Following a recent North Texas crackdown on illegal immigrants, Dallas news thoughtfully provided the world with an update on how the recent economic disasters might affect Mexicans. Yes those two things are related, because when white Americans get poorer it makes them nervous, and they decide they don’t want to share the playground anymore. One Dallas resident discovered this the hard way:

Luis Martínez went from being a successful Dallas businessman to a struggling alfalfa farmer in rural central Mexico. Immigration officials said he had violated his residency by leaving the country without permission – to attend a funeral in Mexico – during the lengthy wait for his green card.

Why is deportation out of the U.S. affecting Mexico’s economy?

It’s due, in large part, to the surge in unemployment both within and outside of Mexico. Immigrants working in the U.S. often send part of their earnings to family in Mexico. So if they lose their jobs, it affects everyone depending on them.

Remittances sent home dropped by nearly 7 percent in July compared with a year earlier.”Hispanic unemployment is likely to go up all the way to December before it comes down,” said Manuel Orozco, who is head of a remittance project at the Inter-American Dialogue think tank in Washington. Of the 500,000 Hispanics who have lost their jobs since January 2007, he estimates 60,000 are illegal immigrants from Mexico.

Luis Martínez adds that it’s not just about the money or property he had built up, but also about the community in Dallas he was forced to leave behind.

“It’s very difficult. It’s 20 years you have been gone, and when you come back, your friends are not here.”

The video component of the Dallas news article helpfully reminds us that Mexican poverty can be summed up by footage of a dusty churchyard with barking dogs. In other news, stereotypes about Mexico have not been deported out of the U.S.

Mexicans feeling pinch as income stream from U.S. slows [Dallas news]