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 García, 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!
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