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For centuries, workers from many parts of the globe have been coming to the US to find work and support themselves. Many migrant workers have families back in their native countries who depend on them for remittances. But for some, a difficult economic climate, triggered by a collapse in the housing market, is causing the dream to evaporate. The worst US recession in decades has eliminated job opportunities for many immigrants, slowing the flow of money back home down to a trickle. That's especially true of the traditionally high-paying construction industry, often manned by Mexican workers.

The amount of money sent back home last year by millions of Latin Americans working abroad grew at the slowest rate in nearly a decade, partly due to the economic turndown in the US. For the first time since the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) started to study remittances in 2000, the increase is less than 10%. The slowdown was particularly marked in Brazil and Mexico, which receive the largest amounts of money. In Brazil it fell by 4%, and in Mexico it grew by only 1%, a move that has started to concern some analysts. Despite the decline, the total...

Ermelinda Guerrero’s refrigerator is a monument to a previous and more prosperous era. Its huge gleaming bulk, with curved sides and a fat modern handle, dominates her otherwise humble kitchen. It even displays the original sales sticker. “I bought it four years ago when there was enough money for luxuries,” she says, straightening the blue and white headscarf that frames her chubby face. “Things are very different now.” So different, in fact, that Mrs Guerrero no longer has sufficient funds to fill it or even, sometimes, to buy meat. The days when she could go with her family to the...

Some local money-transfer businesses are reporting a slowdown in the amount of dollars sent by immigrants back to their home countries, mirroring a nationwide trend. "They come as often as usual, but they send less money," Mario Espinoza, owner of Carniceria La Michoacana, a Mexican store in Dalton, Ga., said in Spanish. "If there's no work, how are they going to keep sending money?" Mr. Espinoza, whose clients are mostly Mexicans and Guatemalans, said he believes people are sending less money home because they are having a more difficult time finding jobs due to tougher immigration laws. Georgia implemented an...

TRANSLATION FROM ORIGINAL SPANISH (EXERPT):"Bank Remittances from USA to Mexico Down 1.3%"Slowdown in USA and Tightened Immigration Actions [Against Illegals] Are Main Causes During the first six months of the year, Michoacán became the state that had the greater decrease remittances from the USA, said the Bank Of Mexico....

Editor’s Note: Remittances are the second biggest source of foreign exchange for Mexico after oil exports, but in the first six months of 2007, the rate of growth for remittances slowed to a trickle compared to previous years. A new study of remittances to Mexico, Latin and Central America conducted by Bendixen and Associates for Inter-American Development Bank tries to uncover the reasons for the decline. Spanish language newspapers report that money being sent back to Mexico has decreased in the last few months. This news concerns many, considering that remittances to Latin America account for more aid than the...

Federal immigration agents arrested 21 illegal aliens Monday during a raid on a Northwest Arkansas Mexican restaurant chain, the U. S. attorney for the Western District of Arkansas announced Wednesday. The raid on Taqueria Michoacan restaurants in Springdale, Rogers and Lowell were conducted as Operation El Rancho Tejocote, prosecutor Bob Balfe said in a news release. Agents from U. S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement and local police served four search warrants, the release stated. Among those arrested were Honorato Pedroza and Gema Rivera, who were identified as “restaurant principals.” Pedroza is accused of operating an “unlicensed money transmitting business,” according...

BBC Rome correspondent David Willey covered the signing of the Treaty of Rome as a Reuters trainee. Here he looks back at the Europe of half a century ago.The signing of the treaty took place in the majestic surroundings of Michelangelo's elegant Capitoline Palace situated at the top of one of Rome's seven hills. David Willey: Reuters trainee, and veteran BBC correspondent I was actually there in the huge room frescoed with scenes from ancient Roman battles, when the six frock-coated founders of the Europe of the Six appended their signatures to the Treaty. Crowded into the room were...

Even as the federal government is starting to crack down on companies that hire illegal immigrants, it's been helping those same workers send money home, cheap. Dubbed Directo a Mexico, the Federal Reserve-sponsored service allows customers without Social Security numbers to wire money through the Fed system to Mexico's central bank at little cost. In September, the Fed expanded the remittance program by allowing immigrants, legal or not, to open accounts at participating banks and credit unions in the U.S. or Mexico. About 27,000 transfers are made through the program each month. The program has attracted the attention of conservative...

Globally, remittances make up about $230bn Money sent home by Filipinos working overseas last year totalled a record $12.8bn (£6.5bn), the Philippines' central bank has said.The remittances - a 20% rise on 2005 - account for about 10% of the country's economy, the bank added. Most of the eight million overseas workers are in the US or Middle East. According to the World Bank, the Philippines is the fifth-largest recipient of foreign remittances behind India, China, Mexico and France. It has forecast that Filipinos will send home about $14.1bn this year. Their remittances play an increasingly significant role in...

MEXICO CITY – Mexicans living abroad sent home a record $23 billion last year, raising new questions about whether the government of President Felipe Calderón can afford to slow migration. In just one year, the amount of money migrants wired their families jumped 15 percent, according to Mexico's central bank, overtaking tourism to become the nation's second-biggest source of foreign income after oil. “This is a river of gold that flows into Latin America and Mexico. Daily. Weekly. Monthly. It never stops,” said Sergio Bendixen, president of Bendixen & Associates, a public opinion research firm in Coral Gables, Fla., that...

The amount of money that Mexican immigrants sent back to their homeland hit a record $23 billion in 2006 – suggesting a greater number of workers are sending more money home. Immigration experts attributed last year's 15 percent rise to multiple factors, including increased migration, more generosity by immigrants and cheaper sending costs. It was the fifth straight year that remittances have risen between 15 and 25 percent. Some experts even cited deportation fears as a reason for the spikes. "They used to spend more money here, but now they are saving every penny here and sending it down there,"...

If there is one thing this country needs, it’s a new government program designed to help illegal aliens send money to Mexico, don’t you think This week, JW released Federal Reserve marketing materials created for “Directo a México” [Direct to Mexico], a new government program designed to help immigrant workers in the U.S. – regardless of their legal status – send the money they earn here to their relatives in Mexico. We obtained the marketing materials, prepared for presentations to financial institutions in California in early November 2006, from the Retail Payments Office of the Federal Reserve in Atlanta, Georgia....

The Federal Reserve Bank and its equivalent in Mexico are finalizing an agreement to make it easier to send money back and forth to Mexico. Translation: the U.S. Government is going to make it easier for the 12 million illegal aliens in this country to send money back home. This is absolutely the reverse of what should be happening. We are enabling and supporting the Mexican invasion by making it easier for the invasion force to transfer money back and forth across our borders. Can the situation be worse? Why, yes! Thanks for asking! What's even worse is the fact...

Federal Reserve Markets “Directo a México” to U.S. Banks for “Migrant” Transfers of $20 Billion in Remittances to Mexico (Washington, DC) -- Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, today released Federal Reserve marketing materials created for “Directo a México” [Direct to Mexico], a new government program designed to facilitate the transfer of funds from immigrant workers in the U.S. – regardless of their legal status – to their relatives in Mexico. Judicial Watch obtained the marketing materials, prepared for presentations to financial institutions in California in early November 2006, from the Retail Payments Office...

Valley plays key role in remittance market, immigration - About 10 people each week stop by Gustavo Garza’s Mac Newsstand in McAllen to wire between $100 and $150 home to their relatives south of the Rio Grande. “That’s a lot of money in Mexico,” the 60-year-old shop owner said. It’s a scene repeated at grocery stores, gas stations, check cashing establishments and money exchange businesses throughout the Rio Grande Valley as residents with relatives in Mexico seek to help their families back home pay bills, buy food and establish savings. Immigrants sending remittances traditionally have shunned established financial institutions, preferring...

Apparently oblivious to the promised federal crackdown on illegal immigration, the U.S. Federal Reserve is expanding a program that helps Mexican illegal aliens send money home. It's called Directo a Mexico.The Fed's marketing material says it's the most convenient way to transfer your money to Mexico. The Fed says your family receives more pesos for every dollar you send, because Directo a Mexico offers the best exchange rate. And it reassures illegal alien customers they won't lose their money, even if they're deported. Texas Congressman Jeb Hensarling is on the committee overseeing the Federal Reserve.REP. JEB HENSARLING (R): Well, of...

Money transfers mounting U.S. encourages cash flow across border as tool to deter illegal immigration BINYAMIN APPELBAUM, RICK ROTHACKER AND FRANCO ORDOÑEZ Staff Writers To curb illegal immigration, the federal government has posted soldiers on the Mexican border, arrested workers at job sites, and talked about making it a felony to enter the U.S. without permission. But it puts greater hope in a relatively unknown and unlikely strategy: increasing the amount of money immigrants send back to Mexico. The Bush administration says the billions sent south each year can be used to build the Mexican economy, thereby reducing immigration. For...

MEXICO CITY - Mexicans living abroad sent $11 billion home in the first half of 2006, an increase of 23 percent over the same period last year, the government news agency Notimex reported Friday. Remittances have become an increasingly important source of income for the country in recent years, surpassing tourism. They represent Mexico's second-largest source of foreign income after oil. They topped $20 billion for the first time in 2005, a 17 percent increase from the previous year. Mexico's government has lobbied intensely for the U.S. government to legalize some of the 11 million undocumented migrants living in the...

Some argue that illegal immigration in the United States is a necessity—and they are right. Consider these facts: Fifteen percent of Mexico’s work force—about one in every seven—is working in the United States. Every year, illegal aliens remit $20 billion to Mexico, equaling income from Mexico’s oil exports and dwarfing the tourism industry. That money is nearly the equal of the United States foreign-aid budget for the entire globe. An illegal immigrant often earns up to 10 times what he would have made in Mexico. Criminals that might be unwelcome in Mexico can move to the United States. Many of...

Marvin Robertson Marvin’s Window I looked out my window at the strange sight of Senators John McCain and Ted Kennedy walking in step behind Presidents Vicente Fox and George W. Bush. This immigration “fight” (I call it suicide) in the U.S. Senate certainly created strange bedfellows. Bush wants to welcome all the Mexican illegals to become U.S. citizens and Republican voters. Fox likes coming to the U.S. to greet his citizens and encourage them to invite their relatives and friends to leave their home country. “Just send money home,” he tells them. And they send more than $20 billion each...

For years, economists and politicians have said the solution to surging emigration is prosperity at home. If Mexico and other Latin American nations that send millions of migrants to the U.S. could grow fast enough, the theory goes, their residents wouldn't head north for work. Last month, Mexican President Vicente Fox, looking to influence the U.S. Congress's latest efforts at an immigration overhaul, pledged his country would do its part, creating good manufacturing jobs for Mexican workers on their home soil. He pointed to more than 100,000 job openings in assembly plants established within a few miles of the U.S....

Economists have long pointed out that relying on oil as a natural resource can be a long-term disaster for a developing nation. The income from exporting petroleum provides cash infusions that can distort a country's economy and mask structural problems while impeding reform. Petrodollars act like a lethal narcotic: A formerly impoverished country depends on short-term relief from oil profits at the risk of being reduced to an enfeebled addict.Easy oil income also often promotes dictatorial government by allowing nationalist thugs to buy pricey weapons to threaten neighbors or to buy off internal dissent with lavish cash subsidies. Take away...

Mexicans See Immigration As Inevitable By MARK STEVENSON The Associated Press Sunday, April 23, 2006; 11:51 AM ATOTONILCO, Mexico -- They name their babies Johnny and Leslie, so certain are they that their kids' future lies in the United States. Returning migrants sprinkle English into their speech as they talk knowingly about job markets in U.S. towns. America may want to stop illegal immigration, but most Mexicans accept it as a fact of life they can't imagine changing. Mexico's economy, society and political system are built around the assumption that migration and amnesties for undocumented migrants will continue _ and...

MEXICO CITY (AP) - Remittances sent home by Mexicans living abroad rose to US$20 billion (euro16.5 billion) in 2005, a 17 percent increase over the year before, the Bank of Mexico reported Tuesday. Remittances climbed by more than US$5.3 billion (euro4.4 billion) in the fourth quarter of 2005 alone, the bank said. They totaled US$16.6 billion (euro13.7 billion) in 2004. Remittances have been climbing steadily for years, surpassing the amount the country receives from tourism, which totaled US$10.7 billion (euro8.8 billion) in 2005.

Earlier this month, U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow paid a friendly visit to Mexico. He met with his Mexican counterpart, Secretary of Hacienda Francisco Gil Díaz, and the two issued a communiqué of mutual cooperation at the end of their talks. They talked about generating private financing for Mexican development, mainly by way of a proposal that would have the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) increase its lending to private investors for projects that had previously been considered — and in Snow's country still are considered — the responsibility of the public sector, projects like roads, ports and bridges. The privatization...

San Salvador, Dec 24 (Prensa Latina) El Salvador will turn emigration a priority in 2006 because of the situation of thousands of nationals living in the US. Foreign Minister Francisco Lainez said they will try and secure more jobs for those under the Temporary Protection Status that expires Sep 2006, and will have to face a forced return to El Salvador. Near 2.3 million Salvadorans have emigrated to the US. They are sustaining a depressed economy with family remittances, calculated in more than 2.8 billion dollars in 2005. President Antonio Saca said he will try to arrange with the US...

CALERA, Mexico - The boys and girls of this central Mexico town will soon play in a $1.2 million sports center. Part of the money came from residents who emigrated to the United States and send some of their wages back home. But not all that arrives with the money is so good. Because of all the cash that pours into Calera from U.S. cities, townsfolk struggle with inflated prices for houses and cars. Local officials worry that some residents are content to merely wait for a monthly check from relatives in the United States and aren't investing enough of...

Immigrants have long sent money to help their families back home [but] they said immigrants are increasingly banding together to build community projects in their hometowns -- from paved roads to hospitals to water systems -- and getting the government and companies to help.snip Tenango's electrical grid is a prime example: It was built through a government program called "Tres por Uno," or "Three for One." For every dollar immigrants contributed, the Mexican government threw in three -- funding 1,436 projects in the country last year.snip Companies and nonprofits are joining in the new trend toward community projects, too. In...

MEXICO CITY (AP) -- Despite increasing migration, money sent home to Mexico is almost all spent on bare necessities for migrants' families, with little left over for investment that could create new jobs, according to a government report released Friday. ADVERTISEMENT Levels of migration and remittances sent home by workers abroad have both risen in recent years, and that growth rate is accelerating, said Elena Zuniga, the head of Mexico's National Population Council The number of undocumented migrants leaving for the United States grew by 48 percent in the period 1993-1997, 63 percent from 1998 to 2001, and rose by...

Immigrants in the US Send Money Home in Record Numbers By Zulima Palacio Washington, DC 03 June 2005 Remittances / Real broadband - download Remittances / Real broadband Remittances / Real dialup - download Remittances / Real dialup Until a few years ago, the money that immigrants sent back home every month was only their business. But remittances around the world now total more than $126 billion, according to the World Bank. So it's become an issue for economists, governments and politicians.

Posted: May 11, 2005 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2005 WorldNetDaily.com Out here in Southern California, a local Spanish-language TV station caused a stink recently by putting up several billboards reaching out to potential viewers in Los Angeles, Mexico. Predictably, as soon as outraged gringos complained, they were accused of being racists. How is it, I keep asking myself, that it's only the biggest racists in America who are given carte blanche to condemn others for being what they are themselves? Who but a racist would conclude that America's sovereignty is merely a minor inconvenience they are free to ignore for...

Migrants living in the US, Europe and elsewhere around the world sent a record amount of remittances - some $45 billion - to Latin America and the Caribbean last year, according to the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). The remittances - or money transfers - sent by Latin American and Caribbean workers living abroad rose nearly 20% over 2003, when $38 billion was sent home, the IDB said. About three-quarters of the remittances came from the US, while Europe was the second-largest source. Japan continued to be a major source of remittances to Brazil and Peru with foreign workers in Canada...

A 32-page "Guide For the Mexican Migrant" that tells illegal immigrants how to cross the U.S. border, and how to stay in the U.S. unobtrusively, was supposedly intended to keep Mexican citizens from risking breaking into the United States because it's dangerous, kills hundreds of Mexican migrants annually, and violates U.S. law.To hear Mexican officials tell it, their government is all about law and order — which is why critics shouldn't take a new guide providing migrants with tips for sneaking into, then remaining, in the United States, the wrong way. "We are a country that respects the law and...

MEXICO CITY - The amount of money sent by Mexican emigrants worldwide to relatives in their homeland surged in the first six months of the year, reflecting poor employment prospects in Mexico and lower fees for sending funds.The emigrants, many of them working in California, sent a record $7.9 billion to Mexico in the January-June period, according to a report released Thursday by the Bank of Mexico. That was up 26% from the first half of 2003 and on pace to smash last year's record tally of $13.4 billion'snip'The Bank of Mexico report said foreign remittances, which totaled less that...

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) reported yesterday that remittances from overseas Filipino workers for the first three months of 2004 increased slightly to $1.92 billion from $1.84 billion in the same period last year. BSP Acting Governor Alberto Reyes said the modest 4.3 percent rise in OFW remittances in the first quarter will provide a comfortable buffer to the projected three percent remittance growth for the whole of 2004. Reyes also noted that the last two months of the quarter each yielded almost 10-percent annual growth in remittances. OFW remittances were recorded at $594.4, million and $704.6 million for...

JEREZ, MEXICO -- Smuggled into the United States in a car trunk, Andres Bermudez went from field hand to millionaire, inventing a tomato planting machine that earned him the nickname "The Tomato King." But what he really wants to do is govern his Mexican hometown of Jerez. That's not easy when life straddles the U.S.-Mexico border. Bermudez is one of several migrants running for office Sunday in Zacatecas state elections -- a vote that is being closely watched as Mexico seeks to politically integrate Mexicans living abroad. The northern state of Zacatecas changed its constitution last year to make it...

Tom Tancredo has made a powerful new enemy. First Data - Colorado's second-largest corporation in terms of revenue and market cap - is hopping mad over the Littleton Republican's proposal to slap a 5 percent tax on money transfers to people in other countries. And, as late as Friday afternoon, they were no less upset that the controversial congressman has quietly dropped the idea. "It appears to me he's trying to get over a big 'oops,' " said Fred Niehaus, senior vice president for public affairs with First Data. "That doesn't cut it. This guy is off in left field,...

Immigrants Send Billions Back HomeEvery two weeks, Juan Ayala pulls $400 out of his wallet and wires it to his wife and four children in Mexico. Ayala is among the millions of Latino immigrants who sustain the economies of their native countries by sending money home on a regular basis. Mexican and Latin American immigrants living in the United States will send $30 billion in remittances to their relatives back home in 2004, according to a new survey by the Inter- American Development Bank. "My family depends on me,' said Ayala, 50, a Muscoy resident who illegally crossed the border...

According to the amendment made to paragraph 'a' in the first clause of Article 9 of the Código Fiscal de la Federación in México, the money transfers that Mexicans send to their country would be subject to federal taxation For example, this means that out of the $13.3 billion dollars that were sent last year to México, 35 percent ($4.6 billion) -- more or less the tax owed -- would have to be paid to the government.

14 January 2004Senior U.S. Officials Hail Results of Monterrey Summit Cite commitments to address crucial issues in the AmericasThe just-concluded Special Summit of the Americas proved successful in committing leaders of the Western Hemisphere to address important issues of the region, say senior Bush administration officials.In a background briefing held at the end of the January 12-13 Special Summit in Monterrey, Mexico, the officials said hemispheric leaders committed themselves to invest in people, promote private sector-led growth to create jobs and reduce poverty, and promote democracy, good governance, and anti-corruption measures.Those issues, said the administration officials, represent the three "pillars"...

Since the events of Sept. 11, Muslims in downtown Brooklyn say they've been under siege from suspicious glances and accusatory words aimed at them by strangers. But reaction to the World Trade Center attack has taken another form, one that hits some immigrants and their families where it hurts even more. Immediately after the terror assault, federal authorities began cracking down on the system of illegal money remittances known as hawala, which have been a lifeline for families overseas who depend on the money their relatives send. < SNIP > Abdo Alzundani, a Yemeni immigrant who works at the Arabian...

Inside his little Western wear store tucked in a corner on East Riverside Drive, Francisco Javier Aceves can't help but feel a kinship with the angular young men who come in to buy jeans, cowboy boots, phone cards and cell phones. As sure as a regular payday, they come in also to wire money to their families back home in Mexico, in places such as Veracruz, Tabasco, Chiapas and Oaxaca. "Sometimes they come three or four in a car," Aceves said about his customers. "Sometimes they just start lining up to wire money." The young men live and work in...

More than 40 per cent of adult Hispanic immigrants in the US regularly send money to relatives in their native countries, a flow of funds totalling nearly $30bn this year, a new study finds, AP reports in Washington. That money goes towards food and shelter, education, savings and investments. The amount far exceeds the total US foreign aid flowing to all nations - $17.2bn this fiscal year. "Migration is now not only an escape valve, it is a fuel pump" to foreign economies, said a report released Monday by the Pew Hispanic Center and the Inter-American Development Bank. The economic...

MEXICO CITY Nearly one Mexican in five regularly gets money from relatives employed in the United States, making Mexico the largest repository of such remittances in the world, according to a poll sponsored by the Inter-American Development Bank. The pollster, Sergio Bendixen, estimated that the payments help feed, house and educate at least a quarter of Mexico's 100 million people. The poll was part of a report on Monday by the bank, which said money sent home by all Mexican immigrants would soar to $14.5 billion this year, exceeding tourism and direct foreign investment to become this country's second most...

Mexico City, Mexico, December 7, 2002 The amount of money sent by Mexicans living in the United States to relatives back home may reach $10 billion in 2002, the Center for Private Sector Economic Studies (CEESP) said Saturday. Remittances from emigrants represent Mexico's fourth-largest source of foreign exchange, after assembly industry exports, oil and direct foreign investment. The CEESP study released Saturday said that last year's remittances from Mexicans living in the United States reached a record $8.89 billion. The amount of money sent has increased significantly in recent decades, the study said, noting that the figure for 2001 was...