Wall Street and Immigration: Financial Services Giants Have Profited from the Beginning

Life began to get hard for most Americans beginning in the late 1990s due to increased family debt. During the same period, life got a lot harder for most Mexicans for the same reason. The same financial institutions created and profited from much of the family debt in both countries.

According to census reports, 70% of the government unauthorized immigrants in the United States are from Mexico. Most legally unauthorized Mexican immigrants in the United States are economic refugees from the 1995 devastation of Mexico’s economy.

While it is popular among U.S. presidential candidates these days to blame Mexican corruption for our huge undocumented immigrant population, corruption in the United States played a far larger role in compelling millions of Mexicans to cross our southern border with or without legal authorization. U.S. corruption came in the form of politicians implementing and enforcing foreign policies that yielded unprecedented profits for their well-heeled campaign contributors in the financial services industry. They probably didn’t break U.S. law to accomplish this, but they did force Mexico to break its own laws to implement their program.”*

• Ricardo Salinas Breaks Ground for What Will Be the Most Modern Television Studio in Latin America – Mexico City
• Brazil replaces Mexico as China’s top market in Latin America and boosts its surplus as well.
• The mayor of a wealthy suburb (San Pedro Garza Garcia) of Monterrey said Monday that he has sent his family to the United States for their own safety as he pursues his campaign against extortion and kidnapping gangs.
• Expert: Juárez violence a ‘terrorist war’
• Mexican Mennonites Impacted by Drug Violence
• Mexican farmers reeling from worst drought in decades
• Mexico City’s famed dance-for-peso halls fading
• Americans Running South: Why We are Flocking to Mexico for Work
• On the mayor’s agenda: ‘Civilize’ Mexico City – Marcelo Ebrard
• Hispanic Entrepreneur profile: Entrepreneurship began early for Gándara family – El Paso
• Juárez violence: Drug-war brutality persists despite presence of military
• Mexican doctors pointed to parents as the reason Mexico leads the world in child obesity, a problem made worse in this country by the lack of sports training.
• Mexico’s top domestic security official said Friday that sectors of the general public have cooperated with drug cartels in the violent border city of Ciudad Juarez, and the government is about to launch new social programs there to combat gangs.
• Susana Iglesias, writing from the streets – Mexico City native is winner of the first-ever Aura Estrada Prize, an international competition for young women writing literature in Spanish.
• Mexican authorities predict fewer Mexican immigrants will be back home for Christmas
• Mapping Out Mexico – Navigating your way through Mexico can be tricky business sometimes – MexicoMaps.com
• Mexican migrants are spending more money on taxes in the United States than on the remittances they send home to relatives, according to a new study by Mexico’s largest bank, BBVA Bancomer.
• Ana Maria Perez Gonzalez, said to be the oldest woman in the world, died in Mexico this week. She was 119.
• Welcome Ceremony for José Hernández Moreno, NASA Astronaut in México
• Mexico’s Drug Violence Gives Rise To Vigilantism