MEXICO CITY - Mexicans living abroad sent $11 billion home in the first half of 2006, an increase of 23 percent over the same period last year, the government news agency Notimex reported Friday.
Remittances have become an increasingly important source of income for the country in recent years, surpassing tourism. They represent Mexico's second-largest source of foreign income after oil.
They topped $20 billion for the first time in 2005, a 17 percent increase from the previous year.
Mexico's government has lobbied intensely for the U.S. government to legalize some of the 11 million undocumented migrants living in the United States, about half of whom are Mexicans.
The U.S. Senate has approved legislation that would enact a temporary worker program to allow some of them to remain, but the House has delayed acting on it amid criticism that it would give amnesty to illegals.
