Inter-American Development Bank officials released a report this week on money that immigrants send home.  The report’s findings contend that the U.S. economy would collapse if the flow of Latin American immigrants is stopped.  

The report, "Sending Home Money: Leveraging the Development Impact of Remittances," revealed that 12.6 million Latin American immigrants in the United States will send about $45 billion to their home countries this year.  The total estimated income of Latin Americans in the U.S. for 2006 is about $500 billion, and according to the report, 90 percent of that income stays in the U.S.   The report also showed that the number of Latin American immigrants who send money home on a regular basis has risen from 61 percent in 2004, to 73 percent in 2006, and the average amount sent went from $240 to $300 in the same period.  

Donald F. Terry, manager of IDB’s Multilateral Investment Fund, said that, if the U.S. government halts immigration, the U.S. economy would collapse, as the source of growth for the U.S. economy would be lost.  "There is a match.  There is a development imbalance, and there is demographic imbalance.  Latin Americans need jobs; the United States needs workers.  The equation in very obvious," Terry said.  

IDB’s Multilateral Investment Fund commissioned Bendixen and Associates, a U.S. independent polling and research firm to conduct the report.