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DAY 4: A shaky economy driven by dollars from illegal immigration
By Liz Mineo/Daily News Staff
Wednesday, December 20, 2006 - Updated: 18:29 PM EST


GOVERNADOR VALADARES, Brazil - More than 4,000 miles from the United States, Brazilians are building the American dream.

With money they make in America working as landscapers, house cleaners, painters or baby sitters, Brazilians are buying parcels of land to build in one of the hottest developments of this city in southeastern Brazil.

Called "Cidade Nova" or "New City" the development not far from downtown Valadares has sold more than 60 percent of its 776 lots to Valadares expatriates. The development owners hope to sell the rest by the end of this year.

To do that, developers have set up a toll-free phone number in the United States, launched a Web site in English and Portuguese and advertised on Globo International, a Brazilian television network that airs programming for Brazilians living abroad.

Prices for lots are not cheap from $18,000 for a 2,691-square-foot lot to $30,000 for 3,875 square feet but the development, with its hilly streets, paved roads, water service and electricity, is luring Brazilians from abroad.

"Most of our clients live overseas," said manager Gilciney Gomes da Oliveira, behind a map of the development with a sea of red pins piercing the lots already sold. "Unfortunately, nobody with his only source of income from Valadares has the money to afford our lots."

The new neighborhood fueled with money from abroad is one of many, and it symbolizes how the money sent by Valadares natives drives the local economy. Cash sent by Valadares expatriates amounts to $72 million a year, which represents 60 percent of the city's $127 million budget for 2006.

Half the size of Rhode Island and located 680 miles away from Brazil's capital, Valadares is the major source of Brazilians coming to the United States, and according to some immigration experts, the major supplier of Brazilians to New England. About 40 percent of Brazilians in Framingham hail from Valadares, a relationship formalized with a sister-city agreement. Many Brazilians in town are here illegally.