SALEM (AP) - Oregonians will send more than $200 million home to Mexico and other Latin American countries this year, according to a new study.

Nationwide, $30 billion in remittances will be dispatched to countries like Brazil, Colombia and El Salvador, the study by the Inter-American Development Bank found.

"Taken as a whole, this population's output would rank as the third biggest economy in Latin America, after Brazil and Mexico," says the report.

Maria and Jesus Falcon of McMinnville are a case in point, sending about 10 percent of their income to their 14-year-old daughter, who lives with her grandmother in Hidalgo, Mexico.

The couple wires an average of $250 each month to pay for clothing, school supplies and other goods, Maria Falcon, 34, said.

"In the neighborhood, most of the children are in the care of the grandparents," Jesus Falcon said in Spanish. "And the parents? They are up north working."

"We have to help them," Falcon, 56, added, describing the remittance as a moral obligation.

About 63 percent of the estimated 147,099 Latin American immigrants living in Oregon will send a total of $218 million home this year, according to the study.

Jim Ludwick, president of Oregonians for Immigration Reform, said that figure illustrates the need to control the number of immigrants coming to the United States.

He notes that the immigrants can afford to send money home, despite supposedly low wages.

Given Oregon's annual $104.4 billion in personal income, the money leaving the state is no cause for alarm, countered Dallas Fridley, a regional economist with the Oregon Employment Department.

"I wouldn't say that was significant in the overall scheme of things," he said.

However, Fridley noted that the $218 million likely represents a large part of workers' incomes.

"It's a recognition that there is a need back home," he said. "Obviously, in this country, we don't face those kinds of situations that these folks do."

At the same time, Latin American immigrants contribute an estimated $450 billion to the U.S. economy, according to the bank.

Mexico is expected to receive the largest share of U.S. remittances this year: $13.2 billion.

"Many Hispanic people have half of their heart there," Jesus Falcon said of his homeland. "Even those with 30-year mortgages talk about Mexico as 'home."'