Financial Transparency Coalition

Krishen Mehta, co-chair of Global Financial Integrity, wrote an Op-Ed in the Dallas Morning News earlier this week. He addressed how illicit financial flows are a root structural cause of illegal immigration from Mexico to the United States, and how Mexico and the U.S. can work to solve it. The Op-Ed reads:

Solutions to root causes of the huge levels of illegal immigration from Mexico to the United States deserve more attention. One cause of people leaving developing countries like Mexico is the outflow of financial resources from illicit activities. Stop this flow of capital, and countries would have the resources to create jobs and opportunity at home and stem the flow of people over our borders.

Tto do this, we must change our laws, which today make it far too easy for people from other countries to hide their ill-gotten gains here in America.

A report just released by Global Financial Integrity, a think tank based in Washington, estimated that Mexico lost a massive $872 billion in illicit financial outflows from 1970 to 2010. The report also found that banks in the United States were the top destination for Mexican funds. In this way, our own banks are helping push ordinary Mexicans to come to the United States, often illegally, to overcome the domestic problems created by this kind of massive capital outflow.

Read the rest of the Op-Ed at the Dallas Morning news.