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SAN DIEGO — The Great Recession, border enforcement and social and economic changes in Mexico have resulted in fewer illegal immigrants from Mexico entering the United States for the first time in at least a decade, demographers said.
Fewer unauthorized Mexicans entered the U.S. last year than those who left, building on a trend that started four years ago, according to several University of California researchers, the Pew Hispanic Center and others.
“I don’t think anybody would have predicted the kind of falloff we’ve had,” said Wayne Cornelius, co-director of the University of California’s Center on Migration and Health, housed on the San Diego campus.
“We didn’t anticipate this sharpest economic contraction. We are in uncharted waters,” Cornelius said.
The overall undocumented population in this country last year was 11.2 million, down from its peak of about 12 million in 2007, the Hispanic Pew Center said.
Mexicans accounted for 58 percent of that group, or about 6.5 million from a high of 7 million in 2007.
The annual inbound migration is about one-fifth or one-sixth of what it was about a decade ago, said Jeff Passel, a senior demographer at the Pew center. Demographers said outbound migration to Mexico has remained stable.
Passel credited three main drivers of change:
■ The Great Recession caused job losses across the board, including in construction and other industries that employed many undocumented immigrants.
The economy has remained soft since.
■ Increased U.S. border enforcement and associated factors including the dangers of crossing the border and the cost of hiring a smuggler, which can run as much as $3,000 per person.
■ Shifts in Mexico that include demographic changes such as lower birthrates and social improvements such as better education.
Demographers also credit economic development in Mexico for boosting employment rates.
“Over the long run, the factors in Mexico are going to play a role” in the rate of illegal immigration, Passel said.
“If more Mexicans get better educated and are able to find jobs in Mexico, then they don’t have the impetus to come to the U.S.”
Cornelius’ research in communities that send a lot of Mexicans to the United States found a steady decline in migration rates to the U.S. starting in 2007.
Many of the people Cornelius interviewed had worked in construction in California, Arizona and elsewhere but returned to Mexico and chose to stay there after the recession began in the U.S.
Tougher border enforcement also played a role along with the lack of jobs, Cornelius said.
Lawmakers are stuck in a pre-recession mindset about immigration, said Aaron Terrazas, a policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, D.C.
“No one is talking about the fact that it’s net zero,” he said. “It holds enormous implications.”
If the migration trend continues, it could lead to a labor shortage and potential recruitment of immigrants from India, Africa and other countries, said John Skrentny, director of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at University of California, San Diego.
