The Fading American Dream

The number of those that leave is equal to or greater than the number of those that enter the United States. Mexicans got tired of immigrating to the northern neighboring country and have decided to return home to try their luck and forget the long-awaited American dream that for many truly became a nightmare.

A study recently presented by the Pew Hispanic Center has confirmed a well-known secret of the last few years: Net Mexican immigration to the U.S. is below zero.

The investigation reveals that between 2005 and 2010, close to 1.4 million Mexicans entered the U.S., a figure similar or greater to those who made the trip in the opposite direction. But this decrease seen in the past decade can be explained by several reasons.

The most important is the economic crisis of 2008 that affected the U.S. and Europe, which has destroyed millions of jobs principally in construction — a cyclical sector in which the majority of workers are immigrants.

A report about immigration in the Americas produced by the Organization of American States concluded that in the first years of the crisis, 13.8 percent of immigrants lost their jobs versus 9.1 percent of those born in the country. These uncertain times are more complicated for foreigners when residence card renewals are subject to a work contract.

Another aspect that has provoked the return of Mexican immigrants to their country has been the approval of laws to pursue irregular immigrants and the toughening of U.S. migratory policies.

Washington has increased the number of personnel and technology to guard terrestrial, aerial and maritime borders. It has eliminated the raids in front of immigrant work centers, and on the contrary has focused on guarding businesses to check that they are hiring people with regular status. If they discover that businesses have hired workers illegally, they are sentenced to pay a considerable fine.

But the most emblematic case of harassment of irregular immigrants comes in the form of the Arizona law — known in English by its acronym as law SB 1070 — put into place in April of 2010 by the governor of said state, Jan Brewer, to control irregular immigration.

This law has been strongly questioned by different Latin American governments and also by human rights organizations that work on the issue of immigration because in its application racial discrimination is used.

Parts of this law are being debated in the U.S. Supreme Court solicited by Obama’s government. The law tries to authorize the police to ask for identification from irregulars and to prove their immigration status in the country. The U.S. government considers this legal regulation a violation of its powers in the area of migratory policies.

According to analysts, one last aspect that is provoking the return of immigrants is the stabilization of the economy and the creation of new work opportunities in their own country. It must be emphasized that despite the economic crisis, Latin-American countries have been able to get around the more adverse effects of the situation.

The commercial and financial flows of the region have been growing since the ‘90s thanks to product diversification with the Asian market, principally with China.

At the moment, no one ventures to claim that the migratory phenomenon of Mexicans into the U.S. has ended, since it is likely that when things get better in the U.S., it will need a cheap workforce to maintain this population group that is not increasing and meanwhile grows older each day.

The Mexicans have abandoned the U.S. in an important moment for the future of the immigrants in this country; with elections in the air, politicians, as usual, are offering everything and more. It remains to be seen if those who stayed in the U.S. and have the right to vote will believe one more time in the false electoral promises of amnesty or if, on the contrary, they will wait sitting in their houses to see how the sentiment against them rises as each day passes.