Immigration Decreases but Remittances Increase

The Bank of Mexico reported recently that the shipment of remittances from Mexicans working in the United States increased 1.4 percent in the past 12 months. On the other hand, the American organization PEW reported that immigration from Mexico to the U.S. has decreased in this same period, and that the population of Mexican-born immigrants was set at about 12 million people. It needs to be asked: How is it possible that immigration decreases and remittances increase?

There could be various reasons; surely some studies will note them. For now, it’s worth asking about some of the possible reasons for that apparent contradiction. According to the information of the Department of Immigration in the U.S., the number of visas granted to people originating from Mexico was about a million in 2010. On one hand, the documented migration increased; on the other hand, the undocumented decreased in relative terms. Another element that complements this phenomenon is that, according to the information from the Department of State, 220,000 Mexican residents of the U.S. acquired their American citizenship between 2006 and 2010. It is possible that these new citizens have received authorization to bring members of their family with authorization to work, which, at the end of the day, means an increase in the family’s income and the possibility of sending a larger amount of money to Mexico.

Another reason for the increase in remittances is that out of the four million jobs that have been recuperated since the recession, two million have been for Hispanics, according to a report from BBVA [Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, a multinational Spanish banking group]. It is very possible that those jobs have been recuperated in the farming sectors and in services in which workers from south of the border are traditionally hired.

Anyway, it seems difficult to argue, as President Felipe Calderon did, that migration from Mexico to the U.S. has declined due to the improved economic situation of the country’s most impoverished citizens. Despite the growth of the Mexican economy, the evidence shows that this growth is not reflected in the improvement of most Mexicans. A similar phenomenon has been happening in the U.S., which is slowly starting to recover from the deep economic crises that affected almost the whole world. Less than 10 percent of the U.S. population is benefiting from this recovery, which has led income inequality to reach unprecedented extremes. The difference in Mexico, where there’s also an extreme concentration of wealth, is that the situation of those living in poverty in our country is much more precarious.