Mexico says fewer trying for U.S. jobs
MEXICO CITY – Would-be immigrants may be staying home in significant numbers, a Mexican government survey says, a trend that analysts on Tuesday attributed to a crackdown on illegal border crossers, raids at employment sites, and a slowing U.S. economy, particularly in the construction industry.
The third-quarter survey, used to determine the employment rate because many workers are off the tax rolls, showed a 30 percent drop in the number of people planning to work abroad or to cross the border from the third quarter of 2005.
About 76,000 Mexicans were “looking for a job in another country or preparing to cross the border,” according to the survey by the National Institute for Statistics and Geography, or INEGI for its initials in Spanish.
Two years earlier, that number was 107,500. INEGI pollsters use a formula to make those estimates based on the percentage of Mexicans age 14 and older who said they would seek work abroad. The survey’s overall margin of error is plus-or-minus 1.5 percentage points.
An INEGI spokesman said the government agency is not making any predictions on the topic but simply reporting its data.
Some pollsters said the government’s survey is not designed to predict immigration trends and thus is not trustworthy on the subject.
In the U.S., some groups opposed to illegal immigration said the numbers show that the crackdown is working.
“Wow!” said Roy Beck, the executive director of Numbers USA, another immigration restrictionist group. “That is really big. It is a very good time for attrition through enforcement.”
“It sounds like the kind of word getting into Mexico is just causing people to change the balance sheet in their mind,” he added.
Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, another immigration restrictionist group, said the poll falls in line with his organization’s predictions that harsher conditions for illegal immigrants would lead to less immigration.
Congress’ failure to enact comprehensive immigration legislation this summer prompted many cities and a handful of states to take matters into their own hands. Some have passed ordinances stiffening requirements on housing; employment and state contracting.
The INEGI poll could be an important piece of the puzzle, but does not tell the whole story, said Andres Rozental, a former Mexican deputy foreign minister who now studies bi-national trends.
“What this poll is showing is that there is increased apprehension about going to the U.S., especially without (working) papers,” said Rozental. “People hear the news about how Mexicans are being mistreated, how the immigration officials are cracking down and conducting raids, separating families and generally making life difficult.”