Tax the Ill-Gotten Gains of Mexican Labor
SAN DIEGO -- There was an uncomfortable moment when Donald Trump, of all people, offered a proposal in the immigration debate that sounded eerily similar to something I have been thinking about.
After 25 years of reporting and writing on immigration, I recently found myself trying to come up with a new way to deter illegal immigration into the United States from Mexico.
Then it hit me: remittances. Mexican expatriates in the United States send home nearly $25 billion annually, most of it in wire transfers or bank deposits. Some of it comes from legal permanent residents and U.S. citizens, but much of it from the undocumented.
That figure must have caught Trump's attention. Pressed to explain how he plans to get Mexico to pay for what he insists will be a "big, beautiful wall" on the border, Trump has included into his immigration reform plan a threat to "impound all remittance payments derived from illegal wages."
And in a new twist, the billionaire suggested that he would use the confiscated funds to pay for the wall unless Mexico agrees to a one-time payment of $5 billion to $10 billion.
Good luck with that, Amigo. Of course, Mexico will never give in to blackmail. Even though what Trump proposes is a bargain. Every four years, the Mexican economy takes in nearly $100 billion from Mexicans living in the United States. It can afford to kick back a percentage to the house. The real reason Mexico won't do so is because it has no interest in building a wall that may cut into profits by limiting migration to the north.
Welcome to Real World Border Economics 101.
My idea was a little different. I would not seize the remittances entirely. Government confiscation of private property doesn't seem like something the Republican Party should be toying with.
However, I would tax the money transfers at 50 percent. Also, my goal wouldn't be to raise funds to build a wall that won't be very effective anyway, but rather to discourage future illegal immigration.
After all, there is no denying that illegal immigrants work long hard hours under harsh conditions doing jobs that Americans won't do.
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