Mexican Economy

Last year, when the housing crisis and banking crisis and unemployment converged to create the worst recession since the great depression, many U.S. citizens asked me how that was affecting Mexico.
It really wasn't.
That's not completely true, of course, the recession was worldwide, but in many ways thousands of Mexicans were already living in abject poverty. The average Mexican makes $4,000 per year. Many do not have regular jobs or income, they are perpetually undernourished and oversugared (soda is a major source of food energy bc it's cheap) and health care means having babies at home and taking asprin.
A convergence of issues has hit Mexico really hard this past year:
- tourism is down, bc of swine flu scares and bc Europeans and North Americans can't afford to travel
- remittances are down, bc fewer Mexicans are making extra money in the U.S. and canada, legally or otherwise
- the U.S. is deporting more Mexicans, often abandoning young women and children on the streets of Tijuana in the middle of the night
- the U.S. is pushing Mexico to fight the drug cartels, despite the fact that U.S. criminals are providing the ammunition to the cartels
All of this means that Mexico is poorer with greater needs than ever before.

I'm not supporting illegal immigration. But I also know that it is impossible to get a legal working visa for many of the types of jobs that Mexicans and other immigrants want to do - dish washing, maintenance, child care, landscaping, etc. bc the current immigration code is written with the understanding that young and/or poor U.S. citizens will perpetually fill those posts. But they won't. How many americans do you know that are willing to pick pumpkins or clean toilets or watch someone else's children for the price that we're willing to pay them?

fully ONE THIRD of mexicans have lived or worked for some time in the U.S. Nearly every middle class mexican I know knows someone in their immediate family that has studied or worked or traveled on business to the U.S.

Would we be so upset if British were infiltrating the U.S. in large numbers? Or Irish? or Germans? or Italians? Wait... they already did. Now we just call them Americans.