Passengers wait to board a bus bound for Mexico at Los Paisanos Bus Company on a recent Friday evening. View photo »

Jose Pepe Hernandez gets a hug from a friend before boarding a bus bound for Mexico at Los Paisanos Bus Company. Hernandez is returning to Mexico to live because he cannot find work in residential construction. View photo »

Passengers board a bus bound for Mexico at Los Paisanos Bus Company. The bus leaves Fremont Street on a trip which goes through El Paso into Mexico. View photo »

Jose Pepe Hernandez stands in a bus bound for Mexico at Los Paisanos Bus Company. Hernandez is returning to Mexico to live because he cannot find work in residential construction. View photo »

The El Paso - Limousine Express pulls away from a downtown bus station. The manager at this station estimates that 100 people a week are buying one-way tickets to Mexico. They're going home because they can't find work building homes in the Las Vegas Valley. View photo »

Teller Edith Gonzalez helps Ruben Rios, left, and Ruben Martinez wire money to Mexico at a money order store on Bonanza Road. Martinez, a construction worker, has seen his paycheck go from $2,800 a month to $600 a month, and he's sending less money home to Hidalgo. View photo »

Broncos, a place where people can wire money to Mexico, has seen business decrease in the past few months. View photo »

Erin Douthett has no customers to serve around 5 p.m. on a recent Friday at Club Barajas, a bar on the west side of Las Vegas that caters to Hispanic construction workers. Liquor sales are a third of what they were half a year ago, and poker machines bring in a fourth as much. View photo »

Homebuilders Juan Rodriguez, from left, Jose Sanchez and Jose Castaneda stand outside Los Paisanos Bus Company after saying goodbye to two friends who are going home to Mexico because there's no work in the Las Vegas Valley. "You come here with so much hope and it's hard to go back with empty hands," Castaneda says, explaining what it's like to get on that bus. But the three say they are weeks away from making the same decision. View photo »

Pedro Godinez, who has been working construction in Las Vegas for seven years, has seen his work hours diminish from 40 to 28 hours a week. View photo »

After five years in landscaping and cement work, Margarit Trujillo has not had work for one year. View photo »

Porfirio Hernandez, from left, and Pascual Martinez sing a prayer during services at Amistad Cristiana church in Las Vegas. Martinez is earning a fourth of what he did a year ago and has moved with his family of five into a trailer the church owns. View photo »

JoElda May plays with her daughter, Jade, 4, during services at Amistad Cristiana church. May's husband had to seek work in Seattle for six months late last year after work dried up in homebuilding. The separation proved too hard and now he's back, out of work. View photo »