Despite Recession, Mexicans Aren’t Going Home

This news may disappoint restrictionist groups and CNN’s Lou Dobbs, but the Pew Hispanic Center reports today that despite the poor economy, Mexican immigrants aren’t leaving the United States to return home to Mexico in any significant numbers.

Although “the flow of immigrants from Mexico to the United States has declined sharply since mid-decade,” Pew reports, “there is no evidence of an increase during this period in the number of Mexican-born migrants returning home from the U.S..”

Pew has previously reported that the recession has been particularly hard on Latino immigrants, leading many to speculate that Mexicans were returning home. That’s not the case, this new study finds, possibly because conditions aren’t any better in Mexico. The Mexican-born population in the United States is currently about 11.5 million — down just 100,000 from last year. It was 11.2 million in 2007.