CNN News Update (7-23-2009 1 AM EDT) (Radio Clip)
Skip to the 2:00 minute mark to hear Dr. FitzGerald’s comments.

… People in Mexico are very aware that there’s an economic crisis in the U.S. and that there are far fewer jobs,” says David FitzGerald, associate director of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at the University of California-San Diego.
In January, he interviewed people in the Mexican town of Tunkás. “Most people in the last year or so have put off their plans to migrate to the U.S.,” he says …  Read full article »

…New data, from a research team led by Wayne Cornelius, Director of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at the University of California, San  Diego, indicates that the condition of the U.S. economy is more significant in explaining the recent decline in border apprehensions than any of the enforcement-only measures that have been implemented to date….Read full article »

With the U.S. in a deep recession, Mexico has been preparing for an influx of returning migrants. But there hasn’t been one. Dan Grech reports many Mexican migrants still prefer to ride out the economic storm in the states. Full audio »

Click here to download the one-on-interview with former CCIS Director, Dr. Wayne Cornelius.

…When a team of researchers from the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at UCSD interviewed more than 1,000 people from a small town in the Mexican state of YucatÁn, they found that about 25 percent fewer people are considering crossing this year, compared to a similar study they did three years ago. The researchers also found that 90 percent of those interviewed said it was getting harder to find gainful employment in the United States… Read full article »

Read the extended interview here »

…”Migrants these days go where the non-agricultural jobs are, and where their relatives have taken up residence,” said Wayne Cornelius, director of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at the University of California San Diego. “San Diego’s employment base is not particularly attractive these days, especially when the effects of family networks are factored in…” Read full article »

…An eye opener: Wayne and his research team also found that U.S. Immigration enforcement away from the border area does not scare undocumented workers to return to Mexico. There is not yet enough enforcement activity to induce most employers who use this kind of labor to stop hiring.
More than three out of five undocumented migrants interviewed by Wayne and his team in early 2009 reported that their U.S. employer probably actually knew, or knew for sure, that they were unauthorized to work in the U.S. But they were still hired.
Wayne’s research shows that experiencing a workplace raid — or having …

…But Wayne Cornelius, the director of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at the University of California, San Diego, predicted that if the United States job market revived, border enforcement would become much less of a deterrent.
The center has documented the causes of the decrease in Mexican migration though interviews this year with more than 1,000 Mexicans in California and in a Yucatán village that has been a source of migrants. In the interviews, all of the Mexicans who did set out from Yucatán for the United States reported that they eventually succeeded in crossing.
Mexicans are “not forgoing migration forever,” …