…The federal agency in charge of patrolling the borders, Customs and Border Protection, has added 11,212 agents in the last three years. In a recent study, Wayne Cornelius, co-director of a center on migration at the University of California, San Diego, found that 28 percent of Mexican immigrants he surveyed in early 2009 had slipped into the United States through a border station, including 52 percent who were hidden inside a vehicle and 39 percent who used fraudulent documents.
“This is now a well-established mode of illegal entry,” Mr. Cornelius said, preferred by women and children and anyone else seeking to …

“…Wayne Cornelius, director emeritus of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at the University of California in San Diego, says he has conducted 4,000 interviews with illegal immigrants and potential migrants from Jalisco, Zacatecas, Oaxaca, and Yucatan in the past five years. His assessment:
‘The existing border fortifications do not keep undocumented migrants out of the US. Not even half are being apprehended on any given trip to the border, and of those who are apprehended, the success rate on the second or third try is upwards of 95 percent.’
‘There is no reason to believe that additional investments in the fence …

Writing in a recent edition of Latin American Research Review, University of Oregon anthropologist Lynn Stephen gives mention to research carried out at CCIS and documented in the book The Impacts of Border Enforcement on Mexican Immigration. In her review essay “Expanding the Borderlands: Recent Studies on the U.S.-Mexico Border” Stephen writes that “the collection of Cornelius and Lewis addresses the relationship between U.S. immigration, labor, and trade policies, and what are considered current immigration problems in the United States.”
Read the Full Review >>

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 »

John Skrentny, Director

David FitzGerald, Associate Director

After a distinguished career spanning 30 years at UCSD, Wayne Cornelius will leave his position as Director of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies (CCIS). Wayne’s commitment to Mexican immigration, politics, and development has produced a legacy of two important academic units for our campus – the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, which he founded in 1979; and CCIS, an interdisciplinary, multi-national Organized Research Unit (ORU) devoted to comparative work on international migration and refugee movements, formally established in 2002.
Effective July 1, 2009, I am pleased to appoint John Skrentny, Sociology, to the CCIS Directorship. Professor Skrentny’s distinguished …

…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 »