Thread: Fewer illegal immigrants dare to make annual Mexico visits

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/4417440.html

Dec. 21, 2006, 12:34AM
Fewer illegal immigrants dare to make annual Mexico visits
Crossings drop as more acquire stable jobs, border controls tighten


By MIREYA NAVARRO
New York Times

In the crossings at the United States' southern border, tens of thousands of illegal Mexican immigrants head each year in the direction of Mexico. While no statistics are kept on this reverse migration, researchers in both countries suggest that the numbers have declined as border controls have tightened in recent years.

Returning Mexicans, researchers say, have generally been divided between "sojourners," those with temporary or seasonal jobs in the United States who cross once or more a year, and "settlers," those who move to the United States for an extended period but at some point choose to return home.

"The Mexican migration was always round trip," said Jorge Durand, director of the Mexican Migration Project at the University of Guadalajara, a research program in conjunction with the Office of Population Research at Princeton University in New Jersey. "It was a migration of workers, not immigrants."

But several factors are causing more illegal immigrants to stay in the United States. Increasingly, immigrants are finding jobs away from the agricultural sector, meaning they have more stable employment that is not subject to seasonal ups and downs, researchers say. More immigrants have also moved to destinations beyond the border states of the Southwest, making the journey home longer, more expensive and less convenient.


Circular movement
Most important, some researchers say, increased vigilance along the border has led to higher costs and risks associated with crossing back into the United States, disrupting what had been the traditional circular movement of the migrants. Border enforcement began to tighten in 1993, but has become much more vigorous since the Sept. 11 attacks.

"Having run the gantlet of enforcement resources at the border, migrants grew reluctant to repeat the experience and hunkered down to stay, causing rates of return migration to fall sharply," said Douglas S. Massey, a sociologist who directs the Mexican Migration Project at Princeton.

The 2005 census in Mexico counted 242,000 Mexicans who said they had lived in the United States and had returned to Mexico from 2000 to 2005. By comparison, a 1992 survey counted 955,000 people who said they had returned in the previous five years.

The average probability of return for illegal immigrants was 47 percent during 1979-84 but fell to 27 percent during 1997-2003, Massey said.

Even sojourners, who are mostly young and male, have been extending their stay in the United States, from an average of 5 1/2 months in the mid-'90s to more than 12 months now, according to some research in Mexico.

Those immigrants most likely to return home, some studies suggest, have strong family ties in Mexico or property and other investments. Some studies have found the return rates are higher among men, the elderly and those with little education.


No hurdles going home
Anecdotal evidence indicates that most go back to reunite with their families, to invest savings and set up businesses, to retire or because they just gave up, says Rodolfo Tuiran Gutierrez, a demographer and sociologist who served as secretary general of the National Population Council, a government agency in Mexico.

He said that unlike making the journey north, Mexicans returning home face no hurdles, easily flying, driving or even walking across the border.

Tuiran Gutierrez said those who returned often had to deal with negative consequences of their migration, like split families and the lack of pensions or Social Security benefits in Mexico because they did not work there. He and other researchers said the decision to return usually came after migrants weighed the costs of living in the U.S. against the benefits, not all of them material.

Not so long ago, Irma, 44, had achieved her own modest version of the American dream in San Antonio, where she lived illegally for more than six years. She had left Mexico with three of her four daughters, escaping financial turmoil and a violent marriage.

In San Antonio, she moved with her daughters into a small rented house furnished with flea market castoffs.

Three years ago, her daughter Mayra, a high school senior, stunned her with the news she was pregnant and intended to marry her boyfriend. Another daughter, Barbie, not yet 16, was adamant that she, too, was getting married and moving out.

Disillusioned and feeling abandoned, she attended her daughters' weddings but did not stick around for the weekend parties. Soon she was on her way back to Monterrey, Mexico, in a pickup with her youngest daughter.

Now all she has to show for her migration to the United States, she said, is the heartache of separation. Her youngest daughter, Lupita, and another daughter, who is married and has three children, live together just a few blocks from her. But the other two are still in Texas, still illegally, now with one American-born child each.

But the other two are still in Texas, still illegally, now with one American-born child each.

Living off the taxpayer!

Originally Posted by gofer

But the other two are still in Texas, still illegally, now with one American-born child each.

Living off the taxpayer!

Yes, these anchor babies are a mockery of us real American Citizens, Congress betrays us all by not putting an end to this now!