Dependent on migrant dollars, rural
Mexico prays for Trump defeat
Send a link to a friend
[November 05, 2016]
By Lizbeth Diaz
MOLCAXAC, Mexico (Reuters) - In the small
southern market town of Molcaxac, 650 miles (1050 km) from the U.S.
border, Alicia Villa is praying to God that Republican candidate Donald
Trump does not become the next president of the United States.
Over the past two decades, as Mexico's rural economy stalled, Molcaxac
and hundreds of towns like it became dependent on dollars sent by
relatives who made the perilous journey north, a lifeline she fears will
be cut by a Trump White House.
Villa, 65, said funds sent by a daughter working illegally as a house
cleaner in Sacramento, California have supported her family for 12 years
because the work she does as receptionist in Molcaxac does not pay
enough to make ends meet.
"I am Catholic and I have asked God and the Virgin of Asuncion that he
lose," Villa said of Trump, placing her head in her hands and intoning a
prayer in the square of the deeply religious hill town dominated by a
striking blue church.
Inside, the church was adorned with notes thanking migrant relatives for
money sent to help build homes, start businesses and pay for marriages
in the town surrounded by rivers, mountains and meadows in the state of
Puebla.
"Trump says he will kick out everyone who doesn't have papers and we
really need them to be there," said Villa, adding that she had not seen
some family members living in the United States in 20 years.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2016/Nov/05/images/ads/current/topflight_west_sda_101414.png)
Trump, a real-estate tycoon who has narrowed the gap with Democratic
rival Hillary Clinton ahead of next Tuesday's vote, has vowed to make it
harder for illegal immigrants to live and work in the United States, to
increase deportations and to limit remittances unless Mexico pays
billions for a wall along the nearly 2,000-mile (3,200-km) U.S.-Mexico
border.
Such policies would take a heavy toll in Molcaxac, where local
authorities say more than 70 percent of the population lives on
remittances sent home by immigrants to the United States, many of them
undocumented.
"Our town has improved a lot since our people started to leave for the
United States," said stonemason Esteban Marquez, whose workshop was
partly funded by remittances from one of his children.
'NOTHING FOR THEM' HERE
Mexico has more than 5 million citizens living without regular papers in
the United States, or about half of the entire undocumented population.
Those men and women send back a large chunk of Mexico's foreign exchange
earnings, contributing more than $20 billion in remittances wired this
year through September.
According to Mexico's Central Bank, Puebla received $1 billion in
remittances in the same period, making it the fifth biggest recipient
among Mexican states.
So many people from Puebla live in the New York area that New Jersey
Governor Chris Christie, a Trump supporter, visited the state in 2014.
Couriers have grown rich transporting salsas and fresh cheese to
homesick natives up north.
The money has transformed places like Molcaxac, a picturesque town
dotted with well-built homes attesting to the flow of dollars.
It is not just the potential loss of income Trump could spark that
worries Molcaxac locals.
[to top of second column] |
![](../images/110516pics/news_n25.jpg)
A travel agency board in Jalpa, central Mexico, displays travel
information for bus trips to U.S. cities like Chicago and Los
Angeles January 14, 2009. REUTERS/Tomas Bravo/File Photo
![](../images/ads/current/richardson_lda_090916.png)
The lack of employment in rural Mexico is one of the main reasons
drug gangs find it easy to recruit among young people and those
deported from the United States, they say.
"Here in Mexico, the truth is there is nothing for them," said
stonemason Marquez. "The people who stay need to survive, and since
there is no work, they get pulled into crime."
'VOTE FOR THE LADY'
Opinion polls in the run-up to the election suggest that Villa's
prayers stand a good chance of being answered, with most putting
Clinton consistently ahead of her Republican rival.
But the polls also show her losing ground in the final stretch. Real
Clear Politics, which averages the results of most major polls,
shows Clinton's advantage had declined from 4.6 percentage points to
1.7 points over the past week.
Even those of more modest means in Molcaxac are on edge with
America's election.
"Only God knows if they are going to be able to stay there," said
Serafina Martinez, who at 70 still works in the fields.
She worries it would be hard to survive without the little her son
in California sends when he can.
"I would like him to keep helping us with pennies," said Martinez,
her curved back laden with firewood and groceries.
Still, the uncertainty has also helped locals in an unexpected way:
the Mexican peso's value plunges every time Trump advances, making
the dollar remittances stretch further.
But there is no doubt in the minds of Molcaxac's townspeople that
they would rather see Clinton in the White House.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2016/Nov/05/images/ads/current/bonanza_lda_thanksgiving_2015.png)
Clinton has proposed comprehensive immigration reform with a path to
citizenship, and says she will end detention of immigrant families.
"I think she will win, and that gives us hope that our relatives
will be able to regularize (their papers)," said Teresa Amador,
selling flowers in the main market. "I have a son who was born
there, and he is going to vote for the lady."
(Writing by Natalie Schachar; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel and Mary
Milliken)
[© 2016 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
Copyright 2016 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
|