Inland Empire,CA immigrants dispersed
That area is a known hub for illegal aliens coming from Mexico, otherwise known as the "909".
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Recession drove many immigrants from Inland Empire
Ryan Hagen, Staff Writer
Posted: 01/02/2011 04:04:42 PM PST
Tens of thousands of immigrants left the Inland Empire during the Great Recession, according to a Brookings Institute analysis of Census data.
The data - estimates from the annual American Community Survey - indicates the foreign-born population in the San Bernardino-Riverside-Ontario metropolitan area dropped 3.2 percent between 2007 and 2009, to a total of 883,150.
But the report said an uptick at the end of that period could be a sign of economic recovery, and people who work with immigrants locally agree.
"We've seen a change in the types of services people request," said Emilio Amaya,executive director of the San Bernardino Community Service Center, which offers aid to immigrants. "As the economy is getting better, some of my clients are coming back (to San Bernardino)."
Amaya said the center has seen a steady 40 or more clients per week. But for the past several months, requests have increasingly matched the type he had before about 2008, which roughly corresponds to when the construction-dependent economy collapsed.
"(During the recession) people would say, `I need to move. "What documents do I need to travel? Is it safe to use Amtrak? Is it safe to use the bus?"' he said. "It's switching back. We're seeing more of `my employer wants to help me - what do I do?"'
Many of Amaya's clients are migrant workers, who normally go from the Inland Empire to the Fresno area. Instead, he said the recession drove many of them
out of state - but not necessarily out of the country.
The survey backs up that experience. While Fresno saw a 0.1 percent dip in foreign-born workers and the number in the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana area dropped 1.2percent, the decrease in the Inland Empire - which had been among the biggest targets for immigration - is among the country's largest.
Of the 100 most populous metropolitan areas, 15 lost a bigger percentage, but many of those areas started with a much smaller immigrant population.
As a whole, the nation's immigrant population inched up 1.2 percent, to about 38 million.
The survey counts anyone living in the United States who was not a citizen at birth. It does not distinguish between naturalized citizens, illegal immigrants and other categories of foreign-born residents.
Amaya agreed with the study's conclusion that immigrants will return when jobs do.
"Migration, I think, is closely tied to the economy," he said. "If the economy recovers, I think we're going to see an increase in the demand for services supplied by immigrants. And it's not so much that immigrants want benefits - they want a paying job."
