Experts say the Washington region’s immigrant population remains stable, even as an economic downturn and tougher enforcement have caused the first recent decreases in illegal immigration nationally.
National organizations have seen the number of illegal immigrants decrease, with estimates ranging from 500,000 to 1.3 million fewer people in the United States illegally. But locally, factors from a high demand for hospitality workers for the upcoming inauguration to the difficulty of returning home seem to be keeping immigrants here.
An October report from the Pew Hispanic Center said there were roughly 11.9 million illegal immigrants living in the United States in March 2008, down 500,000 people from the 12.4 million population estimate it reported in 2007.
The study said it was the first time in a decade that more immigrants were entering the country legally than illegally.
From 2000 to 2004, about 800,000 illegal immigrants a year entered the United States, but now the numbers have dropped to 500,000 a year, the report says. Meanwhile, legal immigration remains steady with about 650,000 authorized immigrants moving here each year.
Leaders of local immigrant advocacy groups such as CASA de Maryland and Virginia’s Tenants and Workers United say they’ve heard reports of immigrants heading home in other parts of the country, but they’re not seeing it here. Neither group checks the immigration status of the people they work with, so they can’t speak specifically about illegal immigrants, but they can discuss trends in the area’s immigrant community as a whole.
“The answer is a lot of people talk about it in a wishful way,” said Mario Quiroz, spokesman for CASA de Maryland. “They say, ‘I’m going to go home to be with my family,’ but in actuality, I have only seen one family who’s actually left.”
Quiroz says CASA, which operates day labor centers throughout Maryland, is seeing a 20 percent or so increase in those looking for work.
“Whatever conditions you have here are still probably better than what they have at home,” Quiroz said. “People used to send $300, $400, $500 a month back home; now they’re just saying, ‘Well, we’re having a bad time here too’ and not sending what they used to send.”
The Center for Immigration Studies, which favors stricter controls on all immigration, says the decline in the U.S. illegal immigrant population predates the current economic slump. The group reports a net loss of about 1.3 million illegal immigrants between August 2007 and May 2008, when the population slid from 12.5 million to 11.2 million.
Mark Krikorian, the center’s executive director, said he believes both the economic recession and increased enforcement efforts are causing the decline.
“The bad economy is not necessarily a self-correcting phenomenon for illegal immigration,” Krikorian said. “They’re not just going to leave because the housing market is tanking here when things are bad in their home country too, so increased enforcement is playing a role as well.”
Jon Liss, executive director of Fairfax County’s Tenants and Workers United, a day laborer assistance group, attributed the stability in the local immigrant population in part to the global scale of the economic slowdown.
“People know if the U.S. sneezes, the fact is Latin America probably has the flu,” Liss said.
Roy Beck, executive director of Numbers USA, a group that seeks to reduce immigration, said some illegal immigrants living in this area may be filling an increased demand for food service and hotel workers, in anticipation of the inauguration crowds, but added he believes eventually this region will also see a decline in the illegal immigrant population.
“There are some extra things going on here for a few months, but at the end of the day people will come for $15-an-hour construction jobs, but they won’t remain here for $7- or $8-an-hour service jobs,” Beck said. “When times are hard, the pull of home is much stronger.”
Prince William County Chairman Corey Stewart, who created one of the nation’s toughest local crackdowns on illegal immigration, said his county has already seen a dramatic drop in the number of estimated illegal immigrants.
He acknowledges, however, that there is no official way to track that and he’s relying on anecdotal information and census data about foreign-born residents in general, which show Prince William has lost 7 percent of its total immigrant population. He adds that Fairfax County has had a comparable increase in its foreign-born population and he can’t guarantee Prince William policies have resulted in illegal immigrants actually going home.
“The reality is illegal immigration knows no county boundaries; if we could do it regionally, we would be much more effective,” Stewart said.
