Last Wednesday night, when South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson shouted "You lie!" when U.S. President Barack Obama said that his health-care plan would not extend to undocumented immigrants, he revived a controversial political issue that, though always simmering in the background, has recently been overshadowed by debates over the state of the economy and Obama's response to the recession. One hopes that the president will use this ugly incident as one of his famous "teachable moments," for if any group has suffered disproportionately during this economic crisis, it's the millions of migrants who do tend to American laws, serve American food, and care for American children. And governments in their home countries and the United States must do more to protect them.
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The unemployment rate for foreign-born Latinos in the United States has risen more sharply than that of any other ethnic group, to 12 percent last month. The impact of this group's labor loss is significant because foreign-born Latinos are a vital source of low-cost workers for companies in the United States and Canada and because people across the Americas rely on them for family remittances. Although scapegoated for problems during the recession, these workers are in actuality among its worst victims. Indeed, their extended families have lost as much as $7 billion as the Great Recession has decimated their ability to make ends meet.
The brutal labor market has not just depressed earnings in migrant groups. It has also generated uncertainty and insecurity. In a nationwide survey I carried out in June, nearly a quarter of migrants in the United States said fear of losing one's job represented the worst part of the economic crisis.
Migrants are vulnerable and politically weaker than most social groups. They also suffer from poor health and limited economic resources. Not only do they face difficulties in staying employed and caring for their families, but they also face anti-immigrant sentiment -- as evidenced so clearly by the response to Obama's speech in Congress last Wednesday night. The threat of deportation is a daily reminder of their vulnerability. Being blamed for the recession only adds to their insecurity.
Worse, migrants now have a diminished ability to keep up with their obligations to their families. Among working migrants in the United States, 40 percent are sending back less money than in 2008. The average size of each remittance has declined nearly 11 percent over the past year. Migrants have dipped into their savings to keep sending money south to their families, gradually depleting them. On average, a migrant in the United States holds $1,000 less in savings than he or she did a year ago.
These hardships translate into massive aggregate drops in remittances. The value of transfers to Latin America and the Caribbean will be about $62 billion this year -- down from $69 billion in 2008. One-million households in the region will no longer receive remittances; nearly 5 million families will receive 10 percent less. In countries including El Salvador, Honduras, Haiti, and Nicaragua -- very poor countries, with the highest proportion of labor immigrants -- at least 50,000 households will not receive money from their relatives.
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