If this is correct there are less illegals coming. Now if those here would leave or be forced to do so.

http://www.miamiherald.com/154/story/170204.html

Remittances attract attention of officials, analysts
BY JANE BUSSEY
jbussey@MiamiHerald.com

The importance of remittances to national finances in Latin America has become the Holy Grail of development.

When the amount of household remittances started to eclipse other types of capital flows such as international lending or foreign investment in the early part of the decade, officials and analysts began looking for ways to harness the funds for productive activities.

The Inter-American Dialogue called the funds ''Latin America's most valuable financial resource'' in a 2003 report. Indeed, with remittances rising by 20 percent annually starting in 2000 when analysts began seriously tracking the funds, continued steady growth seems like a sure bet.

So when the amount of remittances fell sharply in the first months of 2007, some analysts warned that governments should consider remittance flow more volatile.

The flow of funds, which reached $62 billion to the region in 2006 ($46.5 billion from the United States), rose by only single digits in the first part of the year, according to both Banco de México and Inter-American Development Bank data.

In Mexico, household remittances have grown by less than 2 percent in the first five months of the year. From January to May of 2006, remittances totaled $9.32 billion, compared to $9.48 billion in this period of 2007.

HOUSING CONNECTION

Financial analyst Walter Molano was the first to suggest that the drop could be traced to the slump in the U.S. housing sector, noting the ''worrisome correlation'' between U.S. housing starts and remittance data.

Mexico's monthly remittances hit a record high of $2.6 billion in May 2006 -- the same time housing starts reached their peak, said Molano, who is head of research at the Greenwich, Conn.-headquartered BCP Securities.

Not only could this create problems for individual families, but Molano pointed out that some Central American governments were counting on steady increases in remittances for future balance of payments projections.

Banco de México economist Salvador Bonilla Leal said that authorities have expected the slowdown.

BETTER RECORDS

Part of the rapid expansion during the decade was a question of improved data, Bonilla said. Mexico began actually recording the amount of money after new rules in 2002 required that all money transfer companies register with the central bank and provide monthly information on all money transfers to Mexico.

''We have seen all the problems [with immigration] in the United States. It's now more difficult to enter the country,'' said Bonilla, who manages statistical analyses for Banco de México. ``There is the other factor: the economic slowdown in the United States.''

The latest remittance data has also led the Pew Hispanic Center to suggest that the actual pace of immigration from Mexico to the United States may be slackening.

A May report from the Washington organization also cites a drop in the number of apprehensions of people crossing the border, a slower rate of increase in the size of the Mexican-born population and a drop in the employment of foreign-born Hispanics as signs of a slower increase in migration.