Politicians on both sides of the partisan divide in the U.S. rarely miss a chance to beat the drums over the perils of the immigrant tide and the imperative to "secure our borders." That might be a good idea. With the world's largest economy on a slide, the dream of making America is looking less lustrous every day, and now the U.S. risks seeing one of its most dynamic and creative sources of human capital blow away with the prairie dust.
There are already troubling signs. A recent study by the Inter-American Development Bank reports that the flow of dollars Latin American and Caribbean immigrants send back home is slackening. In 2007, Latins living in the U.S. remitted $66 billion to their native countries. That's not half bad (a record amount, in fact) but what drew the Bank's attention was the modest 7 percent increase over the previous year. Until then the flow of dollars back home had been expanding at double digit rates every year. Last year the nominal sum of incoming migrant dollars actually fell in Brazil, from $7.4 billion to $7.1 billion.
The analysts are still mulling the numbers, but a likely factor is the collapse last year of immigration reform efforts in the U.S. Congress, which has made it more difficult for undocumented migrants to get working papers or residency. Another is the weakening U.S. economy, which has dried up the service and construction jobs that most immigrants flock to and also heightened discrimination, as native U.S. workers drop into a xenophobic crouch.
But a growing reason for the drought in remittances is that many immigrants may simply be calling it quits. With jobs evaporating and dollar wages buying fewer and fewer pesos, reais, escudos and bolivars, the onetime golden shores for newcomers are turning to sand. No wonder thousands of Brazilians in Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York are packing their bags and heading south. Even Mexicans are reported to be opting for "self deportation" as opportunities evaporate stateside.
This doesn't necessarily mean failure. While the U.S. founders, most other economies in the Americas are if not "decoupling" from the mothership then holding up gamely in headwinds. Brazil, which has exported tens of thousands of workers over the years, is on target to grow by 5-6 percent this year. The Argentine and Venezuelan economies are topping 8 percent growth (though inflation threatens both). Colombia, Peru and Chile are looking solid. That is encouraging news for the less fortunate parts of the hemisphere and at least partial compensation for the hole in the national coffers left by tumbling remittances, which for many nations are more important than official international foreign aid.
How beneficial the exodus will be the for the gringos is another question. For all the political huff over invading aliens filching employment and opportunities, the U.S. economy owes its foreigners, legal or not, a considerable debt. They shovel, sweep, serve and tidy up in jobs many pedigreed Americans would hold their noses over. At last count (2006) foreigners ran firms that kicked in 6 percent of U.S. GDP and 14 percent of all business spending on research and development. They also reinvested half their revenues locally ($71 billion), paid fully 13 percent of national taxes and generated one of ten private sector jobs in the U.S..
Alien agitprop? Hardly. I lifted those numbers from a Feb. 28 speech by David McCormick, the U.S. undersecretary of Treasury for International affairs. That's one that got by the border patrol.
