April 19, 2017
Mexico
to mejicanos: 'Tu casa' is still 'tu casa'
Most
of you may have heard the expression: "Mi casa tu casa". It's the
ultimate expression of hospitality in Spanish. It means my home is your home.
It's often used when you visit someone's home.
Well.
Mexico is changing it a bit to "tu casa tu casa", or your home is
still your home.
Don't
look now but Mexicans are going home and President Pena-Nieto went to the
airport to greet them:
Mexico’s
president dashed to the airport to greet a planeload of deportees.
The
education minister rushed to the Texas border to meet Mexicans being kicked out
of the United States.
Mexico
City’s labor secretary is urging companies to hire migrants who abruptly find
themselves sent back home.
“Unlike
what’s happening in the United States, this is your home,” the labor secretary,
Amalia GarcĂa, told deportees in the audience at a recent event for the city’s
jobs programs.
For
years, as the Obama administration sent back thousands of Mexicans each week
-- more than two million altogether -- Mexico’s establishment barely
reacted. All but invisible, the deportees were left to cope on their own with
divided families, uncertain job prospects and the poverty that had pushed so
many north in the first place.
Now,
Mexican politicians are eagerly embracing them, portraying deportees as the
embodiment of President Trump’s hostility toward their country and their people
-- even though deportations of Mexican citizens actually fell in the
opening months of his term.
Frankly,
this is pure cosmetics.
First,
no one welcomed the millions deported by the Obama administration. No one in
the Mexican political class called Obama a "racista" or "anti-mejicano".
Instead,
they said nothing publicly and went along, for whatever reason. This is not
about greeting the new arrivals. This is about President Trump, the only thing
that all parties in Mexico agree on.
As
the article points, returning is not as easy as it sounds. The new arrivals
need jobs and schools. Can Mexico provide the new arrivals with new jobs or
schools? No simple answers! Why do you think they left in the first place?
Second,
the real issue is the 10 or so million who are here sending funds back home.
They are still sending the money, as we see in this CNN report:
Between
January and November of 2016, $24.6 billion flowed back to the pockets of
Mexicans from friends and relatives living overseas, according to Mexico's
central bank.
That's
even higher than what Mexico earns from its oil exports -- $23.2 billion in 2015.
And
almost all of that cash comes from the U.S.
The
average remittance from Mexico is about $300.
Essentially,
Mexico's most lucrative natural resource are the people who leave home.
Remittances
help drive Mexico's economy, from paying for new home construction to schools,
especially in low-income areas.
The
cash transfers from the U.S. have also been growing faster than wages and
inflation.
This
is the group that Mexico will have a lot of trouble welcoming back.
Unfortunately, Mexico has become so dependent on these billions of dollars that
the only thing they can hope for is that they are legalized in the U.S. and
continue the remittances.
"Tu
casa tu casa"! We will see how long that lasts!
P.S.
You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter.
They claim all of North America for Mexico!
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