Mexican immigration flow to US has reversed: Study

More Mexican immigrants have returned to Mexico from the US than have migrated to the country since the end of the Great Recession, according to a new analysis.

More than 1 million Mexicans and their families have left the US between 2009 and 2014, while 870,000 Mexicans have entered the country, according to a study published Thursday by the Pew Research Center.

Most Mexicans leaving the US are doing so voluntarily to reunite with their family or to start one, the report showed.

An increasing share of Mexicans says life north of the border is neither better nor worse than life in Mexico, Pew said.

In 2012, Pew had conducted another study, concluding that net migration between the two countries was nearing zero.

Over 16 million Mexicans immigrated to the US from 1965 to 2015, more than from any other country.

Pew noted that the number of Mexicans currently living in the US stands at about 11.7 million, down from a peak of 12.8 million in 2007.

The figure Mexicans living in the US illegally has also decreased, reaching 5.6 million compared to the 6.9 million in 2007.

However, Dowell Myers, a public policy professor at the University of Southern California believes that the real reason is lack of jobs and proper employment in America that prompts migrants to leave the country.

“It’s not like all of a sudden they decided they missed their mothers,” Myers said. “The fact is, our recovery from the Great Recession has been miserable. It’s been miserable for everyone.”