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  1. #1
    Senior Member American-ized's Avatar
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    More Mexican immigrants returning home

    Friday, March 6, 2009

    More Mexican immigrants returning home
    Indications of more migration seen in bus stations, vacant homes.

    By CINDY CARCAMO
    The Orange County Register

    From families loaded down with bags and boxes full of their possessions to towns and villages crowded with long-departed residents, one impact of the declining U.S. economy appears to be Mexican immigrants calling it quits and returning to their home country.

    No definitive studies have been done, but anecdotal information and informal surveys show that both legal and illegal immigrants are returning to the relatives they left behind when they came north.


    In the Mexican heartland of Cerrito de Agua Caliente, where many have traditionally migrated to Orange County, about a third of those who visited their families during the holidays decided to stay put, said Cuerámaro City Clerk Cesar Torres.

    Hundreds of miles north, at the central bus station in Tijuana, more than half of the passengers arriving on a Crucero bus line from the U.S. during a two-week period earlier this year were in the process of returning home for good, according to a passenger survey.

    And, at a rental property office in Anaheim, a manager says her vacancies have spiked partly because of immigrants returning to Mexico.



    "There is no work," says Baltazar Saldaña, shaking his head. "That's the problem."

    The 59-year-old legal immigrant, who lived in Santa Ana for more than 20 years, is renting out his home and driving back to an empty house in Xaltianguis, Guerrero. This time it may be for good, he said.

    Saldaña and his wife, Adolfina, a 55-year-old who is in the country illegally, both lost their jobs about six months ago. She cleaned homes. He dug holes for pools and ponds.

    "Twenty years here. It's almost half of my life," Adolfina Saldaña said. "Over there we have nothing, just an empty house."

    While most agree that more immigrants are leaving for their native countries, there's disagreement on the intensity of the return and what it means to the economy in the U.S. – and Orange County.

    Analysts at the Center for Immigration Studies, an anti-illegal immigrant think tank that favors enforcement of immigration law, say their data indicates that the illegal immigrant population may have declined by more than 1 million -- about 11 percent -- in 2008, compared to the year before.

    Some analysts disagree with those figures, saying it's a challenge to capture the number of migrants exiting the country.

    "There are always lots of people going back. It's just part of the normal turnover, particularly of Mexican immigrants. And nobody looks for it in regular times," said Jeffrey Passel, a Pew Hispanic Center senior demographer.

    Passel did a study that showed 11.9 million immigrants last year, compared to 12.4 million in 2007. He cautioned that the margin of error was too large to make any conclusive finding.

    He did say that there are fewer unauthorized immigrants entering the U.S., which coincides with a study the Department of Homeland Security released earlier this month.

    Some health clinics and schools in areas of heavily immigrant areas in Orange County are not reporting declines in enrollment of children of immigrants and migrants.

    Steve Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies, said the average American will be unaffected by the departures and that lower-educated natives will most likely benefit.

    "The big loser from illegals going home would be the illegal immigrants themselves," he said. "The second losers would be those employers who utilized their labor who now will have to pay more, which they won't want to do."

    Officials at industries that traditionally employ Latino migrant workers, such as service and construction, say they have not been affected by the departures because they don't have jobs available anyway.

    But those industries may see a shortage of unskilled workers when the economy inevitably rebounds, said Mark Louvier, president of Trimco Finish in Santa Ana.

    "If we get a 30 percent increase in sales in a three months period, then it's going to be hard to find unskilled laborers," he said.

    SIGNS OF RETURN MIGRATION

    Bus drivers and ticket clerks say they've seen a recent surge of one-way tickets to Mexico.

    On a recent weekday, a bus driver in Santa Ana who makes at least a half dozen trips a day to the San Ysidro border, describes the young men he sees, carrying duffel bags and hanging their heads, explaining that work had dried up. A ticket agent recalls families with tied boxes and bags overflowing with years' worth of belongings.

    "When they have a lot of luggage like that, they're returning for good," said Marile Escobar, a ticket agent with Tres Estrellas de Oro bus line. "It's because they can't take that much in airplanes. They come to us."

    Escobar says she offers all customers round-trip tickets because it's cheaper. Many passengers now tell her they won't need one.

    "They say they're not coming back," she said. "I ask them why and they say they have nothing to come back for."

    Escobar's colleague in Huntington Park, Cristobal Nava, said about half of the people on buses headed for Mexico in late December were returning to stay.

    "In the eight years I've been here I've never seen this," Nava said.

    Greyhound-affiliated Crucero Autobuses has seen an even larger spike, said General Manager Juan Antonio Lopez.

    A survey of 100 passengers heading to a central bus station in Tijuana showed that 60 percent were going back to stay, Lopez said. The survey, done the last week of January and the first week of February, asked travelers how long they were going to stay in Mexico and why they were going.

    "The main reason was "no hay trabajo (there is no work)," Lopez said.

    In the highlands of the state of Guanajuato, about half of the town of Cerrito de Agua Caliente has traditionally migrated to Orange County, especially Santa Ana.

    More than 30 percent have opted to stick around instead of returning after the holidays, Cuerámaro City Clerk Cesar Torres said.

    "Now a good portion of these people are not moving or only the men are going back, but the mothers and children are staying here," Torres said from Mexico.

    WHY HOMEWARD BOUND

    The Saldañas say they would rather have just enough to eat and their family's support than face the almost certain possibility of losing the home they worked so hard to buy in a middle-class Santa Ana neighborhood.

    The decision to leave wasn't made overnight, Adolfina Saldaña said.

    It came after the couple lost another home in Riverside to foreclosure and spent sleepless nights thinking about the two daughters and grandchildren they would leave behind -- all U.S. citizens.

    "I don't want to leave," Adolfina Saldaña said. "But we have no choice."

    The financial downturn has hit immigrants especially hard because many of the industries that employed them, such as construction, have taken a severe nose dive, said Jorge Chapa, director of the Illinois-based Center on Democracy in a Multiracial Society.

    For the past five to 10 years, Hispanic immigrants have streamed into the construction industry, which saw a boom that lasted nearly a decade before the housing bubble burst, analysts have said.

    Other analysts believe the migration is guided by other reasons.

    Camarota, of the Center for Immigration Studies, says his numbers show that it was most likely stepped up immigration enforcement that led to the increased returns.

    "The fall of illegals (coming to the U.S.) seems to have started to decline before there was an increase in their unemployment rate," he said.

    EFFECTS OF RETURN

    Regardless of the reasons, business owners who cater to immigrants are seeing the effects of the departures.

    Aside from bus companies reporting declining sales, some businesses along Fourth Street in Santa Ana are facing 70 percent declines in sales. The street has long been the place where Latino immigrants from throughout the county come to shop for goods and services amid their own language and cultures.

    Mark Louvier, who supplies and installs doors, crown moldings and other carpentry services for the home building industry, said he's had to let go of 20 people he would consider part of his unskilled labor workforce. All had paperwork showing they were in the country legally, he added.

    Louvier said he's heard from his other workers that some have returned to Mexico.

    Jackie Raya, an account executive with JLE Property Management of Anaheim, reports that about 10 percent of the vacancies in the more than 800 rental units are due to immigrants returning to Mexico.

    The company's president, Jerry L'Ecuyer, who has most of his units in North County, said the return migration isn't impacting them greatly but added that he does lament their departure.

    "I think it's probably the start of it at this moment," he said. "I find that they tend to work very hard and often times the last people to get evicted because they work until they can't. They're the ones who pay the rent."

    http://www.ocregister.com/articles/immi ... going-home

  2. #2
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    and dont come back either.
    you are not welcome here

  3. #3
    Senior Member ReggieMay's Avatar
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    The Saldañas say they would rather have just enough to eat and their family's support than face the almost certain possibility of losing the home they worked so hard to buy in a middle-class Santa Ana neighborhood.

    The decision to leave wasn't made overnight, Adolfina Saldaña said.

    It came after the couple lost another home in Riverside to foreclosure
    So he digs holes and she cleans houses and they were able to buy two houses? Sounds sub-prime to me.
    "A Nation of sheep will beget a government of Wolves" -Edward R. Murrow

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  4. #4
    Senior Member Richard's Avatar
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    Right now much of the remittance money earned and sent from here goes to buy packaged foods manufactured in Mexico's big cities Mexico City/Toluca, Monterrey and Guadlajara for their families.

    If we are firm but of goodwill we should see to it that the families increase production of their own food and buy locally in their districts in Mexico. The food that their modern factories produce could be exported elsewhere. The food companies which belong to Mexican corporations here in the US includes Thomas English Muffins and Entemanns. If you look in canned and frozen vegetables you will find Mexican grown and packaged items there too. There is going to be more Mexican food consumed here in the future both Mexican style and American style generic and supermarket store brands.
    I support enforcement and see its lack as bad for the 3rd World as well. Remittances are now mostly spent on consumption not production assets. Join our efforts to Secure America's Borders and End Illegal Immigration by Joining ALIPAC's E-Mail Alerts network (CLICK HERE)

  5. #5
    AE
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    Richard, I can surely say, many look to the cheapest prices for food these days.

    We shop at a local discount chain called "Winco". This chain sells a great deal of bulk dry foods, and also their brand as well as others. If there is something we are not brand loyal to (which is few in our household) and does not suffer in quality, we buy that cheaper product, but do our best to make sure what we buy has been made, grown or processed in the U.S. and Canada. We are mainly concerned about food safety, and know with Canada, their standards are like ours.

    Unfortunately, we have been seeing a lot of meats labeled "product of USA, Canada and Mexico. Meaning, you cannot be sure what country your meat was raised and butchered in. That REALLY bothers me. Same goes for produce lately.
    “In the beginning of a change, the Patriot is a scarce man, Brave, Hated, and Scorned. When his cause succeeds however,the timid join him, For then it costs nothing to be a Patriot.â€

  6. #6
    Senior Member Richard's Avatar
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    The food industry in Mexico is divided between large scale modern industry and Mom and Pop operations with a weakly represented area in between. Right now a lot of the remittance money sent to provincial Mexico is going to buy modern food products manufactured in Mexico's cities. One of the easiest ways to strengthen the Mexican economy is for the remittance recipients to grow and preserve more of their own food and buy from other sources closer at hand. The large modern factories could export to the United States, Central America and Spain.
    I support enforcement and see its lack as bad for the 3rd World as well. Remittances are now mostly spent on consumption not production assets. Join our efforts to Secure America's Borders and End Illegal Immigration by Joining ALIPAC's E-Mail Alerts network (CLICK HERE)

  7. #7
    Senior Member WorriedAmerican's Avatar
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    Re: More Mexican immigrants returning home

    one impact of the declining U.S. economy appears to be Mexican immigrants calling it quits and returning to their home country.


    "There is no work," says Baltazar Saldaña, shaking his head. "That's the problem."
    And that's the GOOD part of our Depression!


    Saldaña and his wife, Adolfina, a 55-year-old who is in the country illegally, both lost their jobs about six months ago. She cleaned homes. He dug holes for pools and ponds.

    "Twenty years here. It's almost half of my life," Adolfina Saldaña said. "Over there we have nothing, just an empty house."
    And that's long enough to be a parasite to our country!


    While most agree that more immigrants are leaving for their native countries, there's disagreement on the intensity of the return and what it means to the economy in the U.S. – and Orange County.
    It means you are not soaking up our services and dropping kids to get an anchor into our Country.


    "The big loser from illegals going home would be the illegal immigrants themselves," he said. "The second losers would be those employers who utilized their labor who now will have to pay more, which they won't want to do."
    Who cares? The companies should all be shut down and given huge penalties!


    But those industries may see a shortage of unskilled workers when the economy inevitably rebounds, said Mark Louvier, president of Trimco Finish in Santa Ana.

    "If we get a 30 percent increase in sales in a three months period, then it's going to be hard to find unskilled laborers," he said.

    Sure ... you wouldn't want our teenagers to have jobs now would you, you idiot!



    "They say they're not coming back," she said. "I ask them why and they say they have nothing to come back for."

    Let's hope they keep that thought.



    "Now a good portion of these people are not moving or only the men are going back, but the mothers and children are staying here," Torres said from Mexico.

    What, and seperate your families???? That's what you say "we" do to you? So it's ok if you do it but our laws can't because that racist???



    The Saldañas say they would rather have just enough to eat and their family's support than face the almost certain possibility of losing the home they worked so hard to buy in a middle-class Santa Ana neighborhood.

    The decision to leave wasn't made overnight, Adolfina Saldaña said.

    It came after the couple lost another home in Riverside to foreclosure and spent sleepless nights thinking about the two daughters and grandchildren they would leave behind -- all U.S. citizens.
    As long as they leave I could care less why?



    Regardless of the reasons, business owners who cater to immigrants are seeing the effects of the departures.
    SCREW THEM, they are illegal too!



    Jackie Raya, an account executive with JLE Property Management of Anaheim, reports that about 10 percent of the vacancies in the more than 800 rental units are due to immigrants returning to Mexico.
    Good! You rent to illegals so I could give a CRAP about YOUR losses!!!
    If Palestine puts down their guns, there will be peace.
    If Israel puts down their guns there will be no more Israel.
    Dick Morris

  8. #8
    Senior Member crazybird's Avatar
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    But those industries may see a shortage of unskilled workers when the economy inevitably rebounds, said Mark Louvier, president of Trimco Finish in Santa Ana.
    Well, unless it does a quick huge turn-around I'm sure we'll have more than enough unskilled laborers. We had them before and I doubt it's going to change that much with illegals gone.

    Quote:
    "Now a good portion of these people are not moving or only the men are going back, but the mothers and children are staying here," Torres said from Mexico.


    What, and seperate your families???? That's what you say "we" do to you? So it's ok if you do it but our laws can't because that racist???
    Exactly what I thought. Leave the women and children to soak up the freebies, as if we don't have our own citizens who are going to need them.
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