Ecuador Tries to Lure Emigrants Home

[Danno 1,228]

Ecuador Tries to Lure Emigrants Home

By SAM DOLNICK

From a spare, second-floor office in Queens, an outpost of the Ecuadorean government offers English classes, computer training and after-school programs to immigrants building new lives in New York City. But these days, the office’s busiest program works in the opposite direction — helping Ecuadoreans go home.

The program, Welcome Home, offers an array of incentives to lure immigrants back to Ecuador: money to start new businesses, one-way airplane tickets and a waiver on import taxes and fees on any belongings they take home.

In a battered American economy with high unemployment rates, a rising number of people are accepting the offer, Ecuadorean officials say.

The motives of the migrants vary. Some have been unable to find work; some miss their families, or want to retire at home. Some have been here for decades, while others have just arrived.

Victor Lopez, 49, is preparing to leave after 21 years. The decision was so hard, he said, that he was “still shaking” as he visited the government office to fill out paperwork.

Mr. Lopez is leaving for many reasons — his hours as a restaurant manager were cut, he is tired of waiting for a green card, he has missed enough of his children’s lives — but the economy, he says, was the final straw. “Whatever I’m making, I’m using to pay the bills,” he said. “I can work to survive over there, and there I can be surrounded by all my family.”

Ecuador is not the only nation to offer aid to returning countrymen. Many nations, including Ethiopia, Jamaica and Morocco, waive sizable import taxes on goods brought back. Some, like El Salvador and Mexico, offer bus fare and educational assistance to returning people deported from other countries.

But immigration experts say Ecuador stands out for its aggressive promotion of its campaign — in New York, it advertises in bus-stop shelters and on Spanish-language television — and for its special ministry dedicated to migrant affairs.

By no means has the program ignited an exodus. The Ecuadorean population in New York State has risen steadily over the past decade, to an estimated 175,000. But the ranks of those leaving have grown, too. Last year, the Queens office assisted 347 people with tax waivers as they left the country, more than twice as many as in 2008.

Pablo Calle runs the local arm of the program from the Casa Ecuatoriana in the Corona section of Queens. He said the office had been overwhelmed with requests for help moving back.

One recent morning, more than a dozen people — everyone who came through the front door except a deliveryman — wanted to register for the program or learn more about it.

“Everybody comes here,” Mr. Calle said as the lobby chairs began to fill up.

Many in this steady stream of people, young and old, said they were finished with the scramble of immigrant life.

Luis Paramo, 32, a truck driver, said his work had dried up over the past two years. After seven years in this country, he said, he and his wife, Isabel, are planning to return to his family’s home in central Ecuador. They said many friends in New York had already gone back.

“Here, you have to pay rent, buy food,” Mr. Paramo said. “There, I’m with family, so it’s easier. I feel happy that I’m going home, but I’m scared to begin again.”

Welcome Home was started in 2007 by Ecuador’s president, Rafael Correa, a left-leaning economist. He had lived in Belgium and studied in the United States, and he made reaching out to expatriates a crucial plank of his election campaigns.

Mr. Calle, of the Welcome Home office in Queens, described the program as a much-needed service for weary immigrants, but also as a way to develop Ecuador, a poor Andean nation that is enjoying its most stable economic and political climate in years.

“People left because of a lack of opportunity,” Mr. Calle said. “To go back, we want to give them an opportunity to develop the country and their communities.”

One of the Ecuadorean government’s lures is the Cucayo Fund, which has provided entrepreneurs with seed money — up to $50,000 — to start more than 1,900 businesses, officials said.

Mr. Lopez, the departing restaurant manager, plans to apply for a Cucayo grant and open a hotel in the city of Cuenca. But even if he does not get the money, he said, it is time to leave New York.

Since the recession began, his health benefits have been cut, his pay has dropped and his workload has increased. If he loses his job, he said, he doubts he will find another. And if the recession deepens, he fears losing what he has worked so long to achieve. Back home, he can meet his four grandchildren, and see his three sons for the first time in a decade.

“I cannot save money now,” he said. “The bills are the same, but the income is not the same.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/03/nyregion/03ecuador.html?_r=3&partner=rss&emc=rss

[^_^ 5,021]

“Whatever I’m making, I’m using to pay the bills,” he said. “I can work to survive over there, and there I can be surrounded by all my family.”

Totally off-topic, but I've heard the exact same sentiments expressed by colleagues who are moving 'back' to Kentucky or Texas or wherever. These are people who grew up there, who have parents and extended family there, and moved to NYC area years ago to make money. And are now finding that with the tax burden being what it is.. they're not saving a dime.

Edited December 6, 2010 by \

[scandal 951]

I've heard some Australians are even considering a return back Down Under, given how shitty they have it here.

[Ban Hammer 13,656]

I've heard some Australians are even considering a return back Down Under, given how shitty they have it here.

did you know the internet was invented in australia? it's the LAN down under.

[TBoneTX 46,293]

did you know the internet was invented in australia? it's the LAN down under.

And coronary artery disease was invented in, uh, Greece, si man.