The Tucson Citizen reported last week that the recently formed Wells Fargo & Co.-HSBC Mexico partnership plans to widen significantly its remittance-distribution network, enabling more Mexicans in the U.S. to send money home.  Customers using Wells Fargo’s InterCuenta Express product will now have access to 3,000 banks and 8,200 ATMs across Mexico.  Mexicans in Arizona especially will benefit from the expansion in light of the Inter-American Development Bank’s report expecting them to send $606 million to Latin America this year.

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The Denver Post reported last week that Republican Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Co, and First Data Corp CEO Tom Fote are at odds over immigration policy.  First Data Corp, with 2,700 employees, is the largest employer in Tancredo’s district.  Fote, who oversees his company’s multi-billion dollar Western Union wire transfer business, is taking an active role in pro-immigration issues.  First Data Corp is the first Fortune 500 company to take a stance on immigration issues.  Fote is leading national forums on the topic and is setting up a political action committee that provides funds for pro-immigration candidates such as Tancredo’s Democratic opponent.

Tancredo advanced a plan that would have levied a tax on all foreign-bound wire transfers in order to increase funds to police U.S. borders.  After stiff criticism of the plan, Tancredo pulled the tax and proposed that aid to foreign countries be reduced by the amount that the country receives via wire transfers from the U.S. 

Immigrants in the U.S wire over $30 billion per year to Latin American countries.  Tancredo feels that wire transfers by immigrants to their families in their home countries encourage illegal immigration.  First Data says that wire transfers benefit both the recipient countries and the U.S. by spurring economic development and curbing the need for illegal immigration.