By Free Republic | Created at 2025-01-05 21:25:44 | Updated at 2025-01-07 11:06:32
1 day ago
This town was built on migrants’ cash. Now it fears Trump’s deportations. | President-elect Donald Trump’s mass deportation plan could upend life in Mexican villages that depend on remittances from relatives in the United States.
The Washington Post ^ | January 5, 2025 6:30 a.m. EST | Mary Beth Sheridan
Posted on 01/05/2025 1:09:08 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
FRANCISCO VILLA, Mexico — Over the past 30 years, this corn-growing hamlet in central Mexico emptied out. Around half the 3,000 residents moved to the United States. As the migrants went north, the dollars flowed south.
They were construction workers and gardeners, cooks and nannies. They became the saviors of this village of tiny adobe homes. They helped establish the town’s first high school. Their donations paved the dirt streets. They bought computers for the classrooms. “The kids had no idea what they were,” recalled one of the town’s migrant benefactors, Rubén Chávez.
Now, a current of fear is running through a village tethered to Illinois, California and Oregon by the flow of remittances. President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to carry out “the largest deportation operation in American history” — taking aim at more than 11 million people living illegally in the United States. Nearly half are Mexican.
Trump “is coming in with full force,” Chávez told a meeting in the village hall on a recent afternoon. He looked around at men he’d grown up with, suntanned workers in baseball caps, who’d returned from the United States for the holidays. Many were now legal U.S. residents. But their neighbors and cousins weren’t. “What will we do?” he asked. “How can we react as a community?”
Trump built his campaign on restricting immigration, arguing that the border was out of control. Many Americans agreed. After all, illegal crossings shot to record levels under President Joe Biden, averaging 2 million a year in his first three years in office, before falling dramatically. Even big cities felt overwhelmed.
But over decades, an entire ecosystem has developed around irregular migrants from Mexico and other countries. They’ve not only become critical to sectors of the...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
TOPICS: Humor
KEYWORDS: aliens; mexico; ohnoes; remittances
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To: E. Pluribus Unum
2 posted on 01/05/2025 1:10:55 PM PST by imabadboy99
To: E. Pluribus Unum
Illegals? Too bad, so sad.
3 posted on 01/05/2025 1:11:15 PM PST by gundog (It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. the )
To: E. Pluribus Unum
4 posted on 01/05/2025 1:11:30 PM PST by mrmeyer (You can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him. Robert Heinlein)
To: E. Pluribus Unum
5 posted on 01/05/2025 1:11:49 PM PST by Ciaphas Cain (A perfect storm. There will be no escape from what is coming.)
To: E. Pluribus Unum
Cue Jerry Seinfeld “Gee that’s a shame“
6 posted on 01/05/2025 1:12:15 PM PST by dayglored (This is the day which the LORD hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it. Psalms 118:24)
To: E. Pluribus Unum
The Washington Post = Propaganda Headquarters
7 posted on 01/05/2025 1:12:25 PM PST by Vaduz
To: E. Pluribus Unum
No different than if the town was built on another illegal activity.
8 posted on 01/05/2025 1:12:27 PM PST by kosciusko51
To: E. Pluribus Unum
Bad business model. Find another grift.
9 posted on 01/05/2025 1:13:38 PM PST by HYPOCRACY (Democracy is dead. Long live the Republic!)
To: E. Pluribus Unum
Boo hoo - Mexican villages hit hardest. Is this a real article?
Or why the MSM needs and is getting bankruptcy.
10 posted on 01/05/2025 1:13:44 PM PST by AAABEST (That time Washington DC became a corrupted, existential threat to us all...)
To: E. Pluribus Unum
Well, perhaps Mexico best find a way for ALL it’s citizens to make a living wage. AMERICA FIRST!!!
11 posted on 01/05/2025 1:13:49 PM PST by Dawgreg
To: E. Pluribus Unum
Gee, that’s too bad. Guess they should’ve come in legally.
12 posted on 01/05/2025 1:15:41 PM PST by Jim Robinson (Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God.)
To: E. Pluribus Unum
“As the migrants went north...”
As the criminals illegally invaded a sovereign country...
13 posted on 01/05/2025 1:16:05 PM PST by Magic Fingers (Political correctness mutates in order to remain virulent.)
To: All
WE built this city
we built this city with public dole
14 posted on 01/05/2025 1:16:13 PM PST by BipolarBob (I injured myself measuring radio frequencies. It still Hertz.)
To: E. Pluribus Unum
“Around half the 3,000 residents moved to the United States”
Most excellent, they will have homes waiting for them in Mexico.
15 posted on 01/05/2025 1:16:46 PM PST by quantim (Victory is not relative, it is absolute.)
To: imabadboy99
“boo hoo”
And again I say: Boo Hoo
16 posted on 01/05/2025 1:17:33 PM PST by Fai Mao (The US government is run by pedophiles and Perverts for pedophiles and perverts.)
To: E. Pluribus Unum
I’d love to see the post’s comments on this article.
17 posted on 01/05/2025 1:18:08 PM PST by bwest
To: E. Pluribus Unum
They never care about American’s.
How many articles about the hardships of people in Hawaii, Ohio, or NC have they recently published.
To: E. Pluribus Unum
Which is exactly why US money sent overseas should be taxed heavily taxed.
We don’t need our money going to help them when there are so many here in the US who need the help.
19 posted on 01/05/2025 1:19:40 PM PST by metmom (He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon." Amen. Come, Lord Jesus)
To: E. Pluribus Unum
Two suggestions:
1. Apply for citizenship and get in line.
2. Go after your own government and throw them all into the ocean if they can't ensure that their own citizens have enough opportunity in Mexico to live happy, productive, healthy lives.
For the record, Mexico is the 14th largest country in the world by land area, and has a ton of coastline. France is 49, Spain 52, Sweden 56, Japan and Germany 62 and 63 respectively, Italy 73, the UK 80, Greece 97, and Switzerland 135. Mexico has raw materials and smart people. Do not blame the US for your issues. Fix the nation you have.
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