June 14, 2022
-Hot Air
Since “the new normal” now includes the option for many people to work from home on a permanent basis, employees are realizing that they have a lot more options in terms of where “home” might be located. This is true in California as well, and particularly so in the San Diego area near the Mexico border. Between the rising crime rates and the staggering cost of living, fleeing California is being seen as an increasingly attractive option for many residents. But that doesn’t mean you have to give up your job if you have the option of telecommuting. So where are they going? In many cases, it turns out that Californians are emigrating to Mexico and working from there. And as the Daily Wire reports this week, there is some rich irony in this latest mobility trend.
Now that Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom and his cronies have ruined their state and inflation is crushing households, thousands of Californians are reversing the typical pattern and moving to Mexico.
Many of the emigres count on the fact that their salaries from the United States enable them to afford much more South of the border.
“I would say at least half are coming down from California,” Darrell Graham of Baja123 Real Estate Group told CNBC. “Suddenly the cost of taxes, the crime rates, the politics, all the things that people are unhappy with in California are wanting to come down to Mexico.”
If you’re looking at this situation in strictly economic terms, emigrating from southern California to Mexico is probably a no-brainer. Average rental rates in the Tijuana area are less than a third of what they are in San Diego. In a recent survey, it was found that less than a quarter of Californians can afford the average price of a home there or even qualify for a mortgage of the size they would require. The continual barrage of new taxes that the California legislature keeps approving makes the state less affordable every year.
But take a moment to consider the historic problems we’ve had with illegal immigration all along the Mexican border, including in California. One of the biggest drivers of illegal migration for those not engaged in drug smuggling and human trafficking is the fact that much of Mexico is such a horrible place to live. Drug cartels control much of the country, violence is common, and economic opportunities are scarce. That’s why a human wave of migrants regularly tries to reach the United States.
The question that Gavin Newsom really needs to be asking himself this week is a simple one. Exactly how bad does your state need to be before people are thinking of moving to Mexico to improve their lives?
In another bit of irony, some people in northern Mexico who live near the border are sounding more and more like California liberals and adopting their talking points. One of the biggest complaints you regularly hear from liberals in urban settings involves “gentrification.” That the process where wealthier people begin buying up formerly inexpensive property, often in communities of color, driving up costs and making the area unaffordable for the original residents. And now there are Mexicans in the Tijuana area raising the same complaints.
“Certain neighborhoods are now becoming too expensive for Mexican citizens to live in because most of the time people that are actually buying the property developments are being able to do so because they either make money in US dollars or because they are working remotely,” Ariel Ruiz Soto, a policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, stated.
The shoe is truly on the other foot. Last year, 280,000 more people moved out of California than moved into the state. And now we know that a significant number of those leaving went to Mexico. Is there any chance that California’s legislators are noticing these trends and perhaps wondering if they might have gone too far? Don’t hold your breath.