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Date Posted: 04:29:26 12/27/07 Thu
Author: philipo
Subject: Re: Illegals Stay Home!
In reply to: JMR 's message, "Illegals Stay Home!" on 20:25:18 12/26/07 Wed

>Illegal immigrant's message to other wannabe workers:
>Stay put
>Los Angeles Times
>Dec. 26, 2007 11:28 AM
>Arizona Republic
>MEXICO CITY - Lorenzo Martinez, an illegal immigrant
>who has lived in Los Angeles for six years, has a
>message for his kin in Mexico's Hidalgo state: Stay
>put.
>
>The steady construction work that had allowed him to
>send home as much as $1,000 a month in recent years
>had disappeared. The 36-year-old father of four said
>desperation was growing among the day laborers with
>whom he was competing for odd jobs.
>
>Sporadic employment isn't the half of it. Martinez
>said anxiety also was running high among undocumented
>workers about stepped-up workplace raids, deportations
>and increasing demands by U.S. employers for proof
>that they were in the country legally.
>"Better not to come," Martinez said of anyone thinking
>about crossing into the U.S. illegally. "The situation
>is really bad."
>
>That message seems to be getting through. There are
>numerous signs of a slowdown in illegal immigration.
>
>
>• A recent survey by Mexican authorities shows that
>fewer Mexicans say they are planning to seek work
>outside the country. In the third quarter of 2007,
>about 47,000 said they'd be packing their bags. That's
>down nearly one-third from the same quarter a year
>earlier.
>
>
>• U.S. border authorities arrested just under 877,000
>illegal crossers in fiscal 2007, which ended in
>September, down 20 percent compared to the year
>before. A drop in apprehensions is often interpreted
>as a sign that fewer migrants are attempting the trip.
>
>
>• The growth rate of the U.S. Mexican-born population
>has dropped by nearly half to 4.2 percent in 2007 from
>about 8 percent in 2005 and 2006, according to an
>analysis of census data by the Pew Hispanic Center.
>
>
>• Employment of foreign-born Hispanics increased at a
>slower pace in the first quarter of 2007 than during
>the same period in the previous three years, according
>to Pew. The slowdown was particularly noticeable in
>the construction industry. Growth in employment of
>foreign-born Hispanics in that sector was 10.9 percent
>early this year, compared to an average first-quarter
>growth rate of 19.8 percent from 2004 to 2006.
>
>
>• The growth in remittances sent to Mexico has
>dwindled to a trickle. Through October of this year,
>Mexicans living abroad sent $20.4 billion home to
>their families, a 1.3 percent increase over the same
>period in 2006, according to Mexico's central bank.
>Those sums were growing in excess of 20 percent
>annually just a few years ago.
>
>What's behind the apparent decline?
>
>Some say it's primarily the slump in U.S.
>construction, which has been a magnet for undocumented
>workers over the last few years - one in five Hispanic
>immigrants works in the building trades. Others say
>it's largely the result of stepped-up enforcement.
>
>Proponents of tighter security say U.S. workplace
>dragnets and increased deportations have made big
>headlines in Latin America, deterring some would-be
>migrants. American authorities are installing hundreds
>of miles of new fencing along the southern border.
>About 15,000 U.S. Border Patrol agents have been
>deployed to the region, 25 percent more than in 2006.
>By the end of next year, 3,000 more are slated to be
>in place.
>
>"It's a combination of (more) personnel, technology
>and infrastructure, " said Ramon Rivera, a spokesman
>for the Customs and Border Protection agency, of the
>falling arrest totals.
>
>Immigration experts say tougher enforcement is one of
>several explanations. The border buildup has
>encouraged more illegal immigrants to employ
>professional smugglers, whose success rate is higher
>than that of individuals, said Wayne Cornelius,
>director of the Center for Comparative Immigration
>Studies at the University of California, San Diego.
>
>He said tougher enforcement had also discouraged many
>undocumented workers from returning to their homelands
>for occasional visits for fear of getting caught
>re-entering the U.S. Fewer people coming and going
>across the border means fewer apprehensions.
>
>The fall in arrests also fits a familiar pattern, one
>that traditionally has more to do with the strength of
>the U.S. job market than with walls or guards.
>
>"It's the economy, stupid," Cornelius said.
>
>Demographer Jeffrey Passel said the U.S. unemployment
>rate was the strongest correlating factor he had found
>in tracking migratory flows. In November, the jobless
>rate for Hispanics was 5.7 percent, up from 5 percent
>in November 2006.
>
>"When it's easy to get a job, they come. When it's
>hard to get a job, they don't," said Passel, senior
>research associate at the Washington-based Pew
>Hispanic Center.
>
>Border authorities apprehended a record 1.7 million
>would-be migrants in 2000, the height of the
>technology boom. That number tumbled over the next
>three years as the U.S. was rocked by recession, the
>Sept. 11 attacks and the loss of more than 2 million
>jobs. About 932,000 illegal crossers were apprehended
>in 2003, a 44 percent drop from 2000, according to
>Customs and Border Protection.
>
>At the time, some credited the decline to tightened
>border security in the wake of Sept. 11. But arrests
>rebounded strongly in 2004 and 2005 as foreign-born
>workers flocked to the United States to fill jobs in
>the building trades.
>
>As the bust in the U.S. housing market eliminates
>construction jobs, Mexico's economy is proving
>resilient, giving Mexicans added incentive to stay
>home. Job creation has been solid over the last two
>years, with nearly 2 million positions added in the
>formal economy. Although most jobs in Mexico pay a
>fraction of what they would in the United States, some
>Mexicans may be deciding that poorly paid work is
>better than none, given the uncertainty over the
>border.
>
>At the same time, Customs and Border Protection has
>expanded efforts to jail some illegal border crossers
>for up to 180 days before deporting them. Some
>American communities have passed laws to deny services
>to undocumented residents. In fiscal 2007, Immigration
>and Customs Enforcement arrested more than 30,000
>criminal aliens and immigration fugitives, including
>1,300 illegal immigrants netted in a fall dragnet in
>the Los Angeles area.
>
>Ira Mehlman, media director for the Washington-based
>Federation for American Immigration Reform, said the
>slowing U.S. economy and construction slump are
>undoubtedly important factors in dip in illegal
>immigration. But he said the stepped-up enforcement is
>"changing the mindset" of would-be migrants and the
>estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants already
>in the United States.
>
>"Illegal immigrants are rational people," Mehlman
>said. "They will change their behavior."
>
>Heightened security has rattled Roberto Guzman. Border
>patrol agents recently busted the 17-year-old on his
>first attempt to cross the Arizona border. The
>teenager said he was quickly deported back to Mexico,
>but that his brother and uncle were jailed.
>
>Reached by phone at a shelter in the northern Mexican
>city of Nogales, Guzman said he planned to hang around
>a day or two in hopes his relatives would turn up.
>Either way, the farm boy said he plans to return to
>rural Zacatecas state in central Mexico.
>
>"Maybe some other year," he replied when asked if he
>would try again.
>
>But Higinio Gonzalez, 34, isn't as easily discouraged.
>Since 2004, he has been working in Sacramento, pulling
>weeds and hanging drywall, and has returned home once
>a year visit his family in central Mexico.
>
>In the past, the illegal immigrant has had little
>trouble slipping back into the United States. Until
>now. Returning from his mother's funeral in Guanajuato
>state, Gonzalez has been nabbed twice by U.S. agents
>at the California border in recent days and deposited
>him back on the Mexican side.
>
>"There's a lot of surveillance. I've never seen so
>much of it," he said by telephone from Tijuana.
>
>With three children and wife to feed, he'll wait as
>long as it takes to get back to Sacramento. He has
>been weeks without a paycheck.
>
>"I've got to get back to work," he said. "It's
>difficult to cross, but it's not impossible. And I'm
>going to make it."
ACHIWOWA

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