Mexican net immigration is zero, O’Malley claims

US Congress needs to find common ground on immigrationThe former governor of Maryland, Martin O’Malley, claimed at the Saturday night Democratic debate in Iowa that net immigration from Mexico is zero. O’Malley made his comments during a conversation regarding immigration reform, making his case for a plan for comprehensive reform that includes a path to US citizenship.

The Pew Research Center, which has conducted analyses based upon date from the US government, claims that the number of Mexicans living in the United States has fallen over the course of the last five years. A July report from the Center reveals that 5.9 million undocumented Mexican immigrants were living in the US in 2012, one million less than five years earlier in 2007.

Pew says that illegal immigration has begun to level off in the last few years, declaring that “net migration from Mexico likely reached zero in 2010, and since then more Mexicans have left the US than have arrived.” Pew claimed back in 2012 that the Mexican net migration flow to the United States had ended and possibly even reversed, based upon both Mexican and American government data.

The University of New Hampshire, which released a study in July 2015, also found that migration to the United States from Mexico has fallen by over 50% since 2010, based on data from the Census. O’Malley has strongly criticized Donald Trump for his anti-immigrant policies, calling him an “immigrant-bashing carnival barker”.