Mexico funds English training for its citizens in the United States
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The Institute for Mexicans Abroad, a program run by the Mexican government, has been providing money, resources and sometimes even teachers to schools and nonprofits in the United States to help Mexicans living there, legally and illegally, to improve their English and complete their education, according to this report from the Associated Press.
The Mexican community living in the United States is an economic lifeline for Mexico. After profits from oil, remittances sent home from the community in the U.S make up Mexico’s second biggest source of foreign income.
But illegal immigration is a huge issue in the United States. The U.S. government is tightening border security and in the process of building a 670-mile long fence along its Southern border with Mexico.
Acknowledgment that the Mexican government is helping educate Mexicans in the United States - many of them there illegally - may be interpreted by some as tacit support for unlawful immigration.
‘The programs aren’t substitutes for U.S. curricula, but educators familiar with them say they provide a lifeline for adult students with little formal education by helping them become literate in Spanish — and by extension, English,’ reports AP.
‘Yet many educators are wary of even talking about the programs, fearing they might stoke an anti-immigrant backlash. ‘The Mexican government, which spends more than $1 million annually on the programs, has many reasons to provide the aid to the immigrants and their children. The programs allow it to give back to the growing number of Mexicans living legally and illegally in the U.S. Behind oil, remittances from these individuals are the second-largest source of foreign income for the Mexican economy — almost $24 billion last year.
Read the rest of the report from AP on how Mexico is helping with the education of its countrymen in the United States here.
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-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City