Remittances sent to Mexico, often by illegal Mexican nationals living in the United States, have continued plunging under President Donald Trump’s nationwide surge in interior immigration enforcement.
The remittance figures serve partially as a barometer for how the federal government is enforcing federal immigration law, as illegal aliens often work illegally in the U.S. and send money back to their home countries.
As the Latin Times notes, the Trump administration is reversing 11 consecutive years of growth in remittance money sent from Mexican workers in the U.S. to Mexico:
Remittances sent home from Mexicans in the U.S. have dropped more than 15% year-on-year as figures continue to drop amid the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown and threats of imposing taxes on remittances. [Emphasis added]
Banxico, the Mexican central bank, said remittances have decreased by almost 6% since the beginning of the year and more than 16% year-on-year in June. That month, $5.2 billion were sent to Mexico. [Emphasis added]
The bank added that June was the third consecutive monthly decrease. The silver lining highlighted is that the average amount sent, $409, is higher than the previous year. [Emphasis added]
In total, about $63 billion has been sent in remittances from the U.S. to Mexico in the last 12 months — less than 2023 and 2024’s totals.
The plummet in remittances to Mexico comes before Trump’s one percent remittance tax takes effect in January of next year. Initially, the tax was supposed to be set at 3.5 percent, but was quickly slashed by Senate Republicans to just one percent with huge carveouts.
One of those carveouts, where foreign nationals seeking to send remittances to their home countries will be spared from the tax if they have a relationship with the bank they are wiring the money through, will protect much of Western Union’s grip on the remittance market.
“[The exemption] eliminated their need to worry about this requirement because most of the wire transfer activity, or the transfer activity that they do, they’re doing with someone or doing on behalf of someone that has an account relationship with them, and so that really … relieved them of the requirement,” Tara Ferris of Ernst & Young LLP told American Banker.
Though Western Union has seen a slowdown in remittances being sent to Mexico, its CEO Devin McGranahan said less than 2-in-10 of the corporation’s revenue will be hit by the remittance tax.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter here.
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