Americans Make Up Mexico’s Largest Demographic Of Immigrants

Nichols mentioned the Spanish word convivencia which literally translates to coexistence, but he said he doesn’t think the translation gives the full context of the word.

“You know how the Eskimos have so many different words for snow? If you interact with something more, you have more vocabulary to describe that thing,” he said. “I don’t know that we have va word in the United States for just sharing time with one another and I think that word reflects a big cultural difference between the two countries.”

U.S. President Donald Trump has made bemoaning northbound immigration the cornerstone of his presidency, initially targeting Mexicans and then Central Americans.

But, the number of unauthorized Mexicans living in the U.S. has fallen by 2 million people during the last decade or so, from 6.9 million in 2007 to 4.9 million in 2017, according to Pew Research Center.

The number of Mexicans living in the United States declined so sharply over the past decade that Mexicans are no longer the country’s largest demographic of undocumented migrants. Many are returning home.

Apprehensions of Mexicans at the U.S. border also dropped from a high of 1.6 million in 2000 to 152,257 in 2018. For the third consecutive fiscal year, apprehensions of non-Mexicans outnumbered those of Mexicans.

Meanwhile, the number of Americans living in Mexico has increased by more than four times since 1990, according to federal data.

For Nichols, who left Colorado several years ago, the sense of community is stronger in Mexico, and he has some ideas about why.

“If you’re rich, you have access to lots of materials. If you get sick, you can buy medicine. If you get bored, you can buy entertainment. And you can basically be a terrible person if you want to without it necessarily affecting your survival,” said Nichols.

“But if you’re poor, there might be a day when you don’t have food. Or you get sick and you need your neighbor to take care of you. So, you have to be nice and you have to maintain those relationships with your family and your neighbor and your community. You need to have people around you that are going to bring you food. I see that all the time in Mexico,” he said.

Trump has repeatedly threatened to impose punishing sanctions on Mexico unless they stem the flow of migrants making their way to the United States border.

In Mexico, the federal government takes a very different approach with its American immigrant population, whether they are legal or not.

“We have never pressured them to have their documents in order,” Mexico’s Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard told The Washington Post.

He has not yet respond to questions from the Union-Tribune about whether that lenient attitude will continue amid Mexico’s crackdown on migration spurred by pressure from the Trump administration. But that’s unlikely. Mexican authorities believe Americans stimulate the local economy, just like Mexicans do in the U.S., they said.

In recent weeks, Mexican authorities have set up immigration checkpoints along main northbound highways and have been aggressively detaining and deporting thousands of migrants from Central America, Haiti and Cuba.

If and when the Mexican government does enforce their immigration laws against Americans who overstay their six-month visa, it’s usually just with a small fine.

But “ex-pats,” as they call themselves, could face other penalties.

International tax attorney Enrique Hernández-Pulido said U.S. citizens living in Mexico may face tax obligations they are unaware of, which could result in a costly fine.

“The first thing to understand is that the U.S. is the only country in the world that taxes based on citizenship and not residency,” said Hernández-Pulido.

That means a U.S. citizen living in Mexico, even if they work for a Mexican company, has to pay taxes to the U.S. on that income.

“What happens is many people, maybe the majority, have tax obligations in the U.S. that they may not know about and may not be paying or complying with,” he said.

Hernández-Pulido said often times people living in Mexico earning under a certain amount will only have to file for an exemption with the IRS, but if they don’t do it, they could face the $10,000 tax fine.

“So, let’s say you have a retiree down in San Felipe with $15,000 in the bank collecting a small amount of interest annually. They probably don’t owe much, but if they don’t file for that exemption, it can become a nightmare for them,” he said, who feels bad for U.S. retirees who have faced stiff penalties during a U.S. crackdown on collecting those fines.

“They just go to live a simpler life, stretch out their retirement dollars, but they can end up with a ‘tax tragedy’ that almost cleans them out,” said Hernández-Pulido.

Story cited here.