The view here is that mass deportation of Mexicans from the United States will ultimately result in quite a few more Mexicans searching for a way to get to the United States than before. It’s basic economics. Regardless of ideology, please read on.
“I build their dream houses. That means I depend strictly on the U.S. economy.” Those are the words of Crispin Agustin Mendoza, mayor of Alcozauca in Mexico. It comes from reporting by Simon Romero, of the New York Times. Some on the right will reject the reporting by Romero as propaganda at the Times, but it’s better to consider the meaning of what Romero is reporting.
Mendoza builds houses paid for by remittances from Mexican workers in the United States, and the houses he builds in Alcozauca are strictly a function of Mexican productivity within the U.S. economy. Stop and think about that.
What it signals firstly is contra the popular view that Mexicans are crossing over into the United States in order to attain welfare, the more realistic story, one that Americans visibly see, is that they’re coming to the U.S. to work. Annual dollar remittances to Mexico from Mexicans working in the U.S. of an estimated $63 billion are indicative of this truth.
What the remittances further signal is that as opposed to openness to Mexican workers potentially leading to a massive inflow, it’s more likely that Mexicans presently working in the U.S. actually limit the inflow of quite a few more. The aforementioned remittances are indicative of this speculation. Precisely because so much dollar wealth flows back to Mexico, a high number of Mexicans don’t need to find their way to the United States exactly because remittances sustain them in Mexico.
Which is why those cheering planned deportations of Mexican workers should perhaps be careful what they wish for. If deportations actually succeed, the economic impact on the Mexican economy will be devastating. Think the $63 billion in estimated annual remittances.
With a not insubstantial piece of Mexico’s economy reliant on production stateside, a cessation of those inflows will logically impoverish a big number of those formerly sustained directly by remittances. Beyond that, think of the businesses and workers within Mexico similarly sustained by those remittances.
If they cease, the result will be more economic desperation within Mexico, not less. From there, readers need only stop and contemplate what the effect of economic desperation is: migration to where there isn’t desperation. Think the United States. Deportation will paradoxically increase urgency within the Mexican population to get to the United States.
To which some will respond that President-elect Trump’s border czar Tom Homan means business, and will not allow the inflows of people that past presidents have. Ok, but how?
Seemingly forgotten by conservatives in their support of deportation, walls, enhanced border security, and other deterrents is that none of this will come cheap. Which raises the obvious question of how much conservatives will countenance the growth of a great deal more government necessary to keep increasingly desperate Mexicans out of the United States.
Which is why conservatives should arguably be circumspect in cheering on Homan, along with any policy meant to suffocate the market signal that is Mexican citizens choosing to work in a United States. Markets always speak, and if Mexican labor stateside that sustains people and economy in Mexico is suffocated, the costs to the U.S. economy in terms of productivity and a soaring cost of government will be immense. And may paradoxically result in more Mexicans finding their way to the U.S. despite costly efforts to keep them out.
