Mexican Invasion
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Title: Improving Mexican economy draws undocumented immigrants home from California
Source:
The Sacramento Bee
URL Source: http://www.sacbee.com/2011/07/28/37 ... ing-mexican-economy-draws.html
Published: Jul 29, 2011
Author: Stephen Magagnini
Post Date: 2011-07-29 20:01:07 by Hondo68
Keywords: Mexicos unemployment 4.9%, 300,000 undocumented left, 2.6 million remaining
Views: 14658
Comments: 25
Though construction generally is the best-paying work for undocumented immigrants, the state's agriculture industry has depended on these workers also. Now, more are heading back to Mexico where opportunities are improving. There are fewer undocumented immigrants in California – and the Sacramento region – because many are now finding the American dream south of the border. "It's now easier to buy homes on credit, find a job and access higher education in Mexico," Sacramento's Mexican consul general, Carlos González Gutiérrez, said Wednesday. "We have become a middle-class country." Mexico's unemployment rate is now 4.9 percent, compared with 9.4 percent joblessness in the United States. An estimated 300,000 undocumented immigrants have left California since 2008, though the remaining 2.6 million still make up 7 percent of the population and 9 percent of the labor force, according to the Public Policy Institute of California. Among metropolitan areas with more than 1 million residents, Sacramento County ranks among the lowest, with an unauthorized population of 4.6 percent of its 1.4 million residents in 2008, according to Laura Hill, a demographer with the PPIC. The Sacramento region, suffering from 12.3 percent unemployment and the construction bust, may have triggered a large exodus of undocumented immigrants, González Gutiérrez said. The best-paid jobs for undocumented migrants are in the building industry, "and because of the severe crisis in the construction business here, their first response has been to move into the service industry," González Gutiérrez said. "But that has its limits. Then, they move to other areas in the U.S. to find better jobs – or back to Mexico." Hill said it's hard to know whether the benefit of having fewer undocumented migrants outweighs the cost to employers and taxpayers. California may have to provide less free education to the children of undocumented immigrants and less emergency medical care, she said, but it will also get less tax revenue. In 2008, at least 836,100 undocumented immigrants filed U.S. tax returns in California using individual tax identification numbers known as ITINS, said Hill, who conducted the tax survey. Based on those tax returns, the study found there were 65,000 undocumented immigrants in Sacramento County that year, far fewer than in many other big counties. Sacramento's undocumented population ranked 10th in the state that year, behind Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, Santa Clara, San Bernardino, Riverside, Alameda, Contra Costa and Ventura. There were an estimated 12,000 undocumented immigrants in Yolo County; 9,000 in the Sutter-Yuba area; and 8,000 in Placer County. An analysis of local ZIP codes showed that Sacramento (95815, 95823, 95824), West Sacramento (95605), Clarksburg (95612), Esparto (95627), Guinda (95637), Knights Landing (95645), Winters (95694) and Woodland (95776) each had an undocumented population of 10 percent to 15 percent. Yolo County relies heavily on migrant workers to grow and harvest crops. "People in construction are now turning to agriculture; it's the start of the tomato season so the harvesters will be jump-started pretty soon," said Woodland Mayor Art Pimentel, whose 55,000 residents are 48 percent Latino, some of them undocumented. Some aren't sticking around for the upcoming tomato harvest, said Sylvina Frausto, secretary of Holy Rosary Church in Woodland. "Some have a small parcel in Mexico. They own their own home there, so instead of renting here they go back to their small business there." Many raise animals, run grocery stores or sell fruits and goods on street corners. "They're going back home because they can't get medical help or government assistance anymore," Frausto said, "And when it's getting so difficult for them to find a job without proper documentation, it's pushing them away." Anita Barnes, director of La Familia Counseling Center on Franklin Boulevard in Sacramento, said she recently spoke to a high school graduate who had lost his job in a restaurant and was thinking of going back to Mexico. "He came over with his mom, who was in the process of losing her restaurant job," Barnes said. "It's frightening, especially for the children. They feel this is their country, they don't know anything else, and they find they can't get driver's licenses or jobs." As its economy rebounds, Mexico "is becoming a better option than it was in the past, but you still have to find a job and reconnect," Barnes said. While the weakened U.S. economy, rising deportations and tougher border enforcement have led to fewer undocumented migrants, changes in Mexico are playing a significant role, González Gutiérrez said. Mexico's average standard of living – including health, education and per capita income – is now higher than those in Russia, China and India, according to the United Nations. Mexico's growing middle class "reduces the appetites to come because there are simply many more options" at home, González Gutiérrez said. "Most people who decided to migrate already have a job in Mexico and tend to be the most ambitious and attracted to the income gap between the U.S. and Mexico." Mexico's economy is growing at 4 percent to 5 percent, benefiting from low inflation, exports and a strong banking system, the consul said. Mexico's birthrate is also declining sharply. "As a natural consequence of us transforming from a rural to an urban society, we are running out of Mexicans to export," González Gutiérrez said. "Our society's growing at a rate of 2.1 children per woman – in the 1970s it was more than five." Once the U.S. economy recovers, the flow of migrants moving north "may go up again, although most likely they will not reach the peak levels we saw in the first half of the decade," González Gutiérrez said. WORKSHOP TODAY U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services will host a free information session in Spanish at 650 Capitol Mall, second floor, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. today on how to avoid scams. Immigrants who can't come in person or access the workshop online can call (800) 857-4862 and provide the pass code SERVICIO when asked for a password. • For more information, visit www.uscis.gov/enlace.
Poster Comment: One advantage of Obamanomics, the illegal aliens are leaving for a better life. There goes half of hObama's votes in 2012.
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Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 15.
#1. To: hondo68 (#0)
It could be all of the guns we've been sending them instead!!!! Maybe they've finally gotten the hint and are going to change things back home instead of coming here.......... Don't worry they've already filled out their voting ballots for 2012 so there is no need to be here anymore......
How, exactly, did they do that?
How, exactly, did they do that? You didn't know that???? (Jeez what a slacker)!! I thought it was mandatory for all you Liberals to take ACORN sponsored voter fraud classes on how to bribe somebody with money, food or cigarettes to fill out numerous blank voter ballots!!!!! I guess you missed the advanced class too, where you learn how to register the people in your local cemetary to vote......
Evidently ACORN's popular in your part of the country, but not out here.
ROTFLMAO....... California ACORN breaks off into new nonprofit group The community organization group will keep the same mission and many of the same staffers, but will not belong to the troubled national alliance. January 13, 2010|By Kate Linthicum California ACORN has broken away from its embattled parent organization to form a new nonprofit group, a move that observers say might foreshadow other defections that would seriously undermine one of the nation's largest and most politically powerful community organizations. The new group will have the same mission, will be staffed by many of the same employees who worked for ACORN, and will be funded by most of the same donors, said Amy Schur, the former head organizer for California ACORN. Schur sits on the interim board of directors for the new group, the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, which was incorporated in California on Monday. ACCE is seeking federal nonprofit status. A spokesman for ACORN declined to comment. Schur said ACCE plans changes, including outsourcing accounting and forming an advisory council of 22 community leaders, in order to avoid the problems with finances and management that made ACORN vulnerable to conservative attacks. The news comes four months after Congress voted to cut federal funding for ACORN, which advocates for higher minimum wages, access to affordable housing and increased voter registration in low-income communities. Congress was under pressure to strip funding from the organization after two undercover activists posing as a pimp and prostitute released secretly recorded videotapes in which they appear to receive advice on tax evasion, human smuggling and child prostitution from ACORN employees in several states. ACORN, or the Assn. of Community Organizations for Reform Now, has also been accused of voter registration fraud in several states. Although a federal judge ruled in December that the funding cut was unconstitutional, and a Congressional Research Service report found that ACORN had not broken any laws in the last five years, the scandal so tarnished ACORN's reputation that the California branch, which boasted 48,000 members and an annual operating budget of $3.5 million, decided to break off, Schur said. "The level of controversy had become a significant distraction for us," said Schur, who said members raised the idea of forming a new organization at a statewide board meeting in Oakland in October. Schur said California members were looking for local control and were frustrated by a lack of transparency. In 2008, it was revealed that top ACORN leaders had tried to hide the embezzlement of nearly $1 million from the organization nine years ago by the brother of ACORN founder Wade Rathke. John Atlas, a New Jersey writer who recently completed a history of ACORN, said that members with similar complaints in other states were considering following California's lead. He and others said donor support has plummeted. "The foundations that have been keeping ACORN going, they've cut ACORN off at the knees," said Peter Dreier, a professor at Occidental College who teaches community organizing. Last fall, after the House voted to bar ACORN from receiving federal funds, ACORN's chief executive, Bertha Lewis, blamed the woes on "a multiyear political assault stemming variously from the Bush White House, Fox News and other conservative quarters" and vowed to not let the restrictions cripple her organization. Before California's defection, ACORN claimed 400,000 dues-paying members in 38 states. California represented about an eighth of its national membership. Schur, who worked with ACORN for 21 years, said she thought the organization had done tremendous work but had grown in an unhealthy way. "We did not adequately invest in legal and financial oversight," she said. "Because of that lack of infrastructure, we were vulnerable to attacks." Keith Rohman, president of the Los Angeles City Human Relations Commission and chairman of ACCE's advisory council, said the new California group "is an opportunity to take what is best and leave behind what was not so good."
Wow 50,000 paying members!!!!! Maybe in your state that would be alot but in California some gun clubs have more.
#16. To: mininggold (#15)
That's 50,000 more that what we have, they closed their doors here and left town.....
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#3. To: CZ82 (#1)
Don't worry they've already filled out their voting ballots for 2012 so there is no need to be here anymore......
#12. To: Skip Intro (#3)
Don't worry they've already filled out their voting ballots for 2012 so there is no need to be here anymore......
#13. To: CZ82 (#12)
I thought it was mandatory for all you Liberals to take ACORN sponsored voter fraud classes on how to bribe somebody with money, food or cigarettes to fill out numerous blank voter ballots!!!!! I guess you missed the advanced class too, where you learn how to register the people in your local cemetary to vote......
#14. To: mininggold (#13)
Evidently ACORN's popular in your part of the country, but not out here.
#15. To: CZ82 (#14)
(Edited)
Before California's defection, ACORN claimed 400,000 dues-paying members in 38 states. California represented about an eighth of its national membership.
Replies to Comment # 15. Wow 50,000 paying members!!!!! Maybe in your state that would be alot but in California some gun clubs have more.
End Trace Mode for Comment # 15.
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