State 33. Mexico’s diaspora no longer only sends money; it can move territories
- Editorial
- 1 day ago
- 4 min read
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 support consumption, housing, education, and emergencies, but their scale has encouraged institutional complacency: celebrating the flow without asking what local capacity can be built around it.
A remittance belongs to the person who earns it and the family who receives it. It is not municipal revenue or a substitute for infrastructure, public safety, water, or services the state must provide. Turning it into a fiscal excuse shifts the cost of unresolved government failures onto migrants.
The question is not how to capture household money. It is how to recognize that behind every transfer sit trust, workplace knowledge, business contacts, reputation, and belonging. That network is State 33: the extended territory Mexico builds beyond its borders.
State 33 already has economic scale
The critical mass exists. The Migration Policy Institute estimates that the Mexican-origin diaspora in the United States reached roughly 39.4 million people in 2023; 10.9 million were Mexico-born immigrants. California and Texas remain its two largest nodes. That concentration carries economic, professional, cultural, and political weight.
Reducing this community to senders overlooks its evolution. It includes workers, entrepreneurs, specialists, students, community leaders, and new generations able to open markets and translate both countries’ operating codes. For many municipalities, the scarcest capital is reliable intelligence about demand, standards, and projects worthy of trust.
“Mexico does not end at its borders; it also organizes itself wherever its communities live.”
You can listen to this article here:
Migration is no longer only a demographic exit or a consular issue: it is relational infrastructure. A municipality with active ties in Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston, Phoenix, or Dallas can accelerate an export deal, a university partnership, an investment, or local mentorship.
The Zacatecas precedent, a door that should not close
Zacatecas left a precedent municipal debate should not forget. In 1986, migrant clubs based in the United States promoted a 1x1 scheme there to support projects in their hometowns. The experience expanded with Guerrero and helped shape the federal 3x1 Program in 2001. It grew from organized networks that demanded a role in decisions and public works.
The precedent shows that a diaspora can enter public debate as a territorial actor. It also marks a limit: repeating contribution formulas is not enough. The challenge is to move from isolated works toward a municipal agenda of productive projects and long-term binational relationships.
From compatriots to territorial partners
The mistake would be to answer with ceremonies or nostalgia campaigns. The diaspora needs counterparts who understand projects, risk, and decision cycles. A serious municipality should maintain a public portfolio: sites with clear legal status, supplier-development needs, water or energy projects with complete files, businesses ready to certify, and ventures able to absorb mentoring or patient capital.
The rule is simple: project first, outreach second. Local government should present costs, permits, accountable leads, returns, supervision, and evidence of execution. Without that, a request becomes a fundraiser. With it, the relationship can open co-investment, cross-border procurement, technology transfer, heritage tourism, or talent development.
Italy offers a transferable lesson. The OECD documents that it brought diaspora organizations into consultation mechanisms, strengthened their capacities, and worked with local authorities and civil society to connect knowledge, investment, jobs, and local products. For Mexico, the relationship requires professional counterparts, comparable information, follow-up, and conflict-of-interest rules.
The diaspora is also a political interlocutor
State 33 does not end with the economic pillar. The diaspora also has capacity for representation, mediation, and local diplomacy. A municipal migrant-affairs office should not be limited to paperwork and one annual event: it should convene clubs, chambers, universities, civic organizations, and second-generation leaders.
Binational tables with public goals, consultation mechanisms, data protection, and result reports can create voice without turning the relationship into clientelism.
“The diaspora is not asking for privilege; it is asking to be taken seriously when a territory decides its future.”
You can see this article here:
The 3x1 lesson, shared responsibility without romanticism
The 3x1 Program showed that transnational ties can finance collective goods. But the evidence reviewed by the World Bank calls for caution: there is no reliable research showing that matching-fund schemes induce more communal remittances; such mechanisms can also become regressive or politically targeted.
The lesson is not to abandon shared responsibility, but to professionalize it. A municipality should not offer opacity in exchange for goodwill. It should offer public rules, social audits, progress dashboards, verifiable procurement, and a ban on using migrant-supported projects for personal promotion.
“A migrant is not a captive donor; they are a partner who demands clarity.” That distinction will determine whether a new territorial agenda earns credibility.
What comes next
The next contest will not be over who boasts about the largest remittance inflow. It will be over who turns a binational relationship into local capacity. Municipalities that map communities abroad, build sector-based networks, and prepare auditable projects can connect diaspora capital with local capital, development finance, buyers, and universities. The rest will keep watching resources pass by without multiplying them.
State 33 does not romanticize distance or ask migrants to repair what the state allowed to deteriorate. It recognizes the diaspora as an economic, cultural, political, and territorial force. A municipality that fails to build a professional relationship with it will surrender access to markets, talent, trust, and binational decisions that other territories will know how to organize. In a network economy, those who do not connect also forfeit the ability to compete.
Written by: Editorial
Sources consulted
Links consulted for verification and editorial context.
Comments