Study: 100,000 Hispanics Left Arizona After SB1070

A new study suggests there may be 100,000 fewer Hispanics in Arizona than there were before the debate over the state’s tough new immigration law earlier this year.

BBVA Bancomer Research, which did the study, worked with figures from the U.S. Current Population Survey. The study says the decline could be due to the law known as SB1070, which partly entered into effect in July, or to Arizona’s difficult economic situation.

The study released Wednesday also cites Mexican government figures as saying that 23,380 Mexicans returned from Arizona to Mexico between June and September.

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In that and other studies released at the Global Forum on Migration and Development in the Pacific coast resort of Puerto Vallarta, BBVA Bancomer Research–part of the financial group of the same name–estimated that probably about 720,000 Mexican migrants were unemployed in the United States when the study concluded in late October.

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A controversial immigration law in Arizona has likely provoked the voluntary departure of 100,000 Hispanics from the southern US state, according to a study released Wednesday.

“Several months after the law was applied, it’s possible to observe a lower number of Hispanics in that area of America. We estimate there are 100,000 less Hispanics compared to the start of 2010,” said the report by the private BBVA Bancomer foundation, released at the two-day Global Forum on Migration and Development, in the Pacific resort of Puerto Vallarta.

“It’s possible that this reduction is largely due to the potential application of the law,” the report said.

It was unclear where those who left Arizona had gone, but most were probably elsewhere in the United States, it added.

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About 30 percent of Arizona’s 6.6 million people are Hispanic, according to US census data. One third of them are foreign born, including the estimated 460,000 illegal immigrants in the state.