Fewer Opportunities, Tighter Borders Keeps Immigrants Home

More Mexicans have returned to Mexico than have migrated to the United States since 2009, according to data from Pew Research Center.

Pew’s analysis of government data found that from the end of the Great Recession through 2014, 1 million Mexicans, including their U.S.-born children, left the U.S. for Mexico, while an estimated 870,000 Mexican nationals came to the U.S. Those numbers reflect the smallest flow of immigrants between the two countries since the 1990s.

The number of Mexican immigrants in the U.S. peaked at 12.8 million in 2007 and dipped to 11.7 million by 2014.

The estimated number of unauthorized immigrants dropped from 6.9 million to 5.6 million during that period.

Pew cites several contributing factors, including a slow economic recovery in the U.S., a desire to reunite families, stricter enforcement of U.S. immigration laws, increased U.S. deportations of Mexicans, and a growing number of Mexicans who believe their lives would not be any better north of the border.

A third of adults in Mexico say those who move to the U.S. lead a life that is equivalent to that in Mexico, which is a 10% increase from 2007. 

The report also notes that while immigrant numbers from Mexico have declined, new arrivals from China and India have increased. By one U.S. Census Bureau measure; China surpassed Mexico as the leading country for U.S. immigrants in 2013. S