Wiring money back home to Mexico is a way of life for El Mezcal employee Exiquio Lara.

He does it nearly every week, and so do millions of others living in the United States. Now, a new program offered by a bank with branches in Douglas County is designed to make it easier and less expensive for Mexican immigrants to send money home.

These remittances from the Unites States reached a record $12 billion last year, making them the largest source of foreign investment in Mexico’s economy, Mexico President Vicente Fox said last week.

“We call the United States the country of opportunity. That’s why people are coming here to send money,” said Lara, 36, an assistant manager at El Mezcal restaurant, 1818 W. 23rd St. Lara, who said he’d lived in the United States for 20 years, is studying to take a citizenship test and sending a couple hundred dollars per month to his mother in Jalisco.

Traditionally, these exchanges have been made by wire transfer, which can cost $15 or more for a $300 transaction. The new “secure money transfer” program, introduced earlier this month by U.S. Bank, costs $8-$10 per transaction and allows recipients to withdraw the money with an ATM card or at rural banks.

The matricula consular, a new form of photo ID the Mexican government issues to its citizens here — regardless of their immigration status — is an acceptable form of ID for opening an account.

Fox said this week the new ID system had helped boost the cash flow between the United States and Mexico. But some have criticized the card as a lax form of ID that circumvents immigration laws.

One person who welcomes the changes is Christopher Anderson, an associate professor of finance at Kansas University who studies Latin American economies. New, more efficient methods of transferring money probably will make it easier for Mexicans here to get a fair exchange rate and to avoid “unscrupulous middle men,” he said.

“Any kind of competition that cuts down on transfer costs — that makes middle men compete with each other — is good,” he said.

Exiquio Lara, an assistant manager at El Mezcal restaurant, 1818 W. 23rd St., sends a couple hundred dollars per month to his mother in Jalisco, Mexico. A new program offered by a bank with branches in Douglas County is designed to make it easier and less expensive for Mexican immigrants like Lara to send money home.

Anderson estimated the typical Latin-American worker in the United States made less than $20,000 per year and sent home about $3,000 per year. The money sent back helps compensate for the economic loss Mexico suffers when its workers come to the United States, he said.

According to U.S. Census figures from 2000, there were an estimated 2,140 people of Mexican origin living in Douglas County — roughly 2 percent of the county’s population.

As of last week, no one had signed up for the new transfer program at U.S. Bank’s branch on 23rd Street, branch manager Ginny Satler said. But she expected that to happen any day, in part because her branch is next door to El Mezcal.

“The next time they need to wire money, which they very often need to do, we will bring up this secure money transfer,” she said. “I look for that to come along any day. We just haven’t had that customer yet.”