Michael Barone has an interesting piece on the subject:
Evidence keeps accumulating that the tide of immigration is ebbing. Tough enforcement laws passed by states like Arizona and Oklahoma and localities like Prince William County, Va., have reportedly spurred Latino immigrants to move elsewhere. Tougher enforcement of federal immigration laws may be having the same effect.
Classrooms in Orange County, Calif., are suddenly half-empty. Latino day laborers seem to be less thick on the ground at their morning gathering places. Remittances to Mexico and other Latin countries are down, and men are returning to some villages from the United States.
Latinos appear to account for a disproportionate share of mortgage foreclosures. The Census Bureau estimates that net immigration in 2007-08 was 14 percent lower than the average for 2000-07, and those estimates don’t cover the period after June 30, when the recession really started hitting.
Demographic forecasters tend to assume that the long-term future will look a lot like the short-term past. That’s why the Census Bureau estimates that there will be more than 100 million people classifying themselves as Hispanics in 2050, compared to 45 million today. But history tells us that trend lines don’t go on forever. Sometimes they turn around and go downward.
I’ve noticed it, too – first the explosion of day laborers out in front of home improvement stores as home construction started to dry up in Las Vegas, then the steady decline of such laborers. There are less hispanics around town than there used to be, and I’ll bet a lot money that the absent are illegals who have headed back home.
In the article, Barone notes that outside the recent economic downturn, there was also a sharp decline in hispanic fertility starting around 1990…which means that each year there will be less and less young hispanics trying to build their future, and thus less incentive for them to travel north. As has been said before, trends tend to continue until they stop…and the trend of illegal immigration might be getting ready to stop.
Now, before any of you border security types start uncorking the champagne, do keep in mind that one of the things which kept Mexico afloat over the past 10-15 years was remittances from Mexicans living in the United States. With that source of revenue drying up, the corrupt and antique Mexican economy runs a high risk of implosion. This could lead to revolution and/or civil war south of the border, which will be unpleasant for everyone in the neighborhood, especially us.
Entirely independent of Obama’s bogus change, I’ve been getting the sensation – there’s no other way for me to describe it – of very high risk for America and the entry into a period of rapid change in the world. We are living very fast right now, and we may be on the receiving end of the old Chinese curse, “may you live in interesting times”.
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