The New York Times has a piece today on the incentives Ecuador is offering to its citizens to return to their homelands. The problem, as pointed out in the article, is that although many people want to return, they probably won’t because the economy there is very weak.
“I have a wife and three sons in Ecuador,†said Cesar Tella, a 23-year-old waiter who on a recent afternoon was sitting in the waiting room of an American branch of Banco del Austro, an Ecuadorean bank. Mr. Tella has not seen his family in five years. “We talk three times a week,†he said, “and every time, they ask me when I’m coming home.â€
If Mr. Tella stays away, it is for an obvious reason: Ecuador’s economy has been a shambles since the late 1990s, when the banking system collapsed and inflation skyrocketed. Ecuador’s poverty rate last year was more than 38 percent, and unemployment is 8.8 percent, nearly double the rate in the United States. Home prices and utility rates in Ecuador can approach American levels, but the average wage is far lower.
“I was a nurse, and I was making $150 a month,†said Erika Iniguez, 27, who came from Ecuador in July and is taking an English class near Roosevelt Avenue. “And the wages don’t go up.â€
For this reason, many Ecuadorean New Yorkers say Mr. Correa’s plan will fail.
It seems to me that if the Republicans are so fired up about the influx of undocumented immigrants, they should stop cutting off or stifling programs that help these countries and start returning aid and targeting programs that will help strengthen there economies. People don’t want to leave their countries but they will if there is a better way to provide for their families. It’s for exactly that reason that people will also choose to stay here.
