Mexican Shoppers Are Bankrolling South Texas While Getting Scapegoated

I'm watching caravans of vehicles with Mexican plates stream across the road all morning long.

The Rio Grande Valley's retail corridors look like Black Friday stretched across an entire month. Parking lots overflow. Cash registers sing. Store managers scramble to restock shelves emptied by Mexican nationals doing their Christmas shopping north of the border. Está hasta a la madre. Everywhere you turn, there are Mexican nationals standing in line to buy what American people can barely afford.

A September 2025 study commissioned by the City of McAllen tracked cross-border shoppers and found they spent $60 million in just 33 days during key shopping periods. McAllen City Manager Roy Rodriguez stated that Mexican shoppers contribute approximately 30% to the local economy. At La Plaza Mall, roughly 40% of visitors travel from Mexico.

When pandemic travel restrictions shut down cross-border shopping in November 2020, McAllen's sales tax collections jumped 34.8% the moment the border reopened. Brownsville saw a 32% increase. Laredo experienced a 27% spike. The message was unmistakable: without Mexican shoppers, border economies crater.

Yet the political class continues performing border theater. They demand stricter enforcement, longer wait times, and more aggressive inspections. Visa costs jumped from $185 to $435 in 2025. Every policy designed to make crossing more difficult directly undermines the economic engine that keeps South Texas solvent. In 2017, a social media campaign called #AdiosMcAllen urged Mexican shoppers to boycott the city. McAllen's sales tax revenues dropped 6.4%. The city spent $270,000 trying to repair the damage.

Mexico's economy is outperforming American expectations in key metrics. Real wages in Mexico increased 25.3% between December 2018 and March 2024, significantly boosting purchasing power for workers. The country's minimum wage has risen 135% in real terms since 2018, lifting nearly 13 million people out of poverty. Consumer confidence in Mexico hit its highest level since the index was created in 2001, reaching 49.4 points in October 2024. Mexico's inflation rate hovers around 4%, within the central bank's target range and lower than the pandemic peaks that devastated American household budgets. So the neighboring country Trump has spent years blaming for every American economic woe is actually thriving while simultaneously bailing out struggling Texas border cities with billions in retail spending. Trump's favorite scapegoat is literally keeping his border economies afloat.

The audacity of biting the hand that feeds you while simultaneously demanding it keep feeding you is almost impressive. Border communities market themselves aggressively to Mexican consumers. They advertise in Mexican media. They accept pesos. They hire bilingual staff. Then they elect politicians who campaign on building walls and militarizing the border. According to travel industry experts, about 65% of weekend shoppers come from Mexico.

This isn't about immigration policy or national security. This is about the rank hypocrisy of economically depending on a population you politically scapegoat. When travel restrictions limited cross-border shopping during the pandemic, one McAllen toy store employee estimated Mexican shoppers had previously accounted for half their sales. Small vendors hung by a thread. The economy of border cities depends fundamentally on Mexican consumers.

The streets are packed right now because Christmas is coming and Mexican families want to give their children gifts. They're crossing legally, spending money legally, and returning home legally. They're doing exactly what border communities need them to do to survive economically. The least we could do is acknowledge that reality without the performative hostility.

December always looks like this in South Texas. Mexican shoppers flood the malls. Sales tax revenue spikes. Local governments balance their budgets on cross-border spending. Then January arrives, politicians return to their anti-Mexico rhetoric. Truth is that South Texas needs Mexican pesos more than Mexican shoppers need South Texas retail. And that's a fact that stings.

@Santitos

@salinasmariasantos

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