Latin American migrants transfer record amounts of money out of the U.S., many invest in real estate

By Ana Lankes

Antonio Orduña has lived in Arizona for 30 years as an undocumented migrant, now working as a gardener. In January, after Donald Trump took office, Orduña wired most of his life savings to Mexico, afraid he might be deported at any moment. As well as the financial loss, he would lose the ability to see his two sons born in the United States. “It’s a manhunt,” he says. “It’s a nightmare.”

Cash transfer services such as Western Union are busier than ever.

There are many in Orduña’s position. “Fearing deportation, they send more money,” says Álvaro González Ricci, president of Guatemala’s central bank. Remittances from the United States to several Latin American countries have hit record highs. Those to Guatemala were up 24% year on year in January. Remittances to Nicaragua jumped by 22%, to Honduras by 17%, El Salvador by 13%, Ecuador by 9%.

Mexico, the world’s second-largest recipient after India, recorded a more modest 2% rise to $4.7bn — its highest-ever total for January.

Besides remittances, many Latinos in the U.S. are investing in real estate in their native countries. In Ecuador, real estate agents in Quito and Cuenca report a surge in purchases since January, with sales numbers reaching levels not seen in more than a decade.

The surge may prove short-lived. If Trump does carry out mass deportations, remittances would slow or even decline. Manuel Orozco of the Inter-American Dialogue, a think-tank, forecasts that remittances would grow by just 2% in 2025 if 500,000 of the migrants already living in the United States illegally were deported.

Trump’s deportation surge has not yet begun. The White House has published deportation videos replete with handcuffs and shackles, and is spending $200m on a self-deportation campaign urging undocumented immigrants to leave the United States voluntarily. But just 38,000 migrants were deported in Trump’s first month in office, well below the monthly average of 57,000 during the last full year of Joe Biden’s presidency.

Deportations are low partly because the number of migrants entering the United States has fallen sharply owing to Trump’s border-enforcement measures. Just 11,700 people were apprehended trying to cross the south-west border in February, down 94% from the same month last year. Many stay in Mexico instead. “We haven’t seen these deported migrants yet,” says Francisco Loureiro, who runs a migrant shelter in Nogales, Sonora.

As a lone deportation bus rolls across the border, a Mexican officer shrugs: “This is nothing — there were many more coming under Biden.” Orduña will not be alone in hoping it stays that way.
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Credit: The Economist