Was the rise in EU mobility responsible for drop in E. European migration to US/Can?

[Capsicum]

Eastern European immigration (e.g. Polish, Romanian, Ukrainian etc.) was still noticeable post-Communism in the 90s. There were still a lot of first generation immigrants from these places in North American cities like Chicago, Toronto, New York city etc.

But there's noticeably less 21st century eastern European migration to North America (US and Canada) though not obviously none (the cliche of a Russian or eastern European coder or tech immigrant in Silicon Valley, US academia etc. is still a trope).

However, the 21st century still had stereotypes about e.g. Polish plumbers in the UK (see the talk about stereotypes and Brexit).

A question then arises is did a lot of would-be Eastern European migrants shift their target destination from across the Atlantic to the shorter trip to western Europe (and also the UK)?

In the absence of such a free level of mobility, I'm wondering would places across North America like Chicago, Toronto, NYC and maybe others had gotten much more continuous eastern European migration?

On the other hand, part of this might just be due to E. Europe getting richer. Places like South Korea and even Mexico quickly stopped being huge senders of immigrants to the US into the 21st century (even if the first generation immigrant populace is still a strong presence, there is no longer an ongoing migration wave). But Europe still has countries at mid-to-lower income Asian/Latin American levels of GDP per capita that were big net migration senders.

Considering there are European countries such with GDP per capita's of $10, 000 (Mexico's level), including Balkan countries and other places like Ukraine with thousands of GDP per capita, let alone South Korea's (which is at Italy's level), and South Korean immigration still rose in the 1990s and 2000s before dropping later decades, would we have gotten many more post-Iron curtain immigrant Gen Z'ers who would be now Americans or Canadians had it not been for the UK/EU "poaching" immigrants (if you want to put it this way) or attracting them?

Furthermore, do you expect eastern European immigration to slow down even within the EU after some time in the near future, if eventually even the poorest European countries reach Greek or Czech levels of prosperity if not Italian, Korean, French or Japanese ones?

[Crawford]

Of course. Once Poles could work in say Germany without any restrictions, there was zero reason to wait many years and spend many thousands to possibly one day work overseas. They can even go home to eat mama's cooking on weekends.

I don't see any sign that Eastern Europe is approaching Western European levels of prosperity, BTW. And I don't buy your premise re. Mexican migration. There's a 10-year waitlist for legal Mexican migration. Mexican migration dropped bc of greater U.S. restrictions, not bc Mexicans don't want to work in the U.S. or bc the prosperity gap closed. It became too much of a hassle.

My wife's good friend in Mexico lost three brothers to migration. One found dead in the desert, another made it here and died under unknown circumstances, the third made it here and cut off contact with family. If there was an EU-style immigration process or at least some sane guest worker system, the family wouldn't have lost three sons.

[iheartthed]

I think it will be hard to conclude whether it is from EU mobility or increased standard of living after their home country joins the EU. You'd have to look at the rates of outmigration for the region to see if it has decreased over time (I suspect that it has).

Russians and Ukrainians come to the U.S. in greater numbers than eastern Europeans from EU member states, but many also go to EU countries too.