Mexico’s Undocumented Immigrants – U.S. Citizens

Mexico gets a great deal from the United States, but not all of it is welcome. The vast bulk of weapons in the hands of their drug cartels were purchased mostly legally in the United States (particularly at gun shows and in private sales) – and there are hundreds of thousands of illegal guns and probably no more than 20 thousand legal weapons – in the entire country. A pretty good argument as to why Mexico might want a wall, but most of those weapons cross the border at normal checkpoints.

From our perspective, the flow of American weapons south of the border has only made the narcotics trade that much more dangerous here in the states. Weapons have generated a stranglehold of corruption and violence that ultimately leaks back up across the border. U.S. gangs spread the drugs and benefit from the massive cash generated. It gets worse as many of those U.S. weapons, and more than a little drug cash, make their way down to Central America, through Mexico. Our “we’ll punish you for letting these people emigrate by cutting foreign aid” policy has simply cut back on these governments’ ability to contain the violent epidemic.

“Tens of thousands of Salvadorans, Guatemalans, and Hondurans, many of them unaccompanied minors, have arrived in the United States in recent years, seeking asylum from the region’s skyrocketing violence. Their countries, which form a region known as the Northern Triangle, were rocked by civil wars in the 1980s, leaving a legacy of violence and fragile institutions.

“The region remains menaced by corruption, drug trafficking, and gang violence despite tough police and judicial reforms. While the United States has provided the three governments billions of dollars in aid over the past decade, some analysts believe U.S. immigration policies have exacerbated threats to regional security.

“The number of asylum seekers worldwide originating from the Northern Triangle reached 110,000 in 2015, a five-fold increase from 2012. Unaccompanied minors accounted for much of this surge [PDF]. Migrants from all three countries cite violence, forced gang recruitment, and extortion, as well as poverty and lack of opportunity, as their reasons for leaving. While Belize, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama have reported a sharp increase in flows from the Northern Triangle since 2008, most migrants are passing through to settle in the United States. In 2015, the latest year for which data is available, as many as 3.4 million people born in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras were living in the United States, more than double the estimated 1.5 million people in 2000. About 55 percent of them were undocumented.” Cfr.org (Council on Foreign Relations), 6/26/18.

Although drug-driven cartel/gang violence is still a major issue in Mexico, particularly in its northern states, most of Mexico remains warm and welcoming to Americans by comparison. So warm that many Americans find Mexico irresistible. Particularly for residents of California, Mexico is a pretty traditional vacation spot, a travel destination to unwind and enjoy a very warm and friendly culture and people. But one other kind of “extended-stay” American tourist is a huge number: those Americans who have decided to stay or retire south of the border.

“American immigrants living the Mexican dream can have the same hopes and goals of Mexican immigrants in the U.S.: to get a little ahead or to start a new life… And there may be more Americans living south of the border than previously noticed… [In May], Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador tasked his foreign minister, Marcelo Ebrard, with gathering data on U.S. immigrants, who also go largely undocumented.

“The Mexican government determined Americans are actually Mexico’s largest group of immigrants… ‘A little-cited fact is that in Mexico, there are about 1.2 million Americans. That is, our two countries are protagonists of the largest demographic exchange in the world,’ Lopez Obrador said.

“The U.S. Embassy in Mexico City said the figure might be an undercount, because many Americans overstay their visas… It estimated there are more than 1.5 million U.S.-born citizens in Mexico, including some 600,000 U.S.-born children of Mexican parents whose families have returned home…

“President Trump has made stopping northbound immigration a cornerstone of his presidency, initially targeting Mexicans and then Central Americans… But the number of unauthorized Mexicans living in the U.S. has fallen by 2 million people during the last decade or so, from 6.9 million in 2007 to 4.9 million in 2017, according to the Pew Research Center.

“The number of Mexicans living in the United States declined so sharply over the past decade that Mexicans are no longer the country’s largest demographic of undocumented migrants. Many are returning home.

“Apprehensions of Mexicans at the U.S. border also dropped from a high of 1.6 million in 2000 to 152,257 in 2018. For the third consecutive fiscal year, apprehensions of non-Mexicans outnumbered those of Mexicans… Meanwhile, the number of Americans living in Mexico has increased by more than four times since 1990, according to federal data.” Wendy Fry writing for the June 18^th Los Angeles Times. Some American forget that they still have income tax liability to the U.S. That can cause some nasty surprises, but on the whole Americans moving to Mexico get what they expect.

Ex-pat communities, many focused on coastal resort towns, offer top-flight residences catering to American retirees. Other Americans simply like to blend into local living, but the magnet of less-expensive, high quality living makes for one huge group of undocumented aliens, although many Americans have assumed legal residence. To Mexican authorities, it’s not really a big problem. Tariffs and coercive trade barriers, a vanity wall that has no shot of doing what the administration wants and bully tactics to force the issue cannot change the essential connectivity between our two nations. We just have to learn how to stop making the immigration and local violence situation consistently worse.

              I’m Peter Dekom, and we seem to forget that we have two very long peaceful borders with countries that have been traditional friends and allies for a very, very long time.