Cash sent to Mexico by migrants dropping

Money being sent home by Mexican migrants has declined for the first time in more than a decade.

Mexico's central bank says the 2 percent drop can be blamed on the downturn in U.S. housing construction and stepped-up U.S. immigration raids.

Money sent home by Mexican migrants is the country's second-largest source of foreign income, after oil exports.

Annual remittances nearly tripled from about $9 billion in 2001 to almost $24 billion in 2007.

The U.S. dollar has lost almost 8 percent of its value against the Mexican peso this year.