Flight from Mexico: Experts vary on migration's impact on border, El Paso

Once a vibrant border city of almost 2 million people with a flourishing maquiladora industry, thousands of mom-and-pop shops and world-class restaurants, Juárez has become a ghost of its former self in the last five years with more than 7,000 murders in the Mexican government's failed war against organized crime and drug cartels. The relentless violence terrorizing the desert city has caused a mass exodus of Mexican middle-class families, businesses and professionals to El Paso, Juárez's sister city across the Rio Grande, to other areas in the United States and to safer places within Mexico. Although the exodus to the United States -- which includes Mexicans with U.S. citizenship or visas -- is difficult to quantify, a review of U.S. and Mexican government data shows the impact is significant: # In the last five years, some 10,000 small businesses in Juárez have closed, with some relocating to El Paso and other parts of the U.S. # One in four dwellings in Juárez are currently vacant. In the five-year period between 2001 and 2005, the U.S. granted 7,603 business and investor visas to Mexicans. In the following five years, after Mexican President Felipe Calderón declared war on the drug cartels, the number more than quadrupled to 31,068...more