LIGONIER, Ind. — The recession may have reversed the flow of immigration in northeastern Indiana as immigrants, both legal and illegal, leave the area to look for jobs, a newspaper reported.

Ligonier, about 35 miles northwest of Fort Wayne, has seen its population swell from 3,400 in 1990 to nearly 6,000 as Hispanic immigrants from Mexico and other countries have arrived. By 2000, about one in three Ligonier residents was Hispanic, census estimates show, though not all were immigrants.

But supermarket owner Armando Calvo noticed a change around October, when customers began disappearing. His sales are down 25 percent since then, he told The Journal Gazette of Fort Wayne.

They vanished from school, too.

Melanie Tijerina, English as a New Language coordinator for the West Noble County school district, said nearly 50 Hispanic students had left the district — whose enrollment is more than one-third Hispanic — by late February. That includes at least 20 from West Noble Elementary School, where she is assistant principal.

She recalls asking a young Hispanic boy why he wasn’t playing with his friends this winter and receiving the answer: “I don’t have any friends. They moved away.”

And when they moved, they left empty homes and apartments. John C. Pettit, who runs a mobile home park and rental properties that have been favored by immigrants, knows. A year ago, the occupancy in his apartments was 90 percent. Now it’s closer to 50 percent, he said.

Some who leave are heading to Mexico, some to Florida, some to Texas, he said, and they all have the same reason.

“There was work down there,” Pettit said. “There wasn’t up here.”

Stepped-up immigration enforcement also may play a part. U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement increased enforcement efforts last year, deporting nearly 350,000 illegal immigrants, a 20 percent increase from 2007.

But the economy may have made the most difference.

Tijerina has heard of families moving to Colorado and Wisconsin for work, but more are moving to Mexico.

And they take their children with them — children born and raised in the United States. Many speak Spanish, but they can’t read or write the language. Their education has been in English, Tijerina said.

“These kids don’t remember what it looks like back there,” she said. “I worry about the way our kids are going to suffer.”

Eight in 10 immigrants in Indiana are from Mexico or other Latin American countries, the center said. Many of them send money home every week. But a January survey by the Washington, D.C-based Pew Hispanic Center found among those who sent money home in the past two years, more than seven in 10 said they sent less last year than the year before.

It’s difficult to determine how many immigrants are leaving when no one knows for certain how many there are in Indiana.

Pew Hispanic Center has cited U.S. Census data and models in estimating there are about 100,000 undocumented people living in Indiana, but an official with the group told a legislative committee last year that the number could be anywhere from 75,000 to 125,000.