Of regional interest, there are currently more Mexicans leaving the U.S. than coming in, reports Texas Standard. Even so, last year immigrants in the US sent $56 billion to their families back home, an astoundingly high amount.
Mexico benefited the most from these remittances. How did the amount of money leaving the country grow so high? For one thing, many Mexicans that remain in the US are more established now and have better jobs than when they first arrived. And data from the US Census Bureau shows newly arrived immigrants from Mexico are better educated than ever before. That means their wages are often higher than those of poorly educated Americans.
Mexico isn’t the only Latin American country experiencing a remittance boom. Guatemala has seen an increase of 15 percent in money being sent home. In Colombia, remittances have gone up by 14 percent.