It’s easy to predict that 2011 will go down as a landmark year in the history of U.S. immigration demographics.
For the first time, births surpassed deaths as the leading growth factor in the United States’ Hispanic population. Simply put, the community of American Hispanics has grown more established than ever, and the bad U.S. economy has reduced the numbers of Latino immigrants coming here.
Researchers at the Pew Hispanic Center came to these conclusions after studying U.S. Census Bureau data from the last decade. The researchers found the trends are especially evident among Mexican Americans, the largest of all Hispanic groups.
According to the Pew study, the Mexican-American population grew by 7.2 million as a result of births between 2000 and 2010. It grew 4.2 million as a result of new immigrant arrivals.
The change in growth factors is a reversal of a trend from the previous two decades when the population grew mostly because of people migrating into the country, not from births. The number of Mexican American births rose from 2.7 million in the 1980s to 7.2 million from 2000-10.
The Pew researchers say that the wave of immigrants that brought 10 million Mexicans to the United States since 1970 has evolved into an established population with a surging birth rate. Between 2006 and 2010, about 53% of all Mexican-American births were to Mexican immigrant parents, according to the study.
This growing population is in its prime child-bearing years. Cultural and religious reasons also contribute to larger families and higher fertility rates.
While young immigrant families were getting bigger in the United States, the motivation for people in Mexico to come here diminished. Most Mexican migrants come here for economic reasons. When the U.S. economy began its decline into recession in 2007, jobs dried up and Mexican workers stopped coming. Many of them who were already in the United States returned home.
The Pew researchers analyzed Mexican government data and found the number of Mexicans annually leaving for the United States declined from more than 1 million in 2006 to 404,000 in 2010, a 60% decline.
During this period, the politics shifted in Washington as hopes for passing a comprehensive immigration reform bill died in Congress. With it, the hope of a guest-worker program that would let Mexican immigrants fill U.S. jobs legally also died. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security stepped up its presence along the U.S.-Mexico border, another reason for the reduction in the number of migrants.
With a dismal U.S. job market, aggressive border enforcement and an unfavorable political climate, tens of thousands of Mexicans who would have come here in better times stayed home instead.
The Pew study found that the number of Mexican arrives fell from 4.7 million in the 1990s to 4.2 million in the 2000s. Meanwhile, the Mexican-American population was growing rapidly, however. New births accounted for 63% of the 11.2 million increase from 2000 to 2010.
Mexican-Americans numbered 31.8 million in 2010. They comprise 63% of the U.S. Hispanic population, according to the Census Bureau, and 10 % of the total U.S. population. A Pew survey found that 39% of Mexican-Americans, or 12.4 million, are immigrants.
In terms of political clout, Hispanics and especially Mexican-Americans are a force for the future, and the 2012 elections. The numbers of Mexican-Americans who are eligible to vote is increasing as the population matures.
Hispanic babies born on U.S. soil who gained automatic citizenship two decades ago are old enough to cast ballots now. Hundreds of thousands more have gained citizenship through naturalization. Most notably in the southwestern states, Mexican-Americans are gaining a voice that will be heard.
