ISIS On a Successful Destruction Path

Posted on May 15, 2015May 15, 2015 by Denise Simon

Ramadi government buildings taken over by Islamic State and at least 50 are dead. They have moved into Palmyra a very ancient location protected by World Heritage and beheaded 10 people.

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Meanwhile Scotland is sounding the alarm bells.

Scotland Yard’s top anti-terror chief: ‘Jihadis staying in UK to plot attacks’

Scotland Yard’s top counter-terrorism officer today warned of a growing threat from Britons inspired by Islamic State who stay here to attempt terrorist outrages instead of fighting overseas.

Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley said “significant numbers” of extremists influenced by the “corrupt cult” are plotting attacks in Britain — as new figures reveal jihadi arrests have soared.

He said police were “wrestling to tackle” dangers involving “complex, organised” plots as well as potential attacks by “chaotic” extremists whose aims changed on a daily basis. There was also a “massive threat on the streets of the UK” posed by those who had returned from conflict in Syria and Iraq after engaging in “barbaric” atrocities.

‘ISIS is a state-breaker’ — here’s the Islamic State’s strategy for the rest of 2015

ISIS seeks a global caliphate, according to its propaganda. ISIS has articulated its global vision numerous times. Most powerfully in the fifth issue of ISIS’s multi-language Dabiq magazine, ISIS stated the following:

The flag of Khalifah will rise over Makkah and al-Madinah, even if the apostates and hypocrites despise such. The flag of Khalifah will rise over Baytul-Maqdis [Jerusalem] and Rome, even if the Jews and Crusaders despise such. The shade of the blessed flag will expand until it covers all eastern and western extents of the Earth, filling the world with the truth and justice of Islam and putting an end to the falsehood and tyranny of jahiliyyah [ignorance], even if America and its coalition despise such.

ISIS’s ultimate end is likely a global war, not a limited war for local control inside Iraq and Syria. ISIS’s vision for a prospering caliphate requires that it instigate a broader war to compromise states competing with it for legitimacy.

Driving this broader war is likely how ISIS frames its goals in 2015 beyond Iraq and Syria. ISIS must maintain its physical caliphate within these states while it approaches this second objective to expand in an environment of regional disorder. Accordingly, ISIS assigned the title of “Remaining and Expanding” to the above-referenced issue of Dabiq published in November 2014.

ISIS Sanctuary_12 MAY 2015 Institute for the Study of War

To “Remain and Expand” is a strategic mission statement with two goals.

First, it supports ISIS’s defense inside Iraq and Syria, and second, it seeks the literal expansion of the caliphate.

ISIS announced operations to expand to Libya, Sinai, and other corners of the Arab world in late 2014 while under duress, in a moment of weakness during which rumors arose of the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, ISIS’s leader. The timing of this announced expansion supported ISIS’s momentum while it faced counter-attacks inside Iraq and Syria.

Global expansion is a motif that ISIS desires to propagate at times when it is experiencing tactical losses. Expansion into new territory is therefore a defensive supporting operation. But it is nevertheless also a concrete operational plan to make its caliphate larger.

Military Parade in Rain in Baaj 19 JAN 15 Institute for the Study of WarAn ISIS military parade in Baaj, in northwestern Iraq, on January 15, 2015.

ISIS is framing its strategy across three geographic rings: the Interior Ring in the Levant, the Near Abroad in the wider Middle East and North Africa, and the Far Abroad in Europe, Asia, and the United States. ISIS’s strategic framework corresponds to a campaign with three overarching goals: to defend inside Iraq and Syria; to expand operations regionally, and to disrupt and recruit on a global scale.

Iraq is central to the origin of ISIS’s caliphate, and likely also central to many among ISIS’s leadership cadre. Iraq will likely remain the epicenter of ISIS’s campaign as long as its current leadership is alive. The physical caliphate in Iraq and Syria is still the source of ISIS’s power, unless ISIS’s operations in the Near or Far Abroad achieve momentum that is independent of ISIS’s battlefield success in Iraq and Syria.

Iraq in particular holds unique and lasting significance for ISIS that it cannot easily replicate elsewhere. Expressing Iraq’s significance, ISIS issued the following quote from al-Qaeda in Iraq’s founder, Abu Mus’ab az-Zarqawi at the beginning of every Dabiq magazine issue it has published as of April 2015:

“The spark has been lit here in Iraq, and its heat will continue to intensify — by Allah’s permission — until it burns the crusader armies in Dabiq.” – Abu Mus’ab az-Zarqawi

Focusing anti-ISIS operations upon Iraq in 2015 therefore has merit. But it also raises questions about what the operational goal of the counter-ISIS strategy should be.

Control of cities is the metric for the success or failure of states that are challenged by ISIS. Cities are also the key to challenging the legitimacy of ISIS’s caliphate. They are not, however, the metric by which to measure the defeat of ISIS’s fighting force.

ISIS’s ability to remain as a violent group, albeit rebranded, has already been demonstrated, given the near-defeat of its predecessor AQI in 2008 and its resurgence over the intervening period. Nevertheless, ISIS in 2015 is a caliphate that has more to prove, and it likely desires to preserve the image of a vast dominion across Iraq and Syria.

In this most dangerous form, ISIS is a counter-state, a state-breaker that can claim new rule and new boundaries after seizing cities across multiple states by force, an unacceptable modern precedent. ISIS would fail to remain as an alternative political order, however, if it lost all of the cities under its control, an important aspect of the US plan to defeat ISIS strategically.

mosul air strikes isis Stringer/Anadolu Agency/Getty ImagesAir attacks are staged by coalition forces to Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants in Vane 30 kilometers north of Mosul, Iraq on January 20, 2015.

This analysis frames the question: what will ISIS lose if it loses Mosul?

Mosul is ISIS’s largest urban prize. It is hundreds of miles from Baghdad and outside the current reach of the Iraqi Security Forces. It has been under ISIS’s overt control since June 2014, and it is a symbol of ISIS’s power. It is the city from which ISIS’s leader Abu Bakr al- Baghdadi announced his caliphate.

When the ISF mount an effective counter-attack against ISIS in Mosul, ISIS will lose credibility, not only as a fledgling polity but also as a military that will have been outperformed by a more capable force. More so than Tikrit, ISIS likely cannot relinquish such a great city as Mosul outright. ISIS will likely fight harder for Mosul and allow it to be destroyed in order to deny it to the Iraqi government. It is a valid operational priority for the Iraqi government to reclaim Mosul before ISIS destroys it to ensure Iraq’s recovery.

Mosul’s recovery will not be the end of the war against ISIS, however. In fact, ISIS will constitute a permanent threat to Mosul if its dominion over the Jazeera desert in western Iraq persists. This outcome is guaranteed while ISIS controls eastern Syria.

ISIS controls more than cities, and freedom of maneuver outside cities will allow ISIS to reset in nearby areas outside of them without altering its overall disposition. ISIS organizes itself internally through administrative and military units called wilayats that sub-divide its territorial claims. ISIS currently operates 20 known wilayats across Iraq and Syria as of April 2015, all but two of which posted their operations with photosets online in early 2015.

ISIS Valiyat map Institute for the Study of War

The map at left is a graphical interpretation of ISIS’s wilayats in Iraq and Syria, created by an ISIS supporter and later branded and re-posted by ISIS through its own social media in January 2015. ISIS’s wilayat disposition shows that ISIS’s concept for territorial control considers areas, more than just individual cities.

The area approach reflects both a social mentality to occupy populations comprehensively and a military approach to eliminate gaps in ISIS’s control that would expose ISIS to internal resistance or external attack.

ISIS’s campaign in Iraq and Syria is a distinctly urban operation, but ISIS has been a desert force since its inception, and this area mentality and ability to maneuver in deserts is another reason not to limit anti-ISIS strategies to driving ISIS from individual cities.

Driving ISIS from a city translates neither to defeating a respective ISIS wilayat, nor to the elimination of ISIS military presence in a particular area. Putting pressure on ISIS in one city at a time will only cause it to shift, rather than to experience durable loss.

Unless ISIS is cleared as comprehensively as its predecessor was in 2006-2008, ISIS’s military disposition across Iraq and Syria will likely endure, even expanding, allowing ISIS to regroup and renew its campaign to retake cities continuously.

Anti-ISIS strategies therefore need to consider how ISIS frames the terrain inside Iraq and Syria, and how it will likely posture in order to defend and eventually resume its offensive campaign to control cities permanently. Anti-ISIS strategies can use the same frame to constrain ISIS’s options and force it into decisive battles.

Arrest all of the Top Leadership at the VA

Posted on May 15, 2015May 15, 2015 by Denise Simon

Lawmakers are well aware of the poor performance of the new VA secretary and subpoenas are flying. Contention is real and valid.

The Inspector General has submitted several reports and yet no one heeded his alarming call to action.

He discloses his repeated efforts to raise his concerns with other senior officials at the agency but says he was consistently ignored. He also accuses top agency officials of deceiving Congress when they were asked about questionable practices.

When an Inspector General investigates government agencies and finds tangible evidence of malfeasance and fraud, then sounds the alarm with written reports and no one reads them or takes action, fire them and turn them over to the FBI and Justice for prison sentences. This is especially necessary at the Veterans Administration where the health safety is tantamount to anything else in government based on historical contracts with service members. The government promises to our treasured military have been broken for years and the scandals are not solved. General Shinseki and Robert McDonald, both secretaries of the VA have failed, sadly failed.

“Doors are swung wide open for fraud, waste and abuse,” he writes in the March memo, which was obtained by The Washington Post. He adds, “I can state without reservation that VA has and continues to waste millions of dollars by paying excessive prices for goods and services due to breaches of Federal laws.”

“These unlawful acts may potentially result in serious harm or death to America’s veterans,” Frye wrote. “Collectively, I believe they serve to decay the entire VA health-care system.”

9 big takeaways from memo accusing VA of making a ‘mockery’ of spending rules

In March, the Department of Veterans Affairs’ senior procurement official, Jan R. Frye, sent a memo to Secretary Robert McDonald accusing other agency leaders of “gross mismanagement.” In the 35-page document, he describes a culture of “lawlessness and chaos” at the Veterans Health Administration, the massive health-care system for 8.7 million veterans.

Frye says the department has been spending at least $6 billion annually in violation of federal contracting rules. Here are nine major points from his memo:

From the document:

What he’s saying: Frye says veterans are at risk if the government does not have contracts for private medical care and something goes wrong.

From the document:

What he’s saying: VA is spending billions of dollars a year on medical care and supplies without contracts, but the public has no way to see how taxpayers’ money is being spent, Frye says.

From the document:

What he’s saying: Top VA officials are ignoring the large discrepancy between authorized spending on medical care and supplies and spending that is done improperly, Frye says.

From the document:

What he’s saying: VA has failed to hold anyone accountable for the improprieties he cites, or put contracts in place once officials realized they weren’t negotiated properly, Frye says.

From the document:

What he’s saying: Frye says senior VA leaders must be held accountable for the problems with purchase cards he cites.

From the document:

What he’s saying: Frye says he analyzed purchase card data from the Veterans Health Administration and found improprieties.

From the document:

What he’s saying: The purchase card program lacks oversight, Frye says.

From the document:

What he’s saying: Frye says he has learned from the National Acquisition Center that employees at the Veterans Health Administration are buying thousands of medical supplies in off-the-shelf transactions, without competition.

From the document:

What he’s saying: Frye tells McDonald that reforming VA will be challenging unless basic contracting problems are addressed.

General Mattis Declares Strategic Atrophy

Posted on May 14, 2015May 14, 2015 by Denise Simon

How can anyone argue with General Mattis, former Commander of CENTCOM when he tells the audience there is no strategy and the cost of blind leadership causes a full tilt of the balance across the globe.

On Russia:

Mattis: U.S. Suffering ‘Strategic Atrophy’

Because the United States lacks a global strategy, “volatility is going to get to the point that chaos threatens,” a former Central Command (CENTCOM) commander told a Heritage Foundation audience Wednesday.

Speaking in Washington, D.C., retired Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis said, “the perception is we’re pulling back” on America’s commitment to its allies and partners, leaving them adrift in a changing world. “We have strategic atrophy.”

He said Russia’s military moves against its neighbors—taking Crimea and backing separatists in Ukraine is “much more severe, more serious” than Washington and the European Union are treating it.

The nationalist emotions that Russian President Vladimir Putin has stirred up will make it “very, very hard [for him or his successors] to pull back from some of the statements he has made” about the West. At the same time, Putin faces problems of his own with jihadists inside Russia’s borders that threaten domestic stability.

But Putin also demonstrated Russia’s nuclear capability with long-range bomber flights near NATO countries. His intent is “to break NATO apart.”

Mattis said China “is doing a pretty good job of finding friction points between our allies,” such as Korea and Japan.

While Putin creates instability along Russia’s border, China’s approach is a “tribute model,” Mattis said, executing a “veto authority in each of the countries around their periphery.”

In the Middle East, he described a Sunni and Shi’ia civil war where “terrorism is only part of the problem.” He said there is a more important question: “Is political Islam [in both sects] in our best interest?”

Mattis said it is important “to find the people who want to stand with you.” He cited the United Arab Emirates and Jordan, stepping forward to help fill the gaps in Afghanistan when the United Kingdom and France began removing forces there.

He said since World War II the United States helped create a world order—diplomatically [United Nations] , economically [World Bank and International Monetary Fund], culturally and militarily.

By renewing that combination of inspiration and intimidation, “I have no doubt we can turn this around.”

Outside the scope of Russia and militant Islam sweeping the globe, there is China. Many months ago, the White House announced an Asia Pivot. The pivot to Asia was obscured under the real guise of trade and not a security strategy even while China has continued to threaten U.S. allies over control of the South China Sea. China is not impressed and the disputed waters and islands in the South China Sea are still being challenged.

Meanwhile it is important to telegraph what China is doing while the National Security Council, the White House and the State Department look the other way.

Report: China Hacked Two Dozen U.S. Weapon Designs

Chinese hackers have obtained designs for more than two dozen U.S. weapon systems — including the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System, the F-35 Lighting II Joint Strike Fighter, the Littoral Combat Ship and electromagnetic railguns. A partial list of stolen U.S. military technologies by China is found here.

Making matters worse, at the Pentagon is under sequestration which stifles innovation, repair, weapons systems, defensive systems and acquiring advanced technology keep a competitive edge of adversaries, the U.S. is lagging while China has advanced beyond the scope and imagination of the Department of Defense and contractors.

Pentagon: China Developing New Anti-Satellite Weapons, Jammers

China is designing weapons to counter advanced Western satellite technology using directed energy weapons and jammers and may have already tested some, according to a Friday Chinese military assessment to Congress.

The West — particularly the U.S. — relies on ever expanding constellations of communications and surveillance satellites to maintain its information edge over potential rivals and China is seeking ways to erode that advantage in the event of a conflict, according to the Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2015 report to Congress.

“China continues to develop a variety of capabilities designed to limit or prevent the use of space- based assets by adversaries during a crisis or conflict, including the development of directed-energy weapons and satellite jammers,” read the report.

Dubbed counterspace, the efforts follow several demonstrations of China’s capabilities to interdict satellites with ground-based missiles in the last several years.

Perhaps the most well known is Jan. 11, 2007 test in which a modified Chinese ballistic missile successfully destroyed a defunct weather satellite in polar orbit — littering Earth’s orbit with debris and surprising the West.

Since then, the Pentagon report has cited several instances in which it appears the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has conducted similar — albeit non-destructive — tests.

A July 2014 missile test “did not result in the destruction of a satellite or space debris, read the report.
”However, due to the evidence suggesting that this was a follow-up to the 2007 destructive test, the United States expressed concern that China’s continued development of destructive space technologies represented a threat to all peaceful space-faring nations, and was inconsistent with China’s public statements about the use of space for peaceful purposes.”
Additionally, in 2013 a suspicious Chinese launch sent an object into an orbital neighborhood crowded with geosynchronous communications satellites.

“Analysis of the launch determined that the booster was not on the appropriate trajectory to place objects in orbit and that no new satellites were released,” read the report.

After a little more than nine hours, the mystery object landed, leaving the rest of the space faring world puzzled to what the object was.

“The United States and several public organizations expressed concern to Chinese representatives and asked for more information about the purpose and nature of the launch. China thus far has refrained from providing additional information,” read the report.

The report feared the test could “have been a test of technologies with a counterspace mission in geosynchronous orbit.”

The U.S. relies heavily on satellites for communications and some targeting of its weapons a fact that has not been lost on the PLA.

“PLA writings emphasize the necessity of ‘destroying, damaging, and interfering with the enemy’s reconnaissance … and communications satellites,’ suggesting that such systems, as well as navigation and early warning satellites, could be among the targets of attacks designed to ‘blind and deafen the enemy’,” read the report.
“PLA analysis of U.S. and coalition military operations also states that ‘destroying or capturing satellites and other sensors … will deprive an opponent of initiative on the battlefield and [make it difficult] for them to bring their precision guided weapons into full play’.”

The report to Congress comes as some in the Air Force have called for a more robust defense of U.S. space assets, according to a Monday analysis from Jane’s Defence Weekly.

“The USAF’s outgoing military acquisition chief recently acknowledged that the Pentagon is devising new concepts for protecting its space assets, hinting at the need for new types of deterrence. ‘We have to put some resources and some focus on protection capability,’ Lt. Gen. Ellen Pawlikowski said in April,” read the Monday report.

Formal Court-Martial for Bergdahl in Question

Posted on May 14, 2015May 14, 2015 by Denise Simon

The matter of the Taliban, Qatar and Bowe Bergdahl is on a collision course in coming weeks. The Taliban 5 released in secret but after years of collusion by the White House are set to go free on June 1. The United States has been in talks with Qatar regarding any further measures to contain or monitor the former Gitmo detainees and any of those details are not forthcoming.

The Bergdahl swap for Gitmo detainees was part of a larger White House plot.

Meanwhile, many within the military declare we are at war with the Taliban, while Obama administration officials say otherwise. Then there is the pending case of the deserter, Bowe Bergdahl where he has been officially charged but plea deals are under way to forego the court martial process.

This case has become the issue of epic proportions within certain ranks of the military as several died looking for Bergdahl and others were wounded. Honestly it boils down to Admiral Mullen, at the time was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and General Milley who handled the Bergdahl case and was just himself promoted to Army Chief of Staff. The official charges against Bergdahl is found here.

The actual Federal register text on Barack Obama’s remarks at the White House regarding Sgt. Bergdahl that included his parents are found here.

The collision course is being launched by members of Congress.

Congress Expanding Inquiries Into Bergdahl Swap

by: Josh Rogin

The court-martial proceeding for accused Army deserter Bowe Berghdal won’t begin until July, but the Republican Congress plans to put him back in the headlines much sooner by expanding investigations into the deal to swap him for five Taliban commanders imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The chairmen of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees, Representative Mac Thornberry and Senator John McCain, have been top critics the Obama administration’s ransoming Bergdahl last May without notifying Congress in advance. Now, following the Army’s decision to indict him for desertion and misbehavior in the face of the enemy — and weeks before the five Taliban leaders are to be released from their one year of house arrest in Qatar — they tell me they will ramp up and broaden their investigations of the swap.

Their effort received an unexpected boost Wednesday when Obama decided to nominate General Mark Milley as the next Army Chief of Staff. Milley, the officer who decided to charge Bergdahl, will face a hearing and confirmation vote in McCain’s committee, where the prisoner swap will doubtless become a focus.

The Milley hearings will be only one part of the Republican offensive. “I plan on doing a full Bergdahl investigation,” McCain told me in an interview. “We need to look at that whole thing. I understand that next month the Taliban commanders will be released.”

McCain said that while his committee had already been looking into the issue, the staff will now expand the investigation to include several more aspects of the administration’s handling of the case, including why National Security Adviser Susan Rice went on the Sunday shows after Bergdahl’s release and said he served “with honor and distinction.”

The committee will also look into reports that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time, Admiral Mike Mullen, had long known the circumstances of Bergdahl walking off his base in Afghanistan in 2009. There’s no firm timeline on when the Senate committee’s investigation might be complete, McCain said.

The House, for its part, on Wednesday passed its version of a comprehensive defense policy bill for next year that would restrict the Office of the Secretary of Defense from spending $500 million — 25 percent of its budget — until it hands over every piece of correspondence it has related to the Bergdahl-Taliban swap.

A Thornberry spokesman, Claude Chafin, told me Wednesday that Thornberry has not been satisfied with the Pentagon’s cooperation so far, especially that the documents the committee has received were heavily redacted with no explanation.

At a hearing with then-Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel last June, Thornberry criticized the administration for failing to notify Congress of the trade 30 days in advance, which is required by law for the release of prisoners from Guantanamo Bay. He also scored points when he took issue with Hagel’s contention that they had “not been implicated in any attacks against the United States.”

“Your point was, they didn’t pull the trigger, but they were senior commanders of the Taliban military who directed operations against the U.S. and its coalition partners?” Thornberry asked Hagel.

“That’s right,” Hagel responded. “As I said in my statement, they were combatants, and we were at war with the Taliban.”

In addition to withholding the funds, the new House bill also includes nine separate restrictions or reporting requirements designed to stifle the administration’s ability to release more prisoners from Guantanamo, restrictions that would last until the end of Obama’s presidency and effectively squash his campaign promise to close the facility.

McCain’s Senate committee is marking up its version of the defense policy bill this week behind closed doors. He told me it would probably not include Thornberry’s provision withholding a portion of the defense secretary’s budget. But he said that restrictions on moving more prisoners from Guantanamo are needed, citing reports that one of the released Taliban commanders has already made contact with his former militant associates.

“We want to do everything we can to make sure people are not released that will pose a threat for further attacks,” he said.

The case against Bergdahl may never go to trial — desertions usually end in a plea bargain. But the controversy over the administration’s handling of it is not going away. The White House really has no choice but to be more forthcoming about what it did last year if it wants all of the Defense Department’s funding back and its man confirmed as the next head of the Army.

Bergdahl’s service abbreviated GPO record and swap details are:

Afghanistan : Former regime
Afghanistan : Reconciliation efforts
Afghanistan : Sgt. Bowe R. Bergdahl, USA, release from captivity by Taliban forces
Afghanistan : U.S. military forces :: Deployment
Armed Forces, U.S : Servicemembers :: POW/MIA remains, recovery efforts
Cuba : Guantanamo Bay, U.S. Naval Base :: Detention of alleged terrorists
Qatar : Amir
Qatar : U.S. Guantanamo Bay Naval Station detainees, transfer to Qatari custody
Terrorism : Transfer of detainees at Guantanamo Bay
Names
Albrecht, Sky; Bergdahl, Bowe R.; Bergdahl, Jani; Bergdahl, Robert; Fazi, Mohammed; Khairkhwa, Khirullah Said Wali; Noori, Norullah; Omari, Mohammed Nabi; Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani; Wasiq, Abdul Haq
Locations
Washington, DC
Notes
The President spoke at 6:16 p.m. in the Rose Garden at the White House. In his remarks, he referred to Sky Albrecht, sister of Sgt. Bergdahl; Amir Hamad bin Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani of Qatar; and Khirullah Said Wali Khairkhwa, Mohammed Fazi, Norullah Noori, Abdul Haq Wasiq, and Mohammed Nabi Omari, members of the Afghan Taliban released from the Guantanamo Bay Naval Station detention center in Cuba to Qatari custody in Doha in exchange for the release of Sgt. Bergdahl. Mr. Bergdahl referred to Prime Minister Abdallah bin Nasir bin Khalifa Al Thani of Qatar.

Billion$ Leave the U.S. by Immigrants

Posted on May 14, 2015May 14, 2015 by Denise Simon

Ah, but all those immigrants in our country today are here with families right? Not so much. Further, wide debates circle around re-patrioting U.S. currency stashed in foreign countries, but can that really happen or keep pace with what foreign nationals are sending out of the country? We are talking billions here. They are pointing to Mexicans, but there should be a real challenge, are they all really Mexicans? How much is terror money or narco-dollars?

Imagine if the Mexicans are doing this, then are the militant Islamic factions that support Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad doing the same thing? Combine these dollars with those that are own federal government is doing at the behest of the White House, the State Department, USAID and secret grants. The Palestinians are hostile to Israel and the United States but the Federal government sends them billions. The Obama administration supported militants in Gaza, not to mention Hezbollah.

If Mexico was not a failed state, then why the billions in just the cooperative agreement called the Merida Initiative?

Mexicans in U.S. sent home $5.7 billion in remittances in first 3 months of 2015

Mexican living in the United States sent $5.7 billion in remittances back home in the first three months of 2015 alone, the highest amount of money sent to the country by expats since 2008, Banco de Mexico reported.

The amount of money that Mexicans living abroad sent to their family and friends back home between January and March of 2015 is 5 percent higher than it was in the same period last year, with remittances in March increasing 7.6 percent to $2.26 billion.

This averages out to each Mexican family living in the U.S. sending around $312 back to Mexico in March – or around $9 more than in March of 2014. The only time this number was higher was in July 2012, when Mexican families sent home an average of $314 that month.

“We hope that the slight increase in remittances in 2015 gives a brighter indication for growth and employment in the U.S. perspective,” said Alberto Ramos, an economist at Goldman Sachs report, according to Univision.

Ramos added that “a weaker Mexican peso and low domestic inflation increase the real purchasing power in local currency remittance flows.”

Banco de Mexico reported that 97 percent of remittances to the country came from the United States, with the other 3 percent coming from Canada, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Spain. The U.S. states where the majority of remittances came from were California, Texas, Illinois, Florida, Georgia and New York.

Some 11 million Mexicans live in the United States and many of them work in the construction sector. In this economic context, remittances are the main source of foreign exchange in Mexico, after oil and foreign direct investment, and also represent a vital income for millions of people.