This is a translated article from a La Raza? publication impre.com.


Immigrants returning to their countries by the crisis

* CLAUDIA TORRENS |
* 2008-12-21

NEW YORK / AP - Jorge Luna decided to return to his native Mexico on a Monday, renewed his passport two days later and jumped on a plane at 9 am on Thursday. It was 96 intense hours during which Moon decided to leave behind the life that had been forged over 12 years working as a waiter in a restaurant in Brooklyn.

The 29-year-old immigrant born in Puebla, had been fired towards a month and a half and could not find a job that paid her previous salary. "I was earning 800 to 900 U.S. dollars for the week because he was wearing work-ing time there. They wanted someone to take charge much less, "said Luna, on the edge of the Mexican consulate in Manhattan, where he spent several hours on Nov. 12 to renew his passport.

"Here I see no future. But there does at least have my family, "he said, adding that he wants to open a farm cattle for fattening.

Moon went on to swell the ranks of Latin American immigrants who have decided to return to their home countries in recent months, hit by the financial crisis that hit the United States and already shaken by an intense campaign by the authorities in search of illegal immigrants, which includes raids on work sites.

This campaign is aimed not only to undocumented but who hired him, so every time it costs more to get people to work without papers.

However, coming home for Hispanics living in the United States has not been massive, according to data obtained by the AP in Latin American consulates and offices of federal immigration.

Alejandro Ochoa, for example, flatmate of Moon in Brooklyn, said he was not prepared to leave the country. "I know that if they return within a month and I want to go back," said Ochoa, a 24-year-old waiter who was born in Tabasco, Mexico, and he lost his job recently.

The phenomenon of the return-relatively-new coincides with a decrease in the number of Latin Americans who come in search of the American dream. Mexican emigration, which is the largest, has fallen by 42% in the past two years and 300,000 illegal immigrants crossed the border less annually over the past four years, according to the Pew Hispanic Center.

The effects of the crisis have already beaten the sending of remittances, according to the Multilateral Investment Fund of the Inter-American Development Bank (MIF).

This year, Hispanic immigrants send about 67,500 million dollars to Latin America, compared with 66,500 million dollars from 2007, the Fund announced last month. Adjusted for inflation, the amount of this year worth around 1.7% less than the amount of last year.

Colombians, for example, are among those starting to return to their country, according to Francisco Noguera, consul general of Colombia in New York.

More Colombians in New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and New York call or write to the consulate asking for paperwork to do before returning home, said Noguera. Sales of homes in Colombia through fair housing in the area have gone from $ 10 million four years ago to $ 43 million now.

The passports issued from the office of Noguera of 8890 have passed in 2005 to 14,820 in the first 10 months of 2008. However, the increase is also due to expire now for the first time the passports of 10 years that Colombia issued a decade ago, added the consul.

The representative of Ecuador in the northeast also believes that his fellow returnees.

"The opportunities were here are over. The chances of finding work have fallen sharply, "said Jorge Lopez, consul of Ecuador in New York. "Many people enjoy our 'plan return', many come to get documentation to return. We have a lot more calls now than before. "

Cecilia Romero, commissioner of the National Migration Institute in Mexico, noted that thousands of Mexicans returning at the end of the year for his country to spend Christmas with their families, but now some of those who decided to stay back in Mexico for a while. "

Applications to manage of house-or for transportation of belongings without paying taxes, have risen in the Mexican consulate in Los Angeles, going from 152 from January to October last year to 218 in the same period this year.

In New York, however, the picture is different.

Requests for messages from home in the Mexican consulate have dropped from 98 in 2007 to 66 this time of year.

The Mexican consul in New York, Ruben Beltran, said that during this time of year, Mexicans traveling home to spend Christmas and then returning.

"I do not see signs ... in addition to this festive return, another kind of massive scale return, "Beltran said. The application for passports of the office, which serves much of Mexicans in the northeast of the country, fell from a peak of 23,699 times in April of 2008 to 7682 in November.

The case of the Dominicans in the northeast is similar, according to the vice Dominican in New York, who said that their compatriots are more entrenched than other groups to the United States and suffer fewer undocumented status.


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