I quibble at ‘surprising,’ mind you:
The extraordinary Mexican migration that delivered millions of illegal immigrants to the United States over the past 30 years has sputtered to a trickle, and research points to a surprising cause: unheralded changes in Mexico that have made staying home more attractive.
And perhaps ’cause’ instead of ’causes:’ the article makes it clear that there are a bunch of unrelated circumstances involved, ranging from lower family size to increasing Mexican GDP to skyrocketing narco-terrorist-related activity on the border to generally improved services to a rather hostile environment to small businesses in the USA to a somewhat easier path to getting legal work visas. The short version? The suggestion is that the illegal alien population in America is pretty much stagnant right now*. And, since it’s the New York Times that we’re talking about, the subtitle writes itself:
Democrats, professional activists hardest hit**.
Moe Lane
*Which does not mean that we don’t have to build that damned fence, now. If only because I’d like to make it as hard as possible for narcotics smugglers to get that stuff across the border.
**See, this is why you shouldn’t rely on demographic trends to be an adequate substitute for good policy decisions. You end up gambling your political fortunes on your ability to predict the future.