“Remittance”. Chances are, you have never heard of that term before. For all the hysterics offered from both left and right in what these days passes for a debate about our borders, immigration, and those individuals that disregard the former then don the title of the latter to reside in America, “remittance” has yet to enter the vocabulary.
It’s strange that the term hasn’t been brought up. Remittances are a key reason why so many disregard our borders, call themselves immigrants, and reside here.
Understand that remittance payments are not exclusive to the United States. There are entire economies in the modern world propped up by remittance payments. Poorer nations regularly export their most precious resource – people – to other nations to perform labor. Those laborers then send much of their money back to their home country.
A great example is some of the wealthier Middle Eastern nations. In such places the actual citizens of those countries hold white collar professional positions, or if they are looped in closely enough to power they don’t work at all and instead live off of royalty payments exacted from the petroleum industry. (In the Middle East, in exchange for drilling and production rights, governments require petroleum companies to pay royalties to the state which in turn are passed along to native born citizens). Blue collar work goes to men and women that are from elsewhere and aren’t citizens of those wealthy Middle Eastern countries.
Imagine, you are a young man living in Bangladesh. Your prospects in Bangladesh aren’t good. So you get a job in Dubai doing construction, working in a shipyard, or whatever, because the money you make by doing so is far more than what you could ever make in Chittagong. While in Dubai, you’ll probably live in a dorm with other young men in your situation. You won’t be allowed to leave at will of course because upon arrival your employer will take your passport. So for about a year at a time you will work and at some point, if you are lucky, you’ll be allowed a week or so back home. The bulk of the money you earn you’ll send back to Chittagong via wire transfer – you’ll spend time each week at such an office with others just like you waiting your turn to send money back.
Now, let’s say overnight remittances were banned and all governments worldwide complied and every remittance worker was rounded up and shipped back home. The domestic political situation in already precarious nations would be worsened.
What do many of those that disregard our border – unlike other remittance workers who travel via passport legally – and then call themselves immigrants do? They live in bunkhouses, rented space, and whatever else, so that they can send their money back to their loved ones in their home country.
To be fair, the money they earn is their property and they can do with it as they please. The problem isn’t the choice they make with the money they’ve earned. Rather, it’s the support their home governments afford them for doing so.
Mexico, for example, is a prime offender. It’s been well known for more than a decade that the Mexican government distributes “how to” guides for those trying to head north into America. Moreover, the Mexican regime just allowed the so-called caravan to travel the expanse of Mexico south to north for the sole purpose of taking a jab at our border. Because the Mexican government needs for our border to be disregarded, by those that activists call immigrants, so that remittance payments flow into Mexico alleviating any need for the Mexican government to solve social problems plaguing Mexico. The Mexican government benefits more from illegals than the illegals and their families back home in Mexico do.
That’s the true crux of the problem.
Image: CCO Creative Commons; Excerpted from: https://pixabay.com/en/dollars-envelope-money-corruption-2439136/
