In recent years, it has been speculated that the accelerated reception of remittances in Mexico would be linked to money laundering -the DEA itself has raised it-, but an analysis of the Center for Latin American Monetary Studies (Cemla) shows that behind the cartload of dollars there is a simpler explanation: the growing income of Mexicans in the United States and the need to help their relatives in the country.
From 2015 to 2021, the annual remittances grew by 26 thousand 801 million dollars, without a doubt a spectacular increase, this pales with the increase in the income of migrants and of the population of Mexican origin in the American Union.
And it is that in the same period, the income of the countrymen who live across the Rio Grande soared by 43 percent or 341 thousand 12 million dollars a year, about 13 times the increase in remittances in that period!
The cemla indicates that the growth of migrants’ income is related to the proportion of them who have obtained citizenship, a rate that rose from 27.6 to 34.7 percent in the period.
“Citizenship enables migrants to have access to various social benefits, but more importantly, it improves their earning potential from work.
“There are indicators that show that in USA there is a strong difference between the labor income obtained by Mexican immigrants with citizenship and those who do not have it, even if we consider the same gender, the same level of education and the same length of residence in that country,” he points out.
Another important factor to consider in the evolution of remittances, he points out, is that in recent years migrants have had to make a greater effort to support their relatives in the country, given the limited performance of the Mexican economy.
“In fact, in recent years, Mexico stands out in the Latin American and Caribbean region as one of the countries with the worst growth results,” he notes.
In fact, in the first three full years of the current Administration, the average change in GDP was -1.3 percent, against an increase of 3.4 in Guatemala and 2.0 in Colombia, for example.
As a proportion of the income of the migrants and the population of Mexican originthe remittances received by the Country in 2015 was 3.1 percent and rose to 4.5 in 2021.
The DEA points out in its latest annual report that the Mexican drug cartels in USAwhich “generate billions of dollars”, use many methods to move their money to Mexicosuch as the use of vehicles and planes loaded with cash, and also electronic transfers.
To make such a transfer from USA Remittance companies that are regulated by the Treasury Department of that country are required.
Already in the first eight months of 2022, remittances to Mexicoo They registered an annual increase of 15 percent, which, however, was less than the increases in other countries in the region that are not under the scrutiny of cartels, such as Guatemala, where they grew 21 percent and practically all of them electronically; Honduras, also at 21 percent, and Nicaragua, at 38 percent, refer to data from BBVA Research.
We recommend you read:
#Remittances #United #States #rise #country