The World Bank, a group that has expounded on the great benefit of monies sent home from immigrants in other nations, dubbed "remittances", seems to be having second thought now.
Dean Yang, a public-policy professor at the University of Michigan is quoted in the Wall Street Journal as saying "Remittances are a band-aid on fundamental development problems, ... Labor export and remittances won't turn El Salvador, the Philippines and other poor countries into the next development tigers." On the contrary, remittances will ensure that these countries remain stagnant while the rest of the world advances.
The World Bank in a report entitled Remittances: Not Manna From Heaven had this to say.
In 2005 migrant workers from Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) sent a total of $48.3 billion back to their home countries. In 2004, remittances represented about 70 percent of foreign direct investment (FDI) in LAC and were 500 percent larger than Official Development Assistance to the region.
Despite the importance of remittances for Latin America and the Caribbean, a new World Bank study finds that their impact on the region has in some cases been overestimated.
... despite the positive impact of remittances in the region, they are no replacement for sound development policies in the countries. It adds that it is important to implement complementary policies while promoting remittances as an alternative source of development finance and inviting banks to “take advantage” of remittances flows.
Note that the World Bank is leftist in nature and their wording isn't as harsh as it should be. For instance they don't mention the massive corruption that remittances has contributed to. They also don't mention that many of these countries have stopped even trying and are just relying on money sent home by immigrants, both legal and illegal.
Also note that the remittances mentioned above are only to countries in Latin America and that the true amount of money being taken out of developed nations -- most coming from the United States -- and sent to corrupt nations is much greater.
To say or even suggest that remittances are a good thing is totally ridiculous. It has contributed more to a lack of country growth and actually moving forward than any other issue. The governments of countries who are a main benefactor of remittances see no need to improve their countries because those receiving the remittances have been quieted for a time. It has allowed them to stagnate and to allow the existence of the whole of their country on an external source which could be shut off in the future.
Debbie Schlussel points out that many terrorist supporting countries rely solely on remittances and that if they were turned off they would cease to exist.
Far worse is where that money goes. According to the World Bank, Al-Qaeda and HAMAS hotbeds of Bosnia/Herzegovina and Jordan are among the top six countries that depend most on these "remittances" of money from aliens out of our country and into theirs.
A whopping 22.5% of the 2004 GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of Bosnia/Herzegovina--not sure how they can call this "Domestic" with a straight face--is from money wired or otherwise sent from here. 20.4% of Jordan's GDP comes from U.S. "remittances."
