Staff Editorial
More Mexicans are leaving the U.S. than entering, according to the Pew Research Center last week.
The report identifies declining job opportunities, an effect of the Great Recession of 2007, as one of the main reasons Mexicans are returning home.
But Mexicans remain the No. 1 source of newly arrived immigrants in the U.S.
The economy in the U.S. may have urged some Mexicans to return back home, but Mexico has a poverty level of about 50 percent, according to a 2013 study by the Wilson Center.
It would not make sense for immigrants to go back to a place with an economy in a more dire situation.
Mexicans are returning home because that’s been their plan all along.
Many stay because they settle, build families and assimilate. But others are here to make enough to start a decent life in their home country, where they speak the main language and fit in to society.
Immigrant workers send home $50 billion a year, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
Those that come here to work make enough to take care of their families back home, then leave to join them.
Returning Mexicans still have to deal with the issues that drove them away from home like narco-violence, but have worked here long enough to improve their situation back home.
