The money sent home by Mexicans living in the United States fell 3.7 percent in the first nine months of 2008, the Bank of Mexico said Wednesday.

  
Mexicans living in the United States sent home 1.97 billion dollars in September, bringing the total so far this year to 17.53 billion dollars, the bank said.
  
Remittances fell 0.21 percent in September, compared with the previous year, after a massive 12.2 percent fall in August, the biggest drop since record-keeping began 13 years ago.
  
The US economic slowdown, stricter security on the US-Mexico border and increased deportations are blamed for the drop in Mexico's second-largest source of foreign income, after oil exports.
  
There are some estimated eight million undocumented and 12 million documented Mexicans in the United States.
  
The UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) recently said that two million Mexicans could return from the United States in the coming months due to the economic crisis.