Mexico & Nafta - December 2008 (ISSN 1741-444X)

Returning migrants: On 30 October the Asociación Mundial de Mexicanos en el Exterior claimed that 1.6m Mexicans would return from the US to live permanently in Mexico. These returnees would outnumber by four to one those Mexicans who cross the border into the US every year to try to better themselves. If the flood of migrants turns south, Mexico's social cohesion will be severely tested: successive Mexican governments have depended on migration to the US as an economic and social safety valve.

The Asociación reckons that 600,000 Mexicans living in the US will return by Christmas and that another 900,000 will return in January, when the boom in temporary jobs to meet the US Christmas rush ends. The US economy registered a contraction of 0.3% in the third quarter of 2008, and most US economists expect the economy to continue to contract into the first half of 2009. The president of the association, Carlos Villanueva, said that in only one consulate in Santa Ana, California, 570 families had asked about going home. Most of them come from the poor states of Zacatecas and Michoacán.