More On Remittances

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Let's hear about the subsidies that illegal immigrants receive via US taxpayer-funded social services, a big factor in why they can afford to send huge amounts of money out of our economy (we would have huge amounts of money to save too, if we got "free" healthcare, "free" school meals and the like). Let's hear about the thousands of Americans who have lost the equity in their homes -- their single largest family financial asset -- because illegals moved in next door and stuffed a single family home with 25 people -- a factor which also allows them to send huge amounts of money home. You're not even barely scratching the surface of the remittance issue and the negative impact it has on Americans.

MaryJ of CA 10:15AM October 14, 2009

If we want to argue that "remittances" by Mexican immigrants to their families back home are good for America, it's got to be true that SOME of the money sent there gets spent here---via both our exports and cross-border shopping. But, we could also argue that ALL of the money paid to American workers (as opposed to immigrants working here illegally) gets spent here.
On a broader moral plane, we could say that Mexican workers actually produce more value in the American economy than we pay them---since they tend to work cheaper---and therefore "deserve" every cent (except for the illegality of being here). We could say there is something right about helping a neighbor nation that suffers more poverty as a whole than we do.
I would also express fears that American corporations may be reaping the benefit of the cheaper labor to the exclusion of American workers, and that in a purely economic sense, most of the remittances sent out never return. There may be some good things about the whole of immigration, but I can't believe the case that sending lots of money out of the country right now is one of them----not with our unemployment situation here.

Muser of NM 4:26PM October 13, 2009