More immigrants from Mexico are leaving the United States than coming into the country, according to a report published Thursday by the Pew Research Center, a finding that marks the end of the largest wave of immigration from a single country in U.S. history.
The shift marks the first time since immigration from the neighboring nation began to rise in the 1970s that fewer Mexicans came into America than returned home, the Pew report found. The reversal is primarily the result of a steep drop in Mexicans coming into the country.
While the border debate, especially among the Republican candidates for the presidential nomination, has focused on extending walls and expanding other enforcement measures, the Pew report indicates that stepped-up border measures under the Obama administration have already helped significantly in reducing illegal crossings by Mexicans.
"We know that crossings are definitely down, and we also know it is much more difficult and costly to cross now than it used to be," said Ana Gonzalez-Barrera, a Pew research associate who is the author of the report. The slow recovery after the 2008 recession, particularly in construction and other low-paying jobs where many Mexicans had worked, is also a factor, she said.
Using census data from both the United States and Mexico, the Pew report found that from 2009 to 2014, slightly more than 1 million Mexicans and their families — including about 100,000 children younger than 5 years old who were American citizens born in the United States — returned to live in Mexico. In the same period, an estimated 870,000 Mexicans came here, resulting in an outflow of about 140,000.
"We think Mexican migration is definitely in a new phase, and it will not return to the levels it once had," Gonzalez-Barrera said.
Last year, the number of Mexicans caught crossing the border illegally — an imperfect but still widely used indicator of overall illegal crossings — dropped to 230,000, according to official figures, the lowest level since 1971.
The end of the influx has led to a decline in the numbers of Mexican immigrants in the United States, Pew reported, to 11.7 million in 2014, down from a peak of 12.8 million in 2007. Most of the decline can be attributed to a drop in the number of Mexicans here illegally, to 5.6 million last year from an estimated 6.9 million in 2007. Mexicans are by far the largest nationality among undocumented immigrants.
Reviewing Mexican census data, Pew reported that most Mexicans left the United States "of their own accord," with about 6 in 10 migrants who returned home saying they were reuniting with family members. About 6 percent said they had found jobs there.
Another 14 percent said they had been deported. Gonzalez-Barrera said that figure might not reflect all Mexican residents expelled by U.S. authorities, because many Mexican deportees have said they crossed again illegally to return to families or jobs in the United States.
In the 50-year wave of migration since 1965, more than 16 million Mexicans came here, far more than from any other country, Pew has reported. Mexicans are still the largest immigrant group in the country.
But in recent years, the country has seen a surge in immigrants from Asia, primarily China and India. China is pulling up to Mexico, but Pew found that it was not clear from current data whether China has become the leading immigrant country.
"Asian immigrants are rising, and they are mostly coming here legally," Gonzalez-Barrera said. "It is going to bring big changes in the composition of American immigration."