For many immigrants the recession means it’s time to head home. With unemployment among Mexican immigrants at 9.7 percent in January (up from 4.5 percent last March) Foreign Policy reports expert predictions of an exodus of nearly three million people.

Mexico’s central bank announced in late January that 20,000 of the migrants who returned for Christmas won’t go back to the United States. Officials in Mexican states such as Michoacán, Puebla, and Zacatecas, which send some of the largest numbers of migrants north each year, are predicting a mass return as more migrants give up on the land of opportunity. Fewer migrants than ever are leaving Mexico, too, according to the Mexican government, with the emigration rate dropping 46 percent since 2006.

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