Thread: Number of Mexican-born falls 9 percent in San Diego County

Number of Mexican-born falls 9 percent in San Diego County

By Lori Weisberg and Leslie Berestein
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITERS
2:00 a.m. September 22, 2009

The immigrant population in California is falling, a likely consequence of a depressed economy that has meant far fewer jobs to entice foreign-born workers, new Census Bureau data shows.

Especially compelling is the significant drop San Diego County saw last year in Mexican-born immigrants, long a major source of labor for the region's lower-wage jobs in agriculture, construction and the hospitality industry.

After a largely uninterrupted increase in the county's Mexican immigrant population throughout the decade, there was a drop of 9 percent, or 29,000 fewer immigrants, between 2007 and 2008, according to estimates released yesterday by the Census Bureau.

Among all county residents identifying themselves as foreign-born, the decline was nearly 2 percent, the same as in California.

While immigration growth in recent years has been slowing statewide as more recent arrivals head to lower-cost, job-rich areas in other parts of the United States, demographers believe last year's decline is clearly tied to a rising unemployment rate and a scarcity of new jobs.

Nationwide, the number of immigrants remained largely flat.

“With the poor economy, we have a smaller volume of people coming north from Mexico relative to what we've had in the past,â€

RELATED

Immigrant population dipped last year, Census says

http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-171864.html