Washington Post, United States
Mexico is the biggest factor in the U.S. debate, with more than 26 million people of Mexican descent living here. But Mexico is not as dependent on its expatriate workers as El Salvador. More than two million Salvadorans --- a quarter of the country's population -- live in the United States. The vast majority have come in the past 25 years and the majority are here illegally. They send $2.5 billion a year in remittances (remesas) to relatives back home; according to the State Department, that's about 17 percent of the country's total gross national product. El Salvador is so dependent on American money that it abolished its own currency in 2000 and made the U.S. dollar the only legal tender.
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