REMITTANCE INCOME AND THE MEXICO-U.S. TUSSLE OVER ILLEGAL MIGRANTS: Jim Dunnigan weighs in with facts:

The Mexican central bank tracks how much money Mexicans abroad send home and in 2016 it was $25 billion, almost all of it from Mexicans in the United States and much of it from Mexicans in the United States illegally. That remittance cash accounts for more foreign exchange than Mexican oil exports…Mexico has for decades tolerated illegal migration to the United States because the corruption and bad government in Mexico did little to provide jobs for the growing number of unemployed Mexicans and created a lot of potentially troublesome young men and women. Tolerating and, for many Mexican politicians, openly supporting the illegal migrants, was a popular policy and the government came to regard it as a right. But it was also about money and the remittances created a huge source of foreign currency flowing back to Mexico.

His analysis includes a look at the impact of Operation Sur on Mexico’s southern border which was designed “to curb illegal Central American migrants from entering Mexico.” He argues it had an impact on American politicians who “found themselves under increasing pressure to enforce American migration laws as vigorously as Mexico (and Canada) did.”

Read the whole thing.