Mexican Towns Whose Chief Earners Are in US Worry What Happens if They're Sent Home Patrick J. McDonnell - The Los Angeles Times
go to original January 3, 2017

Mexicans in US fear ban on money transfers back home (Euronews)

From her stall featuring regional delicacies, Eufenia Hernandez issued a challenge to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump.

"If this individual came down here to Oaxaca, we would put him to work," she said. "Let's see if he can work as hard as the Mexicans in the north."

Hernandez, a veteran border crosser, having made the journey 18 times, has a brother and son in California.

"What would the United States do without Mexicans?" she said. "Who else would pick the crops? Who would build the homes?"

Mexico too depends on those crops, those homes.

Its citizens in the U.S. sent back nearly $25 billion last year, Mexico's second-largest source of foreign income, after manufactured goods and ahead of oil. Much of that ends up in impoverished rural communities like the ones in the southern state of Oaxaca, which for decades have sent young and old north.

The cash they send home builds homes, funds small businesses, refurbishes churches and schools, and provides sustenance for multitudes.

It's evident in the big, half-finished homes dotting the countryside. "They are waiting for more dollars from the north to finish," people explain.

In the state's central valley region, lines form daily at banks and money-exchange outlets as people collect cash sent from loved ones.

The cycle of people heading north and money flowing south is so entrenched that no one here can envision it ending. And so while the election of Trump, who has vowed to stop it with a wall along the 2,000-mile border, has spread dismay and apprehension.

Read the rest at The Los Angeles Times

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