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Remittances Sent To Sonora Up Nearly 20% In 2020

In 2020, Mexican migrants living in the U.S. and elsewhere sent home more money than ever before — 11% more than the previous record year. In Sonora, remittances increased even more dramatically.

Mexicans living and working abroad sent more than $700 million back home to the state of Sonora last year. That’s nearly 20% more than in 2019 — the sixth-highest percentage increase among Mexico’s 32 states. At the top was fellow border state Baja California, where remittances increased by more than 30% to $1.2 billion.

All that despite — or perhaps because — of the pandemic, which experts predicted early on would decrease the amount of money many Mexicans abroad were able to send home.

Instead, remittances to Mexico soared to $40 billion in 2020, blowing past the previous annual record of $36 billion in 2019.

Kendal Blust was a senior field correspondent at KJZZ from 2018 to 2023.