Crisis, crackdown turn Mexicans off American dream
By Michael O'Boyle
The US Daily
October 15, 2008
ACATZINGO, Mexico (Reuters) - Caught by the U.S. economic crisis and a crackdown on illegal immigrants, Mexican workers are increasingly quitting the United States and coming home, disillusioned with the American dream.
When the U.S. economy began to slow, Ernesto Lorzo and Margarita Martinez first halted construction on the house they were building in Mexico with the dollars they earned in the United States.
Then, when their employers began demanding proper work documents, they packed up their home in Newark, Delaware, and returned home to Mexico with their two U.S.-born children in August.
"We couldn't take it," said Martinez, sitting in the living room of their home in Acatzingo, a village southwest of Mexico City, where a staircase leads up to a second floor that was never built.
The slowdown in the U.S. economy has hit immigrant families hard, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, as they struggle to find work in the construction, food and other industries.
That is compounded by workplace raids and tighter security on the U.S.-Mexico border that have created a tougher environment for the 12 million or so undocumented immigrants in the United States.
It is also hurting the economies of Mexico and other Latin American countries that rely on the cash sent home by their citizens working abroad.
Martinez said she left her job at a fast food restaurant when her bosses asked for working papers. Pregnant and fearful she could be pulled over by police, she was scared to venture out even to the laundry mat near their home in Newark, Delaware.
"It's better to be poor back in Mexico than to be a hamster in its cage up there," Martinez said. Illegal immigrants in some cases can now expect lengthy prison sentences for breaking U.S. immigration laws.
The amount of money sent home by Mexicans and Central Americans in the United States is dropping fast due to the U.S. downturn and the growing number of returnees. Remittances sent by Mexicans plummeted 12 percent in August.
El Salvador, which gets a huge 18 percent of its gross domestic product via the money wire, saw its first slide in remittances in six years in August, and remittances to Guatemala are also down.
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