More Families Returning to Mexico Over U.S. Immigration Laws, According to Report

It appears that more undocumented Mexican immigrants and their families are returning to Mexico because they feel they are persecuted in U.S. states such as Arizona, according to a new CNN report.

While many Mexicans have come to the United States seeking a better life for themselves and their families, a number of them are reverse migrating back into Mexico over the last few years.

A Pew Hispanic Center study released earlier this year highlights that trend.

From  2005 to 2010, roughly 1.4 million Mexicans immigrated to the U.S., down by more than half from the 3 million who came to the United States in 1995 to 2000, according to the center's statistics.

At the same time, the number of Mexicans and their children coming from the U.S. to Mexico between 2005 and 2010 rose to 1.4 million--which is double the number who had done so in the five-year period a decade before. 

While most of that group returned to Mexico voluntarily, between five to 35 percent of that 1.4 million block--deemed "a significant minority" by the Center--were deported and remained in Mexico. 

Maria Castellanos, who lived in Arizona with her 10-year-old son, Oscar, was one of those people who returned to Mexico after Arizona passed the strictest immigration laws in the nation in 2010. Afterwards, Maria said, life wasn't the same for her or her family.

"We would feel persecuted and harassed," Maria told CNN. "We felt bad. It was nerve-wracking, especially when we had to go outside to go to work."

Now studying in northern Mexico, Oscar, who speaks fluent English, was born in Arizona and is a U.S. citizen, has found it hard to adjust to a new life in a new country. When asked by CNN about what was the hardest to adjust to, the boy said that one of his hardest challenges is having "to speak another language."

Since winning re-election this month--in part because of a record amount of Latino voters backing him at the polls--President Obama has pledged to work on comprehensive immigration reform, something that he did not address during his first term. Both Obama and Mexico's President-elect Enrique Pena Nieto sat down this week to talk about working together on immigration reform.