Reversing course for survival

Many immigrants have gone back to their home countries after being laid off their jobs in the U.S. The economy is no better there, and they are trying to find work to support their families. - - Donna Poisl

As jobs in the U.S. dry up, immigrants return home to work for a fraction of the pay — and many never leave Mexico at all

By JAMES PINKERTON

SAN MIGUEL de ALLENDE, MEXICO — A few miles outside this Mexican resort city, Jose Nicolas Pichardo laid the stone foundation of a new store. The 56-year-old is glad to have the job, but he makes a fraction of the $11 an hour he earned in Texas.

“I was working in Houston doing stonework like here, but at apartments,” said Pichardo, whose 22-year-old son still lives in Houston. “What they pay me here — 200 pesos a day — I earned in two hours in Houston.”

Pichardo said he is not likely to make the dangerous journey to cross the Texas-Mexico border since he has restarted his life in his home state of Guanajuato. He returned home in September 2007 after an arrest on immigration charges, and now can’t afford the expensive smuggling fees to cross the border. He’s also heard work is increasingly scarce.
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