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Mass deportations threaten the lifeline of money migrants send back home

The telltale signs of a community built with money earned abroad are unmistakable in this mountain hamlet.

There’s the ornate front gate outside one of the first properties in town. Brightly painted homes dot the village, many of them being expanded to a second floor. Shiny dirt bikes stand out among the donkeys and dusty trucks in the rocky backyards.

But for Juan Eduardo García, that doesn’t necessarily mean the community is better off. “Remittances have benefited individual families, built our homes, contributed to our well-being,” says Mr. García, who was 11 years old when his father first went to work in the United States without documentation.

Why We Wrote This

Many of the unauthorized migrants whom President Donald Trump plans to deport have been keeping their relatives in Latin America financially afloat with their earnings. What does their future hold?

“But more broadly speaking, no. If you look at this community over the past 50 years since it was founded, it hasn’t developed as far as water and other basic services are concerned,” he says, even though so many villagers send money home from the U.S.

Remittances are the lifeblood of many Latin American countries, contributing about 25% of Honduras’ and El Salvador’s gross domestic products and close to 20% of Guatemala’s. In Mexico, the region’s second-largest economy, remittances accounted for 3.5% of GDP, or nearly $60 billion, in 2024.

Whitney Eulich

An unfinished home built with remittances sits on a dirt road in Tamahula, Mexico. Neighbors often watch over the uninhabited homes while the owners reside in the U.S., with the homes being something of an insurance policy in case of deportation.

If President Donald Trump carries out his threat to deport millions of unauthorized migrants, that could cost billions of dollars in remittances. And those losses could devastate families that depend on them for everything from new homes to health care and school fees.

But there’s also an uncomfortable reality, evident in communities like Tamahula. While families are dependent on remittances from loved ones working abroad, they have little to show in terms of community development or sustainable changes in family economics. Studies show that households receiving remittances tend to have lower levels of resilience and financial security.

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