The magazine that analyzes the power of Mexican municipalities in the economy, governance and Mexico's relationship with the world.

Collective remittances can multiply local investment and reshape the relationship with the diaspora—but only when rules, transparency, and public accountability are in place. In some Mexican communities, a paved street, an equipped classroom, or a water network does not begin at city hall. It begins at a migrant gathering in Los Angeles, Chicago, or Fort Worth. There, people who left their municipality pool resources for a project postponed for years. This is not distant phil

In a municipality of fewer than six thousand people, money crossing the border has become household infrastructure. The challenge is not to celebrate it, but to turn the binational relationship into assets, enterprise, and local capacity. Weight is measured by reach, not only by dollars Chiquilistlán cannot be understood only through its Revenue Law. It must also be read through the transfers that cross the border and enter household decisions directly: food, housing, health,

For decades, Mexico described migration through the language of departure: the person who leaves, the family that waits, the remittance that keeps consumption afloat, and the community that learns to live with an empty chair. That story remains real; deportations, family separation, precarious work, and immigration vulnerability prove that rupture has not disappeared. But it no longer explains the whole present. A generation has grown up across languages, trips, documents, vi

Mexican networks in the United States do more than connect families: they shape access to customers, suppliers, talent, and investment in North America’s new economic map. Mexico Does Not End at the Border The debate over Mexico’s economic future is often confined to ports, industrial parks, roads, and municipal budgets. All of that matters. But it leaves out an infrastructure that does not fit within a single national map: the U.S. cities where Mexican goods are sold, distri

Mexico receives a consequential flow of private resources from its diaspora. The municipal challenge is not to redirect them, but to build the conditions in which the share families choose to invest can become local activity, jobs, and a more durable economic base. A remittance that sustains a household is also development A remittance used for food, medicine, rent, or school is not money misused; it is a household safeguard. The mistake begins when public debate treats consu

Remittances prove that the connection endures. The municipal challenge is to turn that relationship into investment, knowledge, markets, and verifiable projects without treating migrants as a public-sector cash reserve. Remittances are not territorial policy Remittances are evidence of family stability. In 2025, Mexico received US$62.47 billion; from January through April 2026, another US$19.68 billion arrived, 2.6% more than a year earlier, according to Banco de México. They

The 3rd Brilliant Minds Festival By Enrique Michel Velasco 2026 opened a cultural, humanist and binational agenda to rethink Mexico’s relationship with its migrant communities. Mexico does not end at its border. It also lives in every migrant community that preserves its language, its culture, its symbols and its family memory far from the national territory. That was one of the central ideas that marked the 3rd Brilliant Minds Festival By Enrique Michel Velasco 2026, held at

Mexico continues to treat its diaspora as nostalgia, when it should treat it as strategic capital. That is the failure. Millions of Mexicans outside the country sustain households, finance consumption, pay for education, build homes, activate businesses, and keep the economy of hundreds of municipalities alive. But Mexico has still not built a serious architecture to turn that force into territorial investment. The Mexican diaspora is not only identity. It is economic pow

Mexico has a second foreign policy. It was not born in a foreign ministry. It was built by millions of Mexicans who work, pay taxes, send money, open businesses, vote, defend their identity, and negotiate every day with schools, banks, hospitals, unions, companies, and governments beyond the national territory. That is the uncomfortable truth, the Mexican diaspora already operates as a parallel diplomacy. The problem is not that Mexico lacks global influence. The problem

Speaking of the Mexican diaspora as merely a network of family support is no longer sufficient. Today, it is an economic, political, and technological actor with the capacity to influence Mexico’s public discourse and to build bridges with its trade partners across the Americas, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Oceania. The scale makes this clear: Mexico remains one of the world’s largest recipients of remittances, while the International Monetary Fund projects moderate economic gro