TIGRA - News

TIGRA Survey Tool Gathers Remittance Practices
July 5, 2005

TIGRA’s Community Remittance Audit (CRA) is now available! This survey is designed to assess the remittance industry from those who actually sustain it, the immigrants sending billions of dollars home to their families every year. Right now the CRA is being conducted across the country in various organizations and already is proving to be a success in bringing diverse communities together over their shared remittance experiences. By next May TIGRA plans to collect over 10,000 surveys, accounting for about $20 million in remittances. The information and experiences gathered will lay the foundation for TIGRA's Transnational Campaign on Remittance Fairness and Community Reinvestment. Download the survey here or en español.

New York: Sons and Daughters of Jamaica
July 5, 2005

“We’re excited about our collaboration with TIGRA,“ says Jose Richards, Founder and President of the association.“ Our communities are exploited by these financial institutions, and it’s about time to do something about it.” Founded in 1997, Sons and Daughters of Jamaica, Inc. (SADOJI) is a cultural and educational community-based organization servicing communities in New York and in Jamaica, West Indies. Its mission is to build greater social unity and acceptance of diverse cultures through positive events that promote cross-cultural exchanges and understanding amongst Jamaicans and other communities. Organizational activities include: sponsorship of cultural events during festivals and Black History Month celebrations, participation in rallies and marches for immigrant rights, and advocacy activities on behalf of all undocumented immigrants.

Focus on CRECE
July 5, 2005

The organizing drive in the San Francisco Bay Area got a boost when organizations of Mexican, African, and Central American immigrants came together on May 11 to hear about TIGRA’s campaign. One of the most active organizations in the campaign is the Central American Refugee Committee of the East Bay (CRECE), an organization that is doing great work not only in the U.S., but also in El Salvador. CRECE was founded by Tulio Serrano who arrived in the U.S. as a political refugee in 1990. CRECE offers a variety of services to the Fruitvale district in Oakland, such as food donations every Friday, fundraising for the continuation of education of Salvadoran students, and a delegation (comprised of Latino U.S. high school students) that goes to El Salvador every November to bring school and medical supplies to the community. CRECE’s work is what drives our communities and empowers TIGRA’s campaign.

Western Union Agent Joins Campaign
July 5, 2005

On June 14, 2005, a group of community and labor leaders formed the TIGRA Coordinating Committee to move the campaign to collect 1,500 Community Remittances Audits(CRA) from Providence’s immigrant communities. One of the more unlikely founders of this collaborative project is Miguel*--an immigrant from the Dominican Republic, an active member of his local church, and owner of a local money transfer agency. He came to the first TIGRA-sponsored community forum in Providence on May 15, and became hooked on the idea of building an “institution with clear social values.” Miguel runs an immigrant-owned money transfer business that’s being squeezed by regulatory demands of the Patriot Act, and a decreasing profit margin as a Western Union agent. “I’m tired of working my tail off for Western Union,” Miguel relays in Spanish. “They’re taking advantage of everyone in the community. We need to find alternatives to the system that exploits us.” (*In fear of possible retaliation from Western Union, he requested that TIGRA not use his actual name or that of his business.)

Money Flies Across Borders - Vijay Prashad full article
May 9, 2005

TIGRA details a scandal at the heart of the remittance business. A handful of US-based firms dominate the $19.88 billion wire transfer market, and they charge their customers between 13% and 20% in fees and commissions. To wit, tens of billions of dollars are expropriated from hard-working people whose crucial labor not only maintains the overdeveloped world in its opulence, but also maintains families in the subordinated world....

Shakedown of Money Transfer Industry Underway full article

On March 31, 2005, North Fork Bank and J.P. Morgan Chase closed the business accounts of money transfer agencies with hundreds of outlets in New York’s immigrant neighborhoods. Their action, the banks argue, is in response to the more stringent requirements of the USA Patriot Act to crack down on those who seek to launder money to support terrorism. But in reality, those most affected are millions of families who have come to rely on remittances from loved ones living in the United States...

Money Down the Wire Booklet Now Available!

Prepared for the 2005 World Social Forum, Money Down the Wire presents TIGRA’s initial research on the historical factors behind the rapid increase of remittances, a preliminary profile of the Big Five financial institutions that benefit from the current system, and the prospects for transnational organizing. The booklet identifies further research opportunities for completing the profile of the Big Five that can inform the development of accountability strategies.

TIGRA helps launch remittance campaign in New York
February 19, 2005

In a frigid basement inside St. Agatha’s Church in Brooklyn, NY, members of the Union de la Comunidad Latina (Latino Community Association) took the first step to change their relationship with remittance agencies in Sunset Park. Sixteen leaders, who collectively send $62,500 a year, attended a strategy session facilitated by TIGRA and shared their experiences sending money back home to Mexico and Peru. By analyzing the impact of exorbitant transaction fees and usurious exchange rates on their families and communities, the group developed proposals to demand accountability from financial institutions. Their organizing plan includes recruiting community residents who, taken collectively, remit $1 million a year to their families in countries across Latin and South America. TIGRA will continue to provide research and organizing strategy support to the Latino Community Association as its plan moves forward.

TIGRA in Uruguay
February 9, 2005

In the Old Historic Sate Legislature Building in Montevideo, Uruguay, representatives from the US, Canada, Dominican Republic, and the local Uruguayans listened intently to TIGRA’s workshop on transnational organizing on remittances. As folks shared their experiences around the room, the alarming impact of transaction fees on their lives became clear. In the heat of the afternoon, the group continued to participate in the workshop and collectively groan as statistics of profits and transactions were shared. Based on the positive organizing impact of this workshop, a network of organizations in Latin America are now working to help spread TIGRA’s message and strategies.

World Social Forum workshop links Remittances, Third World Debt and Accountability of Financial Institutions
January 28, 2005

Thirty-six people from 14 countries attended TIGRA’s workshop at the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil on January 28, 2005 entitled “Transnational Organizing on Remittances: Forging Accountability with U.S.-based Financial Institutions.” The workshop traced the growth of remittances to the deterioration of third world economies—largely due to the practices of the very same financial institutions who benefit from the remittance industry today—that has created the most massive human migration and displacement in human history. TIGRA strengthened its ties with global efforts to repudiate illegitimate debts from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, such as the Freedom from Debt Coalition in the Philippines, and the Center for Economic Justice with its World Bank Bonds Boycott campaign.