Michael Barone devotes his latest column to immigration in the world of the Great Recession:
[T]he flow of immigrants into the United States is slowing dramatically and may be reversing. The Pew Hispanic Center notes that the number of immigrants from Mexico in 2008-09 is down three-quarters from four years before. The Center for Immigration Studies estimates that the number of illegals in the U.S. declined by 1.7 million, or 14 percent, in 2007-08. Government figures show that border apprehensions, a statistic that is often taken as a proxy for illegal crossings, fell 23 percent in 2008-09 from the previous year and was only one-third the number in the peak period of 2000-01.
Those numbers obviously reflect a response to deep recession as well as the effects of tougher enforcement.
They suggest a much smaller immigration flow and significant reverse migration back to countries of origin in the years ahead.
How to deal with these changing circumstances? Barone suggests that the place to start is "Breaking the Immigration Stalemate," a report from the Brookings-Duke Immigration Policy Roundtable.
