Wall Street Journal
By Miriam Jordan
September 23, 2013
The steep drop in the illegal-immigrant population during the recession has bottomed out, according to a new study. But migration from Mexico, the primary source of blue-collar workers during the U.S. economic boom, hasn't resumed.
The report by the nonpartisan Pew Hispanic Center indicates the curtain has closed on the biggest immigration wave to the U.S. in modern times—four decades of massive Mexican arrivals.
"The Mexican numbers give no indication of turning up," said demographer Jeffrey Passel, lead researcher of the report.
The size of the overall undocumented population in the U.S. rose to 11.7 million in 2012, up from 11.4 million in 2010, an uptick Mr. Passel said is not statistically significant. The undocumented population peaked at 12.2 million in 2007, when the recession struck.
Undocumented immigrants represented 28% of the 41.7 million foreign-born residents of the U.S. in 2012.
Changes in the size of the undocumented population are mainly determined by the balance between arrivals and departures of immigrants from the U.S. Between 2000 and 2005, undocumented immigrants were arriving in the U.S. at a rate of 850,000 annually, by far surpassing departures. The inflow shrank to an annual average of a less than 400,000 over the next five years. Since 2010, inflows have dropped to about 200,000 per year.
U.S. economic expansion fueled heavy immigration in the 1990s and early 2000s as Mexicans were among the most prolific group of migrants, finding jobs in construction, service, agriculture and other sectors. A strong economic recovery could revive Mexican immigration, but many scholars believe the wave is unlikely to ever be as large again.
"It started with a bang and it's ending with a whimper," said immigration economist Gordon Hanson.
The Mexican illegal population soared through 2007, when it reached nearly seven million. By 2010, inflows plummeted to about 150,000 annually compared with 500,000 during the first half of the decade, and they have dropped further since to about 100,000. After 2007, return migration to Mexico soared. As a result, last year there were six million undocumented Mexicans in the U.S., according to the report.
Data from other sources confirm a new pattern of Mexican migration. A Mexican government survey found migration to the U.S. fell by two-thirds between 2006 and 2012. And apprehensions by U.S. border patrol of Mexicans trying to enter the U.S. illegally, a key indicator of migratory flows, have dropped precipitously in recent years despite the deployment of unprecedented manpower and technology to combat illegal entries.
In addition to the recession, stepped-up U.S. border security, drug-cartel violence and a lower fertility rate discouraged migration from Mexico to the U.S. in recent years. Smaller families mean fewer working-age people putting pressure on that country's labor market.
"Post-U.S. recession, these factors are still working to push Mexican migration down," Mr. Passel said.
"Mexicans aren't coming," said Medardo, a Mexican restaurant worker in Los Angeles, who didn't give his last name. "There's too much vigilance at the border and it's too risky; it's not worth it."
The true test of Mexican flows will come when the U.S. job market is substantially stronger and an even tighter border-enforcement regime, expected in any immigration overhaul passed by Congress, is in place, experts say.
Meanwhile, non-Mexican migration has been climbing, according to Mr. Passel.
Central America, in particular, is supplying migrants to the U.S. Countries like Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador have smaller and weaker economies than Mexico, and they haven't experienced the same drop in birthrate. They have also been struggling with spiraling violent crime, another push factor.
"These are immigrants from countries that are substantially poorer fleeing from an environment of citizen insecurity of the likes only seen in war zones," said economist Mr. Hanson, a professor at the University of California, San Diego.
Pew estimates there were 5.7 million non-Mexican immigrants in the U.S. in 2012, a figure that is higher than the 2007 level of 5.3 million—but can't be confirmed because of the margin of error, the report said. U.S. border-patrol arrests of non-Mexicans, mainly Central Americans, reached 99,000 in 2012, nearly double the 2011 volume.
Asians and Africans also continue to arrive in small numbers.
Only in Texas did the illegal-immigrant population increase since 2007, according to the report. Other states with a large undocumented population, including California, Illinois and New York, experienced declines. The rest of the country showed a drop through 2009 and no significant change since then.
Illegal immigrants from other states and new arrivals are likely drawn to Texas because it has benefited from an oil boom and largely escaped the housing-market collapse, which deprived many migrants of construction jobs in other states.
Pew arrived at the estimates in its report using data on the foreign-born population in the Census Bureau's American Community Survey, Current Population Survey and data from the Department of Homeland Security.
"If you look at the whole world, there is no shortage of potential migrants to the U.S.," Mr. Passel said. "Whether they can get here, and with U.S. policies that allow them to come, is an open question."
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