More than 20 million Mexicans are now living abroad

Arturo Zárate:

The figures were presented to IFE by the Foreign Ministry as the electoral body readies for the nation's first-ever absentee voting in 2006.

When the voting rights bill was approved last month, estimates put the number of Mexicans living abroad at 11 million. The new, substantially higher figures may again raise concerns among skeptics who had warned that a mail-in vote could prove to be a logistical nightmare.

According to the new IFE numbers, 20.7 million Mexicans living outside the nation's borders are on the American continent. In Europe, there are 23,000 Mexican expatriates, while 4,000 live in Asia. There are less than 1,000 Mexicans in Oceania and Africa.

The United States is by far the country with the largest number of Mexican residents, with 20.64 million. Canada is second, with 36,000. Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, the country on the American continent with the largest Mexican population outside of Mexico, the United States and Canada is Paraguay, with 4,959.

Germany has the world's third-largest Mexican expatriate population, with 5,228, followed by Spain with 5,135. Some 2,600 Mexicans reside in the United Kingdom, while at the other end of the spectrum, Ghana, Mauritania and Namibia have Mexican populations of one.

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