[Excerpt] Migrants’ remittances—payments sent by foreign-born workers back to their home country—have become a significant source of monetary inflows for many countries. In 2009, such remittances from the United States to other countries totaled more than $48 billion, nearly 30 percent more in inflation-adjusted terms than they were in 2000. People in Mexico receive more of the remittances sent from the United States than do residents of any other country. This document updates and expands upon the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO’s) May 2005 publication Remittances: International Payments by Migrants. That paper included data through 2003; this document includes data through 2009. The existing data on global remittances are not of very high quality, however, and the comparisons and trends reported here should be viewed only as approximations.