have been the focus lately of a group forcing themselves into homes and robbing them.

Strong point. And too, politicians ripping off the elderly come to mind, specifically social security benefits payable to illegals (especially to reward illegals who do ID theft). Has that already started - has it been signed into law already?


Senators agree, "Americans owe Mexicans their social security benefits!"

Grrrrrr! John Cornyn, is this your legislation? Divert social security to illegals? How about you, Senator Hutchinson, this your idea too? Hmmm? Well, let's get this straight, Senators - You support FICA for illegals because Hillary supports it.

Later, SD Hog, thanks.

Coto