AXOCHIAPAN, MEXICO -- A pickup truck with Minnesota plates bounced down the dirt road on the edge of town, raising clouds of reddish dust.

It caught the eye of a grazing Brahman bull and disappeared behind a clutch of mango trees bordering a new subdivision, where tangles of steel reinforcing bars sprouted from the roofs of unfinished concrete block houses.

Many of the new houses were paid for with money sent by a secret workforce in Minnesota.

By Mayor Leopoldo Rodriguez's estimate, almost a third of the town's workers have crossed the border -- many of them illegally -- and headed north to work in the Twin Cities over the past 10 years.

The money they wire back arrives daily by police escort in armored trucks. Altogether, it comes to between $4 million and $7 million a month, according to Twin Cities money-transfer agencies.

The cash has forged an economic link between Axochiapan and the Twin Cities that is part of a global trend. It is changing Axochiapan, one household at a time.

The past decade has seen an explosion in emigration from poorer countries to the United States, the majority of it from Mexico.

Mexican immigrants, both legal and illegal, sent an estimated $20 billion back home last year from the United States. This rivals the $25 billion that Mexico takes in from oil exports.

It's not just happening in North America. More than $223 billion flows annually from migrant workers in the United States and other developed countries to poorer nations around the world. It's a flow that is transforming families, towns and, in some cases, entire countries, creating a new force in the global economy.

By dint of its migrant workforce in Minnesota, that global economy has come to Axochiapan.

Residents say the money pipeline has changed it from a provincial farm town to something almost reminiscent of the United States. There's a new hospital, built mostly with Minnesota money, and hundreds of new houses. American cars with Minnesota plates roar down the town's streets. And stores carry the latest CD players. All of which leaves residents worrying about prices inflated by the steady stream of American dollars.

This kind of money and labor flow has major consequences. In Axochiapan, the lure of American money has created a town where fathers and husbands are absent for years on end, women are left alone to raise the children, and the community is growing increasingly dependent on money made elsewhere.

Padre Miguel Franco Galicia, parish priest at the Church of San Pablo in Axochiapan, understands the lure of the green check.

Padre Miguel has visited Minneapolis several times to minister to his expatriate parishioners. He estimates that at least 60 percent of Axochiapan's population receives money from family members working in the United States, most of them in Minnesota.

"To be honest, I think there are more pluses than minuses, from an economic point of view," he said. "But the social devastation is enormous."

Pizza and the Internet

Axochiapan (pronounced Ah-sho-chee-AH-pahn), a town of about 30,000 in southern Mexico, has known little but poverty for centuries. People made a living by farming, or by working in the gypsum mines outside of town. The recent flow of Minnesota money has improved life. Pizza deliveries, aerobics studios and Internet cafes, alongside tortilla shops and taquerias, now serve an increasingly cosmopolitan population.

"Axochiapan would not be growing like it is without the people who go up north to work," said Antonio Estudillo, an aide to the mayor. "They suffer to bring a better life to their families."