Drudge had a headline story last night, from CNN, which listed many of Presidential hopeful Jeb Bush’s comments on welcoming immigrants.
Can we afford one more Bush tax and spender?
According to CNN, Bush was to give a speech in Detroit yesterday (I don’t know if he did) and suggest this:
He even suggested the mayor of Detroit — the economically depressed Midwestern city where he’s giving his first policy address of the 2016 campaign on Wednesday — use immigration to “repopulate” the city.
Would someone please do an economic study of one of the refugee-overloaded cities and see if immigrants did bring prosperity to the city or not! Let’s put this notion to rest!
Look at Utica, NY for example. Ten years ago the United Nations raved and called it the Town that Loves Refugees and just two weeks ago we learned that the city was suing the state because they can’t afford to educate all of the refugee children.
Any study should examine closely the cost of educating the children and the costs to the criminal justice system. We need to know what the labor market looks like. Are the immigrants simply taking jobs that less-educated Americans want?
We also need to know how much money is leaving the city and the country in the form of remittances back to the homeland!
The study must consider how much federal TAXPAYER money is simply flowing from Washington to the city (it shouldn’t be counted as benefiting the city when taxpayer dollars are simply moved from one pot to another!). Also, we hear all the time that immigrants open businesses at a higher rate, but I want to know how much start-up money is going to them from government-supported micro-loans. And, how quickly they are closing those businesses!
Now why would they do a thing like that? Wouldn’t you think that they would need these young people in Mexico—aren’t they Mexico’s future?
Yes, they are—right here in the USA! They are Mexico’s pipeline to American money!
Can you say remittances!
It is cheaper to assure Mexicans can stay and work in America by paying their legal bills than to have them come home empty-handed.
I remember first hearing about the desire of some Central American governments to keep Temporary Protected Status alive for Salvadorans (for instance) during the Bush years. Bush even acknowledged in one news report I saw (can’t find it now) that the remittances sent ‘home’ to El Salvador kept the country’s economy propped up!
Why do you think Central American governments turned a blind eye when the ‘UACs’ stormed the US border this summer?
Remittance-receiving countries in 2010. http://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/other-reports/ACH-report-201107.htm
Here is the news I’m seeing everywhere about this Mexican dirty trick. FromBreitbart (via Drudge):
The government of Mexico is paying to help its citizens who are living illegally in the United States avoid deportation.
According to a report from National Public Radio, the Mexican government through its 50 consulates around the United States has been helping to fund low-income illegal immigrants to apply for President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA — which shields illegal immigrants from deportation and allows them to work in the U.S.
NPR’s report details the story of Tania Guzman, an illegal immigrant who said the cost of applying for DACA worried her, but she was able to afford it after her pro-bono lawyer from Public Counsel told her she could access financial help from the Mexican Consulate in Los Angeles.
Mexico paid for all Guzman’s attorney fees and application fees, according to NPR. In the end Guzman told NPR she paid just $50.
The report explains that since 2012, the year DACA began, the Mexican Consulate in Los Angeles has assisted more then 260 Mexican illegal immigrants apply for protections under DACA.
Julian Escutia, an official with the Mexican Embassy in Washington, told NPR that it does not keep track of how many illegal immigrants’ DACA applications they fund, and that funding is “on a case-by case basis.”
“Our main objective is the well-being of our nationals wherever they are,” he said. “So what we want for them is that they are successful and really continue contributing to this country [the U.S.],” she told NPR. [What a joke, it is all about the money for Mexico!—ed]
‘Remittances to developing countries to stay robust this year, despite increased deportations of migrant workers, says WB’
The next time you see one of those economic reports (promoted by the likes of “Welcoming America”) purporting to show that immigrants are an economic plus to a city—that they are working, paying taxes, starting businesses, and drawing federal welfare bucks to a city—check to see if the report includes how many US dollars those same immigrants are sending out of your city to their “home” country. I wager that figure is never included in the analysis!
Regarding the graph: Go to this Congressional report and see that in 2010 (a slow economic year!) $48 Billion US dollars in remittances flowed out of the country to the developing world. I’m sure there are newer figures available, and that the number is much greater, but these graphs give you a good idea.
Also, see this post I wrote at PTPR in 2013—Money the principle driver of foreign governments’ interest in US “immigration reform.”
For all of our coverage of ‘Unaccompanied minors’ go here.
Update of sorts! It is an older article, but a reader reminds us of this storyfrom last month that is further evidence of Mexico and the Obama Administration protecting Mexico’s workers in America (US Signs Agreement with Mexico to Protect Mexican Workers–Including Illegals).
“Why work when money just pours in from Western Union regularly?”
Update August 12th: More on remittance culture in Breitbart article about illegal Hondurans in US.
A few years ago when I was researching a story on “temporary protected status” I came across a comment by George Bush, or someone in his State Department, saying that they had to extend TPS for Salvadorans because the money they sent home kept the country afloat.
That money being sent out of the US by immigrants is known as remittances. Indeed, we have lots of posts here over the years about remittances to Somalia and the problems with it.
MD Del. Ana Sol Gutierrez in front of Salvadoran Money transfer business. Photo credit: Greg Dohler/The Gazette http://potomacteapartyreport.wordpress.com/2013/02/14/maryland-delegate-money-is-a-principal-driver-of-the-foreign-governments-interest-in-immigration-reform/
But, I hadn’t noticed much written about whether the three major countries (Honduras,Guatemala, and El Salvador) sending their ‘unaccompanied alien children’ to America were turning a blind eye and actually condoning the illegal migration because they know money (a lot of it taxpayer dollars!) would soon flow southward.
In fact when Rush Limbaugh was making fun of Obama and saying why was he so willing to steal the best and the brightest of Central American youths and thus rob those countries of a future, I wondered then why the leaders of those countries weren’t angry at the loss of their children. Is it because the lure of easy money now is greater than any concern for the future of their countries?
So I looked around and found this really good article by Seth Daniel at the Chelsea Record (Massachusetts) entitled: Influx Has Everything to Do with Remittance Culture.
The gist of it is that the “children” will send money ‘home’ and that the flood of easy money ultimately destroys those poor countries, and it destroys local economies in the US as well.
After a lead-in about men coming to America to support their families and finding things tough, Daniel says this:
But make no mistake, they did and still do send money.
The Record reported last year that in 2012, nearly $250 million cash left the communities of Chelsea, Revere, East Boston and Everett in the form of remittances (money sent back to one’s home country). Some $2 billion left the state of Massachusetts alone in 2012. That’s a fortune, and most of it went to Central America – specifically El Salvador and Guatemala. The paper is still waiting to get those same numbers for 2013 from the state, but early reports are that even more was remitted.
Consulates from those countries told the Record in that very same report last year that their countries are deeply dependent upon money sent to family members from American relatives. It has become an important part of life in their countries.
And so what about those countries?
If you talk to assimilated natives of those particular countries – and really any country with a large remittance culture – they will tell you (maybe only secretly) that sending so much money home has ruined the society. People who keep residences in their home countries will tell you that they cannot find anyone to hire in order to maintain those properties. So many formerly hard-working people prefer to just wait for the weekly remittance from America. Why work when money just pours in from Western Union regularly?
This isn’t only in Central America, again. It’s the status quo wherever large sums of remittance money make up a significant portion of a country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Then there’s the problem with what happens to a poor economy when so much money starts rolling in without anything being produced or anybody earning said money. Prices skyrocket for food and housing. Land prices go through the roof. Heavy taxes are imposed. Everything all the sudden costs way more than it did, and the money that rolls in suddenly isn’t enough. The more money that is sent, the shorter it stretches.
Then the frantic phone calls begin to come – the money you sent isn’t enough. We need more.
What once cost $1 is now $10.
Destroying the local economy in Massachusetts
Daniel continues:
….right now we have hundreds of thousands of young adults and older teens pouring over the border to get to America by whatever means necessary. They are certainly fleeing violence, but there is also an aspect of them fleeing in order to get a job and send more money home.
That was expressly said by two women who spoke last week at the Collaborative – one of which who said she needed to send money home to her mother as soon as possible. Naturally, $1 doesn’t go as far as it used to and people need to eat.
The remittance culture needs to be addressed within this debate, but no one wants to talk about it. Just like Broadway Chelsea seems to be ground zero for the unaccompanied minor debate, it is also ground zero for cash leaving the country. Millions upon millions of dollars leave the community via Broadway Chelsea every year. Just a million of that money would transform the outlook of business on Broadway. That’s why this system cripples the community – puts local business out of business because any and all disposable income is being sent instead of spent.
Read it all. And please spread it around, it deserves greater attention then it’s gotten at this local news outlet.
Of course the NGO drivers of the illegal migration don’t give a damn about such matters—it is all about more Democrat voters, sinking our social service system, and changing America forever.
Our complete archive on ‘unaccompanied minors’ goes back several years,click here for all of those posts.
They are officially called remittances and have made the news lately, here, because American banks are increasingly refusing to send money to Somalia fearing it will end up in the hands of terrorists.
Rep. Keith Ellison (right), with Somali president, wants to keep the “hawalas” hopping and the money flowing. http://www.twincities.com/ci_22619932/minnesota-rep-keith-ellison-arrives-mogadishu
The Pew Research Center earlier this year calculated that approximately $123,273,000,000 is sent out of the US every year. Hat tip: Jim.
The first five receiving countries in descending order are: Mexico, China, India, Philippines, and Nigeria. By the way, number 9 is El Salvador.
We’ve written about El Salvador previously in relation to remittances because the Salvadorans’ legal right to be in the US and work is continually renewed in the Temporary Protected Statusprogram. Even George Bush renewed their status here (again and again) and said we needed to continue to prop up the economy back home through remittances.
One of the major arguments of the open borders crowd is that immigrants work and fuel our economy, or is it the economy back home that they are fueling?
Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota has been the leader in charge of making sure money flows to Somalia, here. It is estimated that $120 million goes to Somalia from the US every year, but note that Pew has no idea of what the real number is.
This is an update about the activities of US Rep. Keith Ellison of Minneapolis, thanks to a reader.
In February, Ellison, the go-to guy for the refugee resettlement industry in Congress, traveled to Mogadishu in order to facilitate keeping the remittance pipeline open from Minnesota to Somalia. As we reported here in January, up to $120 million a month is sent from Minnesota alone to Somalia!
Ellison has been leading the charge to get the federal government to back off of its prohibition on those little mom & pop money transfer businesses sending money to a country that many knew had al-Shabaab terrorists at the other end of the pipeline.
Ellison with new Somali prez Hassan Sheikh Mohamud
MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison visited Somalia’s capital on Tuesday, the first visit in years by a member of Congress to what until recently was considered one of the world’s most dangerous cities.
Ellison, D-Minn., said his visit to Mogadishu fulfills a request from his constituents* with ties to Somalia. Minnesota has one of the largest populations of Somali-Americans in the U.S.
[….]
“I told my constituency I would come here and work for the United States and Somalia relationship, and I am doing that in today’s visit,” Ellison told a news conference in Mogadishu.
[….]
Ellison said his meetings with Somali officials would focus on financial remittances most often sent by Somalis in the U.S. back to family members in Somalia. Such remittances have become harder to make over fears that people sending money could be accused of aiding a terrorist organization such as al-Shabab.
Why don’t lazy reporters put in stories like this one that it’s not just a “fear” that money might end up in the wrong hands, but we have had recent CONVICTIONS of Somalis sending money to al-Shabaab. There are those two (go to hell infidels) women in Minnesota here and then the San Diego Somalis here. It is not a “fear” that it might happen. It has happened.
Besides, why should we be allowing immigrants of all sorts to be sending the US treasury to prop-up the third world—that is exactly what we are doing even if there aren’t potential terrorists at the receiving end. See El Salvador, here.
We have resettled more than 100,000 Somali refugees to cities large and small in the US over the last 25 years. See one of the most widely read posts here at RRW. Large numbers went to Minneapolis, and now they are spreading out throughout the state. In three years since 9/11 ( Bush years 2004, 2005, 2006) the number of Somalis arriving topped 10,000 per year. Those refugees then began bringing in the family (chain migration!) until 2008 when shock of shocks! the State Department discovered that as many as 30,000 Somalis had lied about their kinship and weren’t related at all. The State Department then closed the “family reunification” program for Somalis. It has recently been re-opened for new and legit family members, but they have no intention of finding and deporting the liars.
