(CNN) Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump made headlines last year when he proposed building a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico. The proposal was met with widespread skepticism, especially his insistence that Mexico would also pay for the construction of such a wall. Undeterred, Trump this week explained how he would make this happen, outlining in a policy memo posted to his website a plan to cut off money transfers by immigrants in the United States to their families in Mexico. There are lots of reasons this is a bad idea. For a start, it's wildly impractical to implement without undermining other commerce. It is also mean-spirited toward families in Mexico who depend on remittances. And it would probably also start a trade war.Justin Sandefur: Donald Trump's proposal on money transfers to Mexico is misguidedRemittances aren't just good for American consumers, they're also good for American firms and job creation, he says
The economics of remittances surprise a lot people, even those who aren't sympathetic to _'s anti-immigrant rhetoric.