October 19, 2006

Migrants export billions home
N.C. workers send $300 per month

By BARBARA BARRETT and PABLO BACHELET

The News and Observer

WASHINGTON - North Carolina's immigrant community will send an estimated $1.2 billion to Latin America this year, according to a study by an international development bank.

That represents a record amount being funneled back to the impoverished communities that are fueling the nation's immigration wave.

The study sheds light on the powerful economic forces that are driving young migrants, legal and illegal, to America's labor-hungry regions. North Carolina, which has the nation's fastest-growing immigrant population, is among the top states sending money to Latin American countries, according to the Inter-American Development Bank, which issued the report Wednesday and is the region's largest lender.

The report shows that just as immigrants are changing North Carolina, the state is having an impact on Latin America. As migrants take jobs on construction sites, in animal-processing plants and in the service industry around North Carolina, they send an average of $300 a month to their homelands, the study says.

The money, totaling a record $45 billion nationally, is a powerful balm to poor communities, the study says. Remittances, as the cash transfers are called, total more than the assistance from the U.S. government, more than from other aid organizations, making it a major poverty-busting program for Latin America, the study says.

"This is amazing, because the money goes into the pockets of poor people," said Luis Pastor, chief executive officer of the Latino Community Credit Union, a Durham-based agency with more than 50,000 members statewide. The credit union was not involved in the study.

Investments abroad could boost the wealth of poor communities, eventually lessening the dire economic straits that lead migrants to the United States, he said.

"Leaving your country is not a fun experience. You do that based on desperation," Pastor said. "The more money that goes there, the less incentive they have to come here."

A darker side

Based on interviews with hundreds of Latino immigrants, the IDB survey also revealed a darker side: Many Latin American nations are still unable to create attractive jobs to keep their young natives from leaving. Most interview subjects said they were either unemployed or made very little money at home but quickly found jobs in America.

They earn an average of $900 a month, six times their earnings at home.

IDB officials pointed out that the benefits of immigration don't only flow back to Latin America: About 90 percent of the income generated by Latin American-born immigrants, or about $460 billion, stays in the United States.

In North Carolina, the impact is about $12.3 billion this year. According to the study, 84 percent of immigrants in this state regularly send money home.

Invest in home country

The study found a growing sense among immigrants that they want to invest in their home countries, sending back cash that can be used toward homes, start-up businesses and education. Much of that interest comes from recent arrivals.

Eventually, Pastor said, immigrants may send back less as they become more assimilated, whether they bring their families to the United States or start new families here.

In the Triangle, many immigrants take their wages to financial institutions such as the Latino Community Credit Union or to tiendas such as Don Pablos in Pittsboro, where co-owner Armando Albarado has seen steady business since the store opened over the summer.

"As soon as they know we're here, a lot of people start sending money," Albarado said. Just this week, a woman sent $4,000 to Mexico after a relative called saying there had been an accident and a family member needed surgery. On weekends, Albarado said, he might send more than a dozen transfers a day.

"That's why we come here, to support our families in Mexico," said Albarado, who has lived in the United States for nearly two decades but still sends money to relatives occasionally.

In west Raleigh on Wednesday, a steady stream of workers lined up at La Parada Tienda Hispana, leaving with yellow Western Union receipts.

"My family needs it," said Juan Gonzalez, 45, who sent $200 to Mexico. He added that he sends $12,000 a year to his wife and five children, who use it for food and school supplies.

"I can't do any more, or I would," Gonzalez said.

About the study

The IDB commissioned the polling firm Bendixen and Associates to interview 2,511 adults about their economic realities in the United States and in Latin America. The results were cross-checked with data from the Federal Reserve and Central Banks in Latin America. The survey's margin of error is plus or minus 2 points.

Sergio Bendixen, the firm's owner, said the growth is fueled only in part because of poverty in Latin American. Latino immigrants are also under greater pressure to send money as family members tell them of friends or neighbors who are receiving money. And financial firms specializing in remittances are running ad campaigns that "make you feel like a bad person" if you don't send money, he said.

(News and Reporter staff writer Marti Maguire contributed to this report.)

Washington correspondent Barbara Barrett can be reached at (202) 383-0012 or bbarrett@mcclatchydc.com