by Kent Paterson

For decades, money sent home by Mexicans laboring in the United States has been a key pillar of the Mexican economy. Now, scattered reports are surfacing of Mexicans sending money to support relatives in the United States hard hit by the economic crisis north of the border. Latinos, especially immigrants, are suffering a disproportionate share of the joblessness that is officially rising to engulf close to 10 percent of the overall U.S. population.

According to Chihuahua state tourism department official Demetrio Sotomayor Cuéllar, a 21 percent decrease over last year in the number of paisanos (Mexican immigrants traveling home for visits) crossing the Chihuahua border from June 26 to July 14 led officials to investigate the visitor drop. In the course of the probe, Sotomayor said, officials ran across unusual reports in the hands of Mexico’s Interior Ministry.

Much to their surprise, officials learned that some Mexicans were financially sustaining migrant relatives.

“This was something that was never seen before and now it is,” Sotomayor said.

“Family members who are employed in Mexico are sending money to those relatives who are unemployed in the United States.”

Nonetheless, it is difficult to know whether money flowing northward to unemployed Mexican immigrants constitutes a significant stream of revenue not only for migrant households but also for U.S. tax revenues that finance services used by native-born U.S. citizens. The federal interior minister has not made public the reports cited by Sotomayor, and Mexico’s National Institute of Statistics, Geography and Informatics has not started systematically compiling data on transfers on money to migrants in the US.

Confronted with a growing unemployment problem at home, most Mexicans would seem hard-pressed to send large amounts of money to El Norte.

However, alternative sources of cash are still readily available in Mexico. Pawn shops, payday-type lenders and loan sharks of all shapes and sizes are popping up everywhere; in Guadalajara, a 24-hour pawn shop is even open for business.

One thing is certain: the sharp decrease in remittances sent from the United States is hitting many Mexican households. The reduced remittance flow implies serious implications for the ability of Mexico’s federal government, which is heavily dependent on a 15 percent sales tax, to support social programs.

The central Bank of Mexico recently reported a record drop of 19.9 percent in remittances received in Mexico during the month of May. From January to May, remittances slid 11.2 percent in comparison with the same period last year, according

to the International Monetary Fund.

An analysis by the Spanish-owned bank BBVA Bancomer estimated that migrant dollars arriving to Mexico could go down by as much as four billion dollars this year, reducing the country’s annual remittance income from about $25.1 billion in 2008 to slightly more than $21 billion in 2009. Other estimates put the expected remittance total in the $22-23 billion range for 2009.

Reduced remittance revenues ­impact some areas of Mexico more than others.

In the first three months of 2009, 26 of Mexico’s 32 states captured fewer remittances. The states of Chiapas, Veracruz, Guanajuato and Mexico experienced the greatest plunge in migrant dollars. On the other hand, a handful of states actually saw increases in remittances. Entities experiencing a positive upturn included Aguascalientes, Baja California Sur, Coahuila, Colima, Jalisco, and Nayarit.

The third largest receptor of remittances after India and China, Mexico is far from alone in groping with the remittance crisis. The World Bank estimated this month that global migrant remittances, which totaled $328 billion in 2008, could fall to $304 billion in 2009.

Certain nations are even more dependent than Mexico on money earned by nationals working abroad. Tajikistan, Lesotho, Guyana, Moldova and Honduras are among countries where migrant remittances represent one-quarter or more of the Gross Domestic Product.

Not all the news from the remittance front is negative.

South Asia is expected to receive more income this year than last from migrants working in the Persian Gulf region. Hispanic Link.

(Kent Paterson researched and wrote this article for Frontera NorteSur, a publication of the Center for Latin American and Border Studies at New Mexico State University. Reprinted with permission) ©2009

­by José de la Isla

WASHINGTON, D.C. – During his whirlwind trip to Guadalajara to meet with, Mexico President Felipe Calderón and Canada Prime-minister Stephen Harper, President Obama disclosed to his North American homologues that his planned action on U.S. immigration reform has now been put off until 2010.

The president had made a similar disclosure the Friday prior to his trip to a roundtable press meeting with Hispanic Link News Service and other reporters covering the Latino beat.

At that time Obama outlined an immigration reform framework and said preparatory administrative measures were already underway.

He cited the FBI’s clearing of a background-check backlog, greater use of advanced technologies for processing, and the termination of indiscriminate raids.

In the fall, a bipartisan taskforce of invested parties would begin crafting legislation for introduction in the beginning of the new year. Republican buy-in is essential to achieve comprehensive reform, he told us.

Obama also pledged to work on Mexico and Canada border issues related to emissions control that contribute to global warming and address the drug cartel menace. The U.S. and Canada have already begun training 9,000 college-educated Mexican federal police officers for that effort.

Earlier, the influential Mexico City news website EjeCentral.com summed up the summit as having more disaccord than producing agreements and that little happened of major substance.

Before the meeting, President Felipe Calderón was reported to have wanted Harper to back off from the unilteral imposition of a visa requirement of Mexican citizens visiting Canada. Not for now, Harper is reported to have told Calderón.

The visa requirement will remain for the present while Canada formulates a policy addressing people who seek asylum. In turn, Mexico has triggered a retaliatory requirement of Canadians who work in Mexico who must now also acquire visas. EjeCentral.com reported that 69 percent of the Canadian public approves of the measure. Of 225 asylum applications received weekly before the visa requirement, a drop to 17 percent was reported for the week after the measure was applied.

Calderón sought for President Obama to cancel the prohibition of Mexican cargo vessels on U.S. highways, a measure running counter to the NAFTA. U.S. comercial interests, except for the trucking industry, generally favor lifting the embargo because of retaliatory tariffs imposed by Mexico on a large number of products that affect 40 states. Obama has previously disclosed that work is progressing for a measure to go to Congress soon. Prime Minister Harper meanwhile has expressed displeasure with the U.S. “Buy American” provisions in the stimulus law that Obama signed in February.

The package has been interpreted by local and state governments as excluding Canada and Mexico from bidding.

While Obama endorses Calderón’s use of the military to combat drug-trafficking cartels, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), the powerful chairman of the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, in a released statement Aug. 6, said it was “premature” to declare Mexico to have met the requirements for the conditional U.S. funding assistance for its military-led drug war.

Of the $1.4 billion approved in 2007 for the three-year assistance program to disrupt and curb criminal drug organizations, the law requires the administration to withhold 15 percent of the appropriation each year until the Secretary of State submits a report to Congress affirming that Mexico’s military and police who violate human rights, are prosecuted in accordance with Mexican and international law. An unnamed White House spokesman said Obama brought up the matter with Calderón during their direct talks.

Preparations and emergency measures concerning the “novel H1N1” (formerly referred to as swine flu) was a topic where there was general agreement about public health measures to take.

“The North American Leaders’ Summit,” as the meeting was billed, is the annual gathering of the North American leaders to do collaborative work on issues of mutual concern, such as border security, immigration reform and economic recovery.

At the press meeting with Hispanic Link and nine other reporters prior to his Guadalajara trip, Obama delineated a difference between NAFTA, the trade agreement, and this summit on interests between the North American heads of state. President Obama has previously met twice with Calderón and Harper. The Canadian prime minister is scheduled to arrive in Washington for further talks in September. Hispanic Link.

[José de la Isla’s latest book is now available free in digital version at www.DayNightLifeDeathHope.com. He writes a weekly commentary for Hispanic Link News Service and is author of The Rise of Hispanic Political Power (2003). E-mail him at joseisla3@yahoo.com.] ©2009

by José de la Isla

HOUSTON, Texas – In March, President Obama signed a bill that, among other things, ended a pilot program that allowed some Mexican cargo trucks to travel on U.S. highways. Mexico responded quickly with retaliatory tariffs on 89 agricultural and industrial products from 40 states, affecting about $2.4 billion worth of goods and tens of thousands of jobs.

Under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Mexican trucks were to have unrestricted highway passage in Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas in the beginning and later all highways. Roadblocks, however, of one kind or another have been imposed since 1995 and the Clinton administration. By October 2008, a Department of Transportation study pilot program found Mexican trucks were safer, in some cases, than U.S. trucks. But some U.S. special interests succeeded in pressuring to keep the 15-year foot-dragging going.

Obstructionism is beneath us, of course. But the recession and the retaliatory tariffs have set off an alarm we cannot ignore. A plan appears to be in the works and is undergoing review, according to the Washington Times, for Congress to act and allow Mexican trucks onto U.S. highways.

But there’s more to it than that. It runs deeper.

As the United States pulls slowly and painfully out of this recession, the realization is coming that we overextended our commitments and treasury for dubious purposes. Too often we tried to buy solutions instead of investing in answers. Our 2009 $1.75 trillion deficit tells us we just don’t have the kind of money anymore, for example, to maintain 865 military facilities in 40 countries and U.S. territories.

We do it, retired policy expert Prof. Chalmers Johnson reminds us, and we get nothing in return. Instead, many things we ought to be paying attention to get neglected.

For instance, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) says we need 4,000 new officers and $4 billion in infrastructure and technology improvements for maintaining secure and efficient inland ports of entry.

These directly affect our security and trade.

It might take a while for public attitudes to warm up to the fact that we are increasingly perceived abroad as part of a North American community and not standing alone. For example, some Indian firms are looking to boost their operations in Mexico to serve both Latin America and the United States, especially in the event of new visa restrictions on foreign workers that Mexican IT workers are less subject to.

In another sector, the United States could adopt Canada’s guest-worker formula to avoid our annual farmworker shortage.

How to work together should not have us in a quandary. North American advanced higher-education institutions all should operate with some active collaboration involving a sister college or university in Canada or Mexico.

Take for instance what two Mexican students, Layda Negrete and Roberto Hernández, did while each worked on their doctorates at the Goldman Public Policy

School at UC Berkeley, Examining Mexico’s justice system, Layda prepared a conventional, dry public-policy briefing presentation showing 80 percent of defendants in that country were tried and convicted in court without ever seeing a lawyer. She was hooted by the incredulous audience.

But after she and Roberto teamed up to tell the same story in a 20-minute documentary, political channels took note. The issue soon became part of a national debate.

Eventually, in 2008, an amendment was made to the Mexican Constitution to include

due process rights and presumption of innocence of defendants.

A full-length film by the pair about one of their cases recently debuted in Amsterdam.

“The film is our policy memo,” Roberto says.

Unless we increase norms for civic, political and economic exchanges to influence each other’s countries, how else does change happen?

No matter how we try to make it seem, our economic situation is awakening us to the fact that the North American nations are intertwined in ways we have been reluctant to acknowledge, including driving delivery trucks. Hispanic Link News Service

[José de la Isla’s latest digital book, sponsored by The Ford Foundation, is available free at ­www.DayNightLifeDeathHope.com. He writes a weekly commentary for Hispanic Link News Service.]