Breathe
By Alexa Castro
President Donald Trump's inauguration on January 20 marked a clear message: a commitment to fulfill his controversial campaign promises, including mass deportations in response to the "emergency" at the U.S. southern border. The second term comes stronger than ever, backed by a cabinet aligned with his immigration vision, a Republican legislative majority and a popular vote victory not won in 2016.
In the first hours of his administration, Trump signed a series of executive orders. Prominent among them is the order entitled "Protecting the American People from Invasion.", which establishes a plan to carry out mass deportations as far as he is allowed by law. During his inaugural address, the president called irregular migration a "disastrous invasion," which has become a key message of this new administration.
Mexicans are the largest group of immigrants in the United States and therefore, they are also the most significant group of unauthorized immigrants. The more than 5 million of Mexican nationals with this immigration status are the main target of the new administration's policies, so it is appropriate to ask ourselves: Is our country prepared to receive thousands, or even millions, of deported Mexicans?
At the federal level, institutions such as the National Migration Institute (INM) operate with limited resources; according to Mexico, How are we doing? in 2024 the budget exercised until November 2024 was almost 15 times higher than the approved budget. Considering that this institute will have an extensive work to attend to the bureaucratic process of all deported immigrants, the 1.7 billion approved for 2025 is insufficient. Likewise, measures announced by President Claudia Sheinbaum such as "Mexico embraces you" offers IMSS affiliation, scholarships and monetary transfers that have no fiscal support to be implemented.
The return of millions of Mexican nationals will have differentiated impacts at the state level, determined by the economic and social conditions of each region. According to the Mexico-United States Migration Intensity Index 2020 prepared by the National Population Council (CONAPO), among the entities that register migration intensity are
very high and high are: Zacatecas, Michoacán, Nayarit, Guanajuato, San Luis Potosí, Aguascalientes and Oaxaca.
In view of the imminent return of Mexicans, it is pertinent to analyze the conditions of social progress and the labor market in these entities in order to demonstrate the current situation and the challenges that await them in the reintegration of Mexican nationals. For the above analysis, a hypothetical scenario is proposed in which people returned by the United States return to the entities with the highest migratory intensity according to CONAPO.
According to the Social Progress Index (IPS) 2024 of Mexico, How are we doing?, the entities with the highest migration intensity are in the last 20 places of the IPS ranking, which reflects significant challenges in personal security, access to education, and in cases such as Oaxaca, in housing, health and welfare. This coincides with the main reason for migration: the search for a better quality of life. Without state actions that prioritize these problems, the return of nationals could aggravate existing conditions.
Among the aforementioned entities, the case of Aguascalientes stands out as the entity with the second highest social progress, showing that having social infrastructure is not enough. People also migrate for better job opportunities and this entity -like many others- has a significant rate of in-work poverty and a low generation of formal jobs. The main challenge for entities such as Aguascalientes will be to strengthen its capacity to generate decent and sufficient jobs to avoid further pressure on its local economy.
For entities with high migratory intensity, a significant decrease in remittances will generate losses in dynamism and damage to local economies, given that remittances generate higher household spending. An important aspect is the growing participation of women as remittance senders. According to the Center for Latin American Monetary Studies (CEMLA), between 2021-2022, women will account for 32.9% of remittances. 32.9% in the number of remittances sent to Mexico. However, this contribution contrasts with the persistent inequalities they face in the Mexican labor market such as lower incomes, which will undoubtedly affect household spending levels.
President Trump's attacks on Mexico will be a constant during the next four years. Currently, our country is not prepared to receive deported nationals without wreaking havoc on local and national economies. The challenges in the entities with high migratory intensity exemplify that the most urgent strategies are in security and labor market issues. Without a regional approach, there is a risk of spending limited fiscal resources on inefficient measures that further punish the quality of life of Mexicans.
Measurement of social performance in the country's entities and is independent of factors that measure income or expenditure.
*Economic analystin Mexico, how are we doing?
The opinions expressed are the responsibility of the authors and are absolutely independent of the position and editorial line of the company. Opinion 51.
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