Thread: Report: Immigrants staying put during recession

Report: Immigrants staying put during recession

Washington Examiner
By: David Sherfinski
Examiner Staff Writer
September 8, 2009

Immigrants are overwhelmingly staying in their adopted countries instead of returning home during the recession, contrary to popular belief,according to a report to be released Tuesday.

The trend is holding true "even more so" in the Washington area, said Michelle Mittelstadt, communications director for the Migration Policy Institute and an author of the report.

Immigrants in the Washington area are typically better educated, are more highly skilled and make more money than in other areas, so they are better able to weather the economic downturn than immigrants -- both legal and illegal -- in other parts of the country, she said.

The report, "Migration and the Global Recession," was conducted by the Migration Policy Institute and commissioned by the British Broadcasting Corp. World Service. MPI is a nonpartisan think tank that studies the effect of global migration.

Mittelstadt added that immigrants' decisions to return home are much more predicated on the economic situation in their respective home countries, rather than in their adopted countries.

The top home countries of immigrants in the Washington are El Salvador, Korea and Mexico, with others including India, the Philippines, China, Peru and Bolivia. Of these, only India and China are weathering the downturn to a certain extent, Mittelstadt said.

Immigrants have been hit particularly hard by manufacturing, but in the Washington area, which has little manufacturing, only 2.9 percent of immigrants work in the sector compared with 13.1 percent nationally, based on 2007 Annual Community Survey data.

Mittelstadt said that while immigrants are overrepresented in construction in the Washington area, the region has not experienced the real estate free fall seen in states such as California and Nevada.

Immigrants in the Washington area are also wealthier and have higher homeownership rates than elsewhere in the country. In the Washington region, 61.2 percent own homes, compared with 54.4 percent nationally. The median household income for Washington-area immigrants is nearly $70,000, versus about $45,000 overall.

"When you add all these things together," the trend of immigrants staying putapplies "even more so" to the Washington region, Mittelstadt said.

Another reason is that there is a greater proportion of legal immigrants to illegal immigrants than in other areas of the country, she added.

"Illegal [immigration] flows are the flows that have been most affected by the downturn," she said.

Indeed, the number of immigrants coming into the United States from Mexico has droppedfrom 1 million in 2006 to 600,000 in 2009, largely because of a drop in illegal immigration.

Migration closely tied to anemic job markets -- notably, illegal immigration and temporary migrant workers -- has slowed during the recession, the report said.

"In sum, people are staying put on both sides of the border," the authors wrote.

dsherfinski@washingtonexaminer.com

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local ... 57122.html

If OBAMA and the Dems didnt keep promising them amnesty most of them would be gone by now...