Worldwide remittances to LaTin America and the Caribbean (LAC) reached $69.2 billion in 2008, an increase of just under one percent over 2007.1 Despite a series of challenges confronting migrant workers and their families in 2008, remittance senders proved to be remarkably resilient. The financial crisis, however, has raised new obstacles to migrant workers’ ability to send money home. Given the recessions plaguing major destination countries such as the United States, Spain and Japan, remittances to the LAC region will decrease in 2009, marking the first downturn since the Inter-American Development Bank began tracking these flows in the year 2000.