According to a survey done by the Inter-American Development Bank
Fewer Latin Americans are sending money home regularly from the United States to their homelands, according to the results of a survey on remittances commissioned by the Inter-American Development Bank’s Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF) presented today in Washington, DC.
The poll, conducted in February 2008 among 5,000 Latin American adults living in the 50 states and the District of Columbia, found that only 50% of the respondents were still sending money on a regular basis to their families, down from 73% in a similar poll conducted in 2006.
The principal causes for this drop cited by migrants were the slowdown in the U.S. economy and the harsher climate against immigration in this country, said MIF General Manager Donald F. Terry, who presented the survey’s result in a news conference held at the National Press Club.
An article by Julia Preston in the International Herald-Tribune adds:
A large majority of the Latino immigrants in the survey — whether or not they were illegal — said they experienced increasing hostility as a result of U.S. government and state efforts to curb illegal immigration and punish employers who hire unauthorized immigrant workers. In the survey, 61 percent of Latinos who were American citizens and 66 percent of those who were legal immigrants said that discrimination had become a major problem for them.
As a result of the difficulties, the numbers of immigrants who said they were considering going back to live in their home countries increased notably. Among immigrants who have been here less than five years, 49 percent said they were thinking of returning home, while only 41 percent said they planned to remain in the United States. Over all, just under one-third of the immigrants said they were thinking of leaving this country.
Not that they are actually leaving yet:
But Latino immigrant workers who participated in focus groups as part of the survey said they were not ready to leave the United States quite yet, said Sergio Bendixen, the Miami-based pollster who conducted the survey. Instead of going home, the immigrants said they were taking jobs at lower wages or sometimes working two jobs to try to maintain their income, he said.
A story by Miriam Jordan in the Wall Street Journal (unfortunately subscription-only) explains further (although not in so many words) that the situation is likely driving an increase illegal overcrowding:
In Maryland, for example, the value of remittances sent home in 2008 is projected to drop 11% compared to 2006, according to the bank. Joel Fernandez, who had steady construction work for five years, says that until late last year he earned about $1,400 a month; he sent a third of that to his two daughters in Peru. Now that he works with less regularity, “I am sending home money when I can,” says the 39-year-old, who was seeking work on Tuesday at a day-labor center run by the Casa de Maryland advocacy group in Silver Spring. To save on rent and free up money to send home, he’s recruiting three more immigrants to move into his apartment — already occupied by three men — to split the $1,000 monthly payment. “I have to provide for my girls,” he says. “That’s what I came here for.”
Ricardo Mejia, a day-laborer organizer at Casa, says that workers who once only accepted a full day’s work at $15 an hour are now accepting a morning or afternoon job at $10. “They’ll take any small job to earn cash for food and housing,” he says. “A lot of people aren’t managing to send money home.”
Another story, this one by Eunice Moscoso in the Austin American-Statesman, adds:
Sergio Bendixen, a veteran pollster whose Miami-based company conducted the survey, said […] that a growing “anti-immigrant” sentiment in the United States is a major cause of the drop in number of immigrants sending money home.
He cited state laws and local ordinances that have cracked down on illegal immigration such as a well-publicized one in Hazleton, Pa., that he said created a climate in which immigrants felt insecure about their futures.
“They feel that they are not welcome in America anymore,” Bendixen said. “They don’t know whether they will be able to work next month or whether they will to be able to rent an apartment … so many become conservative about how they spend their money.”
Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that supports lower levels of immigration, said that Latin American governments should stop looking at exporting their labor force as a source of development income.
Krikorian said the survey shows that anti-illegal immigration ordinances are working.
A PowerPoint presentation of the survey’s results is available from the IADB here.
