VIA AZCENTRAL.COM
Mar. 19, 2006 12:00 AM MEXICO CITY - Every two weeks, Nayeli Toxqui pushes her baby stroller down Insurgentes Avenue, past the whizzing taxis and the wheezing buses, and joins a line of people near a yellow-and-black Western Union sign.

"I'm picking up money from my husband in Chicago," she said one recent morning, peering at the cashier's booth dispensing money at the back of the Elektra appliance store. "I don't work, so you could say I depend on la Western."

So do millions of other families and their migrant relatives. And in turn, Western Union depends on them, as it rides a 10-year wave of immigration to record-high profits.

So perhaps it is no surprise that the world's biggest money-transfer company and its parent firm, First Data Corp., are quietly becoming a force in the debate over illegal immigration and border security.

In recent years, Denver-based First Data has openly campaigned for immigration reform, which could legalize millions of undocumented workers, and has created a $10 million "Empowerment Fund" for the same purpose.

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