Not to mention that the aliens don’t spend the money in the country. They send the money to their home country to spend it there.
Forgot that good point.
Even in this very low Latino population area there are gas stations that have direct line phones connected to Colombia, Mexico and other countries at a counter where people can send Western Union direct payments themselves to relatives elsewhere. Always two or three in line there. Convenience store has a lot of international foods and candies, too. New York must have hundreds of these I suppose.