The Arizona Republic
December 10, 2008

Returning migrants find Mexico, themselves unready to adapt

“The schools there (in the United States), they take the children in a bus and give them food, books, everything,” he said. “Here, you walk to school and you get nothing.”

We have to face the possibility of a very large number of Mexicans (coming home),” Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa said last month.

The trend eventually could ease some of the strain that illegal immigrants place on services such as schools and hospitals in U.S. border areas, said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, a liberal Washington, D.C., think tank.

The impact in Mexico could be enormous because the country has long depended on emigration as a kind of safety valve for the economy, which doesn’t produce enough jobs for those entering the labor force. Espinosa said the government is trying to prepare schools and social agencies for an influx of poor migrants.

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