A good thing, according to the agenda-pushing Boston Globe:
"Cash flowing to native lands; Mass. residents sent $1.8b last year to loved ones back home" by Maria Sacchetti, Globe Staff | September 20, 2010
Delmy Aldana works two jobs — at a restaurant by day and the post office at night — to send hundreds of dollars a month to her native El Salvador. Half pays the mortgage on a house she built for her family, and the rest covers necessities for relatives, including a teenage son and 71-year-old mother she left behind.
“It’s really hard,’’ said Aldana, a 31-year-old Lynn resident. “The money I send my mother helps her to survive. What I send her pays her bills, the electricity, the water, the telephone. If I didn’t send money . . . I don’t know how she would manage.’’
I'm not for anyone living in darkness or with hunger; however, bankers never seem to have to worry.
My main gripe here is the SAME PAPER that PROMOTES the VERY GLOBALIST, CORPORATIST SYSTEM that CAUSES ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION in the first place is GUILT TRIPPING YOU with this agenda-pushing piece of front-page propaganda.
Across the state, Aldana and other immigrants showed their enduring devotion to their loved ones last year by sending $1.8 billion home to more than 200 countries, according to the first full accounting of the cash that flows out of Massachusetts.
Money sucked out of the state economy, never to return.
The findings are based on a Globe review of annual reports that money-transfer companies such as MoneyGram and Western Union are required to file each year with the state.
The reports do not specify who sent the money, but industry analysts and government officials say that they believe the vast majority are immigrants, who favor money- transfer companies because they are quick and easy to use.
Like innocent Pakistanis caught up in a false-flag fraud by the FBI?
The top destinations for the money transfers last year — Brazil, the Dominican Republic, China, and Guatemala — closely mirror the major immigrant groups in Massachusetts. But the list also reflects the state’s remarkable diversity, with sizable amounts going to Ghana, Poland, and Taiwan.
In Massachusetts, where 14 percent of the population is foreign-born, and elsewhere, immigrants are under constant pressure to juggle responsibilities in two worlds.
And average Americans are not?
They work to cover daily expenses here while sending cash, known as remittances, to their native lands from tiny bodegas or big stores such as Walmart.
Back home, the money covers food, medicine, shelter, and small luxuries, such as washing machines, to ease daily life. Immigrants also send money for emergencies, such as the Jan. 12 earthquake in Haiti or the recent flooding in Pakistan, and for celebrations, such as India’s Diwali festivities or Mother’s Day in Mexico.
“These are not payments of convenience,’’ said Daniel O’Malley, executive vice president of the Americas at MoneyGram.. “They’re payments of love and support.’’
Or for terror when the government says so, but who's quibbling?
Many immigrants are also directing the money toward bigger dreams, such as launching small businesses back home, prompting advocates for immigrants to urge the state to court these investors....
“This is a huge amount of money,’’ said Eva Millona, executive director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, a nonprofit that is hosting a major national conference later this month on integrating immigrants into the United States. “There is a loss here that needs to be addressed.’’
Frances Martinez, executive director of La Vida Inc., a nonprofit group in Lynn, said she counsels immigrants to face the reality that many of them will never return home. She advises them to reserve a portion of their remittances, $50 to $60 a month, for their children’s college educations.
“Every time I go to the Dominican Republic, I see these humongous mansions and all these investments with the money from the United States,’’ she said. “When I see them I say, ‘Wow, they are probably never going to live there.’ ’’
As YOU were FORECLOSED UPON, Americans!
Nixon Andama of Watertown, a native of Uganda, said immigrants struggle with conflicting priorities. The 40-year-old real estate analyst is building his career here, but he also bought a farm in Uganda to appease his mother, though he doesn’t plan to return. In Uganda, he said, people are typically buried on their farms, and owning land is an important tradition.
“It’s a social thing,’’ said Andama, who still sends money to his relatives there. “When you become an adult in society in Uganda, everyone expects you to build your own home. If not, it will be the talk of the village, and you’re kind of looked down at because you didn’t build.’’
Kind of like not choosing to buy a house in the U.S.
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Some say the state should tax remittances or find another way to make money from them, since the cash is leaving the state.
“That is money that is not spent in the Massachusetts economy,’’ said Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Washington-based Federation for American Immigration Reform, which favors stricter controls on immigration. “Obviously that is lost. It is certainly a factor that ought to be considered when formulating immigration policies.’’
But Manuel Orozco, an associate with the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based research group, said his research in Latin America shows that immigrants send only 15 percent of their income. Money-sending does not vary widely by immigration status, either, he said, though naturalized citizens tend to send more than those in the country illegally, because they tend to have higher-paying jobs.
The state’s reports show that more established groups, such as Italians, Irish, and Portuguese, are still sending money....
Today’s immigrants can transfer money far more easily than their predecessors, who sent it in letters or with friends visiting home. Now, senders fill out a form at a money-transfer outlet, hand over the cash, and pay a fee....
In Massachusetts, the leading money-transfer companies are Western Union, which sent 35 percent of the state’s total remittances in 2009, and MoneyGram, which sent 12 percent.
In Waltham, the money-transfer service at La Chapincita is as popular as the cans of beans on the neatly stocked shelves and recent editions of Prensa Libre, a major daily newspaper in Guatemala. Braulio Mazariegos, one of the store owners, said he opens even during snowstorms to keep the money-transfer service available to his customers.
“Many families depend on the money they send,’’ he said. “The immigrants never let them down.’’
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Related: Fitchburg aims to engage immigrants
