May 4, 2008 (LPAC)--About 20% of all foreign-born Hispanics employed in the U.S. were working in the construction sector in 2006; among recent arrivals (since 2000), the percentage was even higher, at 30%. Guess what happened then?

As a result of the global financial blowout, and the resulting U.S. mortgage/housing crisis, about a half-million jobs disappeared in construction between 2006 and the first quarter of 2008. Of those, Hispanics lost 324,000 jobs.

Overall, according to the IADB survey, 40% of Hispanic workers are now earning less than they did in 2007, and another 33% are earning the same. That means that nearly three-quarters of all Hispanics today earn the same or less than they did in 2007, while the price of food, gasoline, housing and other essentials has skyrocketed as a result of the hyperinflationary blowout--meaning that real wages have collapsed for 73% of these workers.

Small wonder, then, that 3 million workers can no longer send any money back home.

Add to this the rise of fascist anti-immigrant hysteria--and local and state legislation--in the U.S., and you have an explosive mix. The Pew Hispanic Center reports that fully half of the 47 million Hispanics in the U.S. (including foreign-born and U.S.-born) fear deportation either of themselves, a family member, or a friend. And the IADB says that 28% of Ibero-American born adults surveyed are thinking of returning to their countries of origin. LaRouchePAC field organizing across the U.S. indicates that the percentages of those planning to return are probably substantially higher than that, as the crisis worsens.