Even the Mexicans are shunning the USA

Mexican immigration to US hits 10-year low: study

From http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090722/pl_afp/usmexicoimmigration_20090722130726

Wed Jul 22, 9:06 am ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The number of Mexican immigrants who came to the United States has fallen sharply, hitting a 10-year low in the 12 months ending in March, a report showed Wednesday.

Immigration from Mexico to the United States, especially illegal immigration, began to drop off in 2006 and continued its downward slide into this year, said a report by the Pew Hispanic Center, which looked at population surveys from both countries and US law enforcement data.

Between March 2008 to March 2009, the “estimated annual inflow of immigrants from Mexico was lower than at any point during the decade,” bottoming out at about 175,000 immigrants, the report said, citing data from the US Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey.

The statistics from ENOE showed that the immigrant flow from Mexico to the United States has fallen by around 20 percent a year since 2006, from more than a million people in the 12 months starting February 2006 to 814,000 for the same period in 2007-2008 and to 636,000 in 2008-2009.

In 2008, the number of Mexicans who were apprehended by the US Border Patrol as they tried to enter the United States illegally — 662,000 — was 40 percent down from the 1.1 million who were caught at the border in 2004.

Indeed, 2008 saw the lowest number of apprehensions of would-be illegal immigrants from Mexico by the US border guard in 25 years.

As for the possible reasons for the drop-off in Mexican immigration to the United States, researchers said it could be due to the weak US economy and tougher border enforcement measures.

However, a third of all foreign-born US residents and two-thirds of Hispanic immigrants to the United States come from Mexico, the report said. Nearly everyone who leaves Mexico heads for the United States, which is currently home to one in 10 people who were born in Mexico.

1.02 Billion People Hungry: One Sixth Of Humanity Undernourished, More Than Ever Before

The cause is NOT poor global harvest. It IS the global economic crisis which has lead to lower incomes and more unemployment and also stubbornly high food prices in many poorer countries.  About 100 million more people are chronically hungry than last year.

The United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).say that encouraging the poorer countries to invest in farming and so gain local food security is the only way to solve the problem.

FAO’s Director-General Jacques Diouf say that “Many of the world’s poor and hungry are smallholder farmers in developing countries. Yet they have the potential not only to meet their own needs but to boost food security and catalyse broader economic growth. For most developing countries there is little doubt that investing in smallholder agriculture is the most sustainable safety net, particularly during a time of global economic crisis,”

The full article is here. It also includes some useful stuff on migration:

• Urban migrants are loosing their jobs so less money is being sent back to their families in the country
• Many of them are going back home adding to the rural unemployed

Number of east European migrants fall as recession bites

Wednesday 20 May 2009

The number of foreign-born workers leaving Britain rose by nearly 30% as the recession started to bite last year, while the number of Polish and other east European migrants registering to work in Britain fell by 50% between January and March this year, compared with the same period in 2008.

But there has been  a surge of 27% in asylum applications from the world’s trouble spots, with Zimbabwe and Afghanistan leading the list. The number of new asylum seekers rose by 700 to 5,145 between January and March, with about ¾ of them being given permission to stay eventually.

A total of 15,840 people were removed from Britain between January and March this year, only 2,805 were failed asylum seekers, down 7%. The remaining 13,035 who were removed were non-asylum cases (mostly illegal immigrants)

Full article

Asylum seekers’ boat intercepted off Western Australia

This is the 11th boat this year to be intercepted. The current Australian system to inter asylum seekers on Christmas Island for processing. (see red blob on map)

Those who are not true refugees are repatriated, while the others are permitted access to the mainland.

Full details

Why low migration levels threaten the UK’s economic and social health

This article in the guardian by Prof  Danny Dorling says that becasue we having an aging population and low birth rate, we need immigrants to support increasing high *dependency ratio. Many places in the developed world have a similar problem, and each will have to make themselves welcomimg enough to attract immigrants. If we lack the right attitude and enough well paid jobs, then we will loose out. Read here to see what Danny Dorling has to say

*dependency ratio -The number of children (aged under 15) and old people (aged 65
and over) related to the number of adults of working age(between 15 and 64). In other words, the first 2 groups are dependent on the last for support – too many dependents, and we have a problem!