As US economy is slowing, less money being sent home by Mexican immigrants

I'm on my way out the door to catch a bus to Veracruz where tonight I'm going to the city's professional soccer team, the Tiburones,' or Sharks, (when I told a random passerby last night that I was going to the game he scoffed and referred to them as the "state's biggest embarrassment") final game of the year. Then tomorrow and Sunday we're playing in an ultimate frisbee "hat" tournament--you sign up individually and get randomly assigned to a team--on the beach. Apparently, only about 30 people are coming, meaning we'll be fielding tops 5 teams. I see spending more time in the water then actually playing--but hey, that's why we all agree that frisbee trumps all other sports, right?

Anyway, to do the title of this post some justice, I wanted to link to a real interesting LA Times article analyzing the recent decline in the number of remittances sent home by Mexicans who have made the arduous trip north to find work. I actually talked to a cab driver last weekend that had told me he only lasted in the US for three months, working in random factory jobs, before being promptly rounded up and deported. After mentioning that he had been making 8 bucks an hour there working 10-hour days, I could only imagine how much he was probably itching to once again leave behind the 10 dollars a DAY he earns on average here. Surprisingly, when I asked when he plans to return, he promised never to go back. He assured me that the risk of being snagged at the border--or, almost just as likely, of being killed by the desert's cruel inhospitality--is no longer worth the quickly declining wages, especially when compounded with the shrinking housing market.

Spring is when many Mexican migrants head north in hopes of beating the intense desert heat along the border for summertime jobs in construction, landscaping and farming. But the U.S. housing downturn has dried up much of the building-related labor market, and a striking number of workers here say that, for now, they are unwilling to accept the physical and legal risks and fast-rising smugglers' fees to reach an iffy job situation on the U.S. side.

"It is just too hard to get there," said Jose Chavez Oliveros, 32, who returned home last year after working in an aluminum factory in Nevada for $8 an hour.

Sweating as he shoveled manure in a cow shed here the other day, Chavez said he had no plans to try his luck again, though his $15-a-day wage as a farmhand is a pittance compared with his U.S. pay.

He recalled having to hike with five others across the desert in Arizona to evade U.S. Border Patrol agents after waiting all day by the roadside for a smuggler, who charged the migrants $1,300 apiece. Some people here cited fees as high as $4,000.

"Compared with dying in the desert, it's better to stay here," Chavez said.

So, like those mentioned in the article, my cab driver buddy is stuck here for now--where a good majority of working people are slowly dying on Mexico's minimum wage of 5 dollars/day.