Vol. 74/No. 8      March 1, 2010

The figures include both legal and undocumented immigrants. But workers without papers are even less fully counted in government surveys, and their unemployment rate is certainly much higher. Sharp cuts in construction jobs—nearly 2 million over the past two years—have hit Mexican and Central America immigrants hard. About a third of male Mexican and Central American immigrants work in the construction industry.

The number of undocumented workers living in the United States declined by nearly 1 million last year, according to a recent Department of Homeland Security report, a reflection of the impact of the economic crisis. This is the second consecutive yearly decline. In January 2009 there were 10.8 million undocumented workers, the report said, down from 11.6 million in 2008.

This drop is bolstered by beefed-up border patrol forces and a record number of deportations—387,000—carried out by the Barack Obama administration last year.

The U.S. rulers, however, have no intention of stemming the inflow of immigrant labor, which continues to be an integral part of agriculture and manufacturing. The bosses seek instead to heighten insecurity and fear among immigrants, hoping to make them more vulnerable as a superexploitable labor pool and discourage their involvement in unionization efforts, as well as struggles for legalization and other political rights.

While some workers are returning to their country of birth, most are not, and new immigrants continue to arrive. “I haven’t had steady work for a year,” Juan Ralda, 23, a masonry worker originally from Guatemala now living in Santa Monica, California, told the Wall Street Journal. But he said he has no plans to leave as “there’s not much opportunity in my country, either.”

Another impact of the crisis is the sharp decrease in remittances immigrant workers send to their families abroad. These funds “are the second most important source of foreign currency in Mexico, after oil revenues,” stated Juan Luis Ordaz Díaz, an economist for BBVA Bancomer in Mexico City. For the first 11 months of last year remittances totaled $19.6 billion, a 16 percent drop from the same period in 2008.

Applications for temporary work visas in the United States also fell sharply last year. As of September, 46,700 people had filed for them, less than the 65,000 quota for this fiscal year. According to the World Bank, “The previous two years quotas were filled within days of the application opening.”
 
 
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