Remittances to Mexico are up, which means either more Mexicans are working in the United States, they are sending more money, or both.

From Mexidata:

A robust flow of remittances to Mexico has returned from the decline marked after the 2008 world economic crisis. As the New Year turned the corner, the central Bank of Mexico reported that dollars sent home from migrants working abroad totaled US$22.6 billion from January to November 2015, ringing up a 5.44 increase from the similar period in 2014.The Bank of Mexico's numbers, however, do not include dollars spent in Mexico by migrants during the heavy December spending period, also a time when migrants able to return to their native country – sometimes in organized caravans of "paisanos" – bring in extra cash.

I recently returned from Mexico (a report of my trip here) and there were a lot of Mexican residents of the U.S. visiting there.  When we crossed the border northward, returning, it took us six and a half hours.  And that's not the longest wait we ever had on the border.

Some analysts predict the total sum of remittances captured in Mexico will hit the US$25 billion mark for 2015. According toLa Jornada columnist Enrique Galvan Ochoa, Goldman Sachs and Airpak-Western Union both project Mexico will count US$25 billion in remittances for the just concluded year.

Recovering a very strategic spot in the Mexican economy, migrant remittances in 2015 surpassed direct foreign investment, international tourism and even oil sales as the nation's top source of foreign exchange. For instance, in comparison with the more than US$22.5 billion in remittances registered during the first 11 months of the year, oil sales abroad represented about US$17.7 billion in the same time frame.

Because of all this money entering Mexico, the Mexican government is going to do what it can to prevent Donald Trump (or any candidate with similar border policies) from becoming president.   That's why the Mexican government wants to get three million more Mexicans resident in the U.S. voting in U.S. elections.  (See here).

Rock-bottom oil prices, less than expected foreign investment in the energy sector, and the plummeting value of the peso in relation to the dollar all work to boost the value of migrant remittances at the beginning of 2016. On this note, the strong dollar benefits households and individuals getting bucks from the United States. In 2015 alone, the value of the Mexican peso dropped by 17 percent. Mexico's Remittances Up - The Return of the Migrant Dollar