People on both sides of the immigration debate in Arizona are skeptical of new research that shows a national decrease in the flow of illegal immigration from Mexico into the United States. But there is one thing they are certain of: undocumented immigrants are steering clear of the border state.
“I think they are just avoiding Arizona,” said Jesse Hernández, a real estate agent who works in the Maryvale neighborhood where the exodus of immigrants, due to the crackdown on illegal immigration and the implosion of the housing market, is especially visible. “They are going to California and other places. No matter how much worse things are in the U.S., they are still coming over here. It’s a human interest to look for a better opportunity.”
The survey, conducted by Douglas S. Massey, co-director of the Mexican Migration Project at Princeton University, showed that interest in migrating to the United States from Mexico has dropped and the net flow has gone to zero for the first time in 60 years. Apprehensions of Mexicans along the border have also fallen by 70 percent in the last 10 years.
Thousands of people left Arizona before the anti-immigration law SB 1070 went into effect last year. The law, considered the toughest in the nation at the time, made it a state crime for undocumented immigrants to live in Arizona and made them subject them to incarceration. Before it could be completely implemented, federal courts blocked key provisions of the law, leaving in effect aspects that prohibit cities and police departments from limiting immigration enforcement.
A study released last year by BBVA Bancomer Research, a financial institution in Mexico, found that 100,000 Latinos had fled the state in 2010. Based on remittance information, the study estimated that about 23,000 of them were Mexican nationals who ...