|
REPLY TO THREAD
|
|
Subject
|
HISPANICS FLEE ARIZONA
|
|
User Name
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Font color:
Font:
|
|
|
|
|
|
Original Message
|
Read the full story here...
[link to news.yahoo.com]
Arizona’s hard-hitting immigration law is driving Hispanics out of the state weeks before the controversial law goes into effect.
Although concrete figures are not available, anecdotal evidence suggests Hispanics, both legal residents and
illegal immigrants, are starting to flee.
Schools in Hispanic neighborhoods are reporting abnormal enrollment drops, and businesses that serve Hispanics also report that business is down, according to a USA Today report published Wednesday.
The report suggests that the immigration law is compounding demographic trends that have already significantly curtailed illegal immigration during the past two years. The bad economy has been the primary deterrent to many Hispanic immigrants seeking to enter Arizona, says Jeffrey Passel, a demographer at the Pew Hispanic Center in Washington.
“If you have a bad economy and a hostile environment, then that’s likely to cause people to think twice about coming, and possibly even to leave,” Mr. Passel says.
Leaving Arizona, going where?
Where are they going?
About 450,000 Mexicans return to Mexico from around the world, but “those numbers have been flat as a pancake for three years now,” Passel says.
It’s more likely, they’re migrating within the US, says Gutierrez.
“It’s got to be an exceedingly difficult decision [to leave],” he says. “Once they return to Mexico, it’s much harder to come back. It’s much more likely we’re seeing internal migration.”
Most Hispanics who flee Arizona will join friends, family, or other Hispanic communities in California, Texas, New Mexico, and other states with large Hispanic populations.
Any loss, however, will be a loss for the Arizona economy, Gutierrez suggests.
“Latinos...are a highly flexible, highly exploitable work force, a buffer to economic downturns,” he says. “Many of the industries here – agriculture, service industries, low-end manufacturing, construction – are massively dependent on undocumented workers.
“If I were able to conduct an experiment and pay all of Arizona’s undocumented workers to not work for two weeks, the economy would come to a screeching, crashing halt instantaneously.”
|
|
Pictures (click to insert)
|
 |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  | | | Next Page >> |
|
