Michael Barone

Is the Immigration Wave Ebbing?

November 20, 2008 RSS Feed Print

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By Michael Barone, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.

Blogger extraordinaire Mickey Kaus collects information that suggests that we are seeing a reversal of immigration, a gran salida of immigrants, surely many illegal, back to their countries of origin. Follow the links for the fascinating details. He sees a connection between tougher enforcement of immigration laws (including state laws) and the rejection of comprehensive immigration bills in 2006 and 2007 and an out-migration of immigrants. And a connection between that and the collapse of the housing bubble. All of this makes a lot of sense to me. We've seen a long trend of heavy Latino immigration, but trend lines don't go on forever. There's a break point somewhere. I'm going to be interested in seeing whether the Census Bureau's population estimates for June 30, 2008 (due out in December, I believe), show some concrete and significant evidence of this apparent trend. Here's a link to the relevant website.

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Don't focus only on the uninvited (a.k.a. "illegal," "undocumented") immigrants who may be leaving the U.S. Focus attention, also, on the immigrant scientists & engineers who are returning to their homelands, or who are seeking opportunity elsewhere but outside the U.S.
Immigration has contributed mightily to the lifeblood of "American" scientific and technological pre-eminence, if only because so few talented and hard-working Americans want to be scientists or engineers (also, because of backward American human resource practices). However, America is now in danger of no longer being "the place to be" in science & technology.

Michael Alexander of MA 4:42PM November 28, 2008

It will be interesting to see the most recent Census Bureau numbers. Numerous news reports over the past year or so document that both increased federal and state immigration enforcement (along with a bad economy), has led to many illegal aliens returning home or at least fleeing to states and areas with remaining sanctuary policies. The key questions are what will happen when the economy revives and will President-elect Obama cave to the ethnocentric groups such as La Raza and gut popular enforcement measures and push another wildly unpopular mass legalization scheme (AKA Amnesty). Anyway, even though belated and inconsistent, the enforcement measures undertaken by the Bush administration prove that the illegal immigration crisis can be solved humanely by enforcement of laws/attrition with no need to resort to either mass deportation or "pathway" legalization amnesty schemes.

Steve of CA 5:47PM November 27, 2008

ROFL, Pedro! No, a "gran ensalada" may be procured at any of the terrific Tex-Mex restaurants on the border.
"Salida" is the word you'll find on, e.g., a sign over a door, where in English-speaking countries you'd normally find one saying "exit." I suppose the nearest English cliche to "Gran Salida" would be "Great Exodus."

Charlie of NY 3:08PM November 23, 2008

Is the Immigration Wave Ebbing?

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