Thread: Debate grows on whether Mexico overestimates money sent home

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Debate grows on whether Mexico overestimates money sent home by migrants

By E. Eduardo Castillo
ASSOCIATED PRESS

3:08 p.m. June 20, 2005

MEXICO CITY – Mexico's government may be overestimating the amount of money sent home by migrants each year, an official said Monday, casting a pall over recent reports of an enormous increase in remittance money.

Remittances usually refer to money sent home by migrants to help their families survive while their breadwinners are abroad. But what the government lists as "Family Remittances" may in fact be counting business payments between individuals as well.

When narrowly defined, remittances may amount to only about US$9.65 (euro7.97) billion annually, much less than the US$16.6 (euro13.7) billion the government reported for 2004, said Rodolfo Tuiran, an official of the Social Development Secretariat who helped carry out a study that yielded the lower figure.

His study relied on a variety of sources, including Mexican census and income data, and economic information from the U.S. Department of Commerce Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Mexico's central bank had reported a 24-percent increase in remittances from 2003 to 2004, surpassing tourism revenues as the country's second-largest source of foreign currency after oil sales.

Remittances continued to grow at a 20-percent clip in the first quarter of 2005, the Bank of Mexico reported.

The central bank, which counts all cash transfers between individuals as remittances, said those increases may have been due in part to better reporting, because money previously sent home in cash is increasingly channeled through easier-to-track bank accounts or transfer services.

"It's surprising that two agencies have figures that diverge so widely ... it's a notoriously big difference," Tuiran said.

"An unknown portion of these money transfers should not be considered as family remittances," Tuiran said. "These are another type of transfers which could include payments for goods and services."

Tuiran said there has been a growth in recent years in the number of migrants working abroad, but at a lower rate than reported increases in remittances.

He estimated that the number of migrants in the United States had increased from 9.1 million in 2000 to 10.6 million in 2004, a 16.2-percent rise.

Of the nearly 11 million people born in Mexico living abroad, 98 percent of them reside in the United States.

Of the nearly 11 million people born in Mexico living abroad, 98 percent of them reside in the United States.

There's a shocker!

Whether it's $13 Billion or $9 Billion, that is serious money coming right out of the U.S. economy. Money that will not be spent here and help our folks buy goods. One more way we are being had by illegal immigration.