Frontera NorteSur reports that the amount of remittance money sent to Mexico by Mexicans residing in the United States has surpassed Mexican oil revenues. This gives the Mexican government even more incentive to meddle in the U.S. to keep the gates open, so Mexicans can continue to migrate at will to the United States.

Therefore, we can expect any attempt, or even proposal, by Trump or anybody else, to control the border, reduce Mexican immigration (legal or illegal) or eliminate the anchor baby loophole to be met by ferocious opposition by the Mexican elite and ruling class. That's a given. Of course, their rhetoric is couched in the terms of human rights, spiced liberally with accusations of "racism, etc", but the bottom line is the Mexican elite has powerful incentives to keep the country's northern border open.

We need to ignore their screechings (but keep an eye on their meddling) and get on with what's right for America.

From Frontera NorteSur:

For the first time in 15 years, dollars sent home by Mexicans working in the United States have surpassed the value of Mexico’s oil exports. According to the central Bank of Mexico, the flow of migrant remittances from the U.S. reached $14.3 billion from January to July of this year. In contrast, money earned from oil exports came to about $12.2 billion during the same time period, according to the Pemex national oil company.

Alfredo Salgado Torres and Juan Jose Li Ng, analysts for the BBVA-Bancomer bank, attributed a spike in remittances to better conditions in the U.S. economy, exemplified by improved employment in states with large immigrant populations like Texas and California, as well as the ongoing peso devaluation that provides greater incentives for migrants to send money to their loved ones back home.

The average remittance received in Mexico for the January-July time frame totaled $296, an amount slightly higher than for the comparable period in 2014. However, dollars buy more in Mexico this year than they did last year.

The historic plunge of the peso, “could revalue the sending of money to Mexico and explain the greater frequency of (money) transfers as well as the increase in the average remittance in July,” Salgado and Li Ng said.

Low oil prices also factor greatly into the remittances/oil equation.

See my recent Mexidata article The Mexican Economy is in the Doldrums.

July’s capture of $2.23 billion in migrant remittances exceeded Bloomberg’s expectation of $2.1 billion for the month. For the first seven months of the year, migrant remittances in Mexico increased 4.5 percent in comparison with the same period last year. Sources: La Jornada, September 2, 2015. Article by Roberto Gonzalez Amador. El Diario de Juarez/Reforma, September 1, 2015.

Migrant Dollars More Valuable than Black Gold Frontera NorteSur, September 3, 2015)