Central American nations may have no incentive to prevent migrants from flooding across the U.S.-Mexico border because of the billions of dollars of remittances that illegal immigrants who are able to stay in the United States are sending back home.
As the number of illegal immigrants from Central America has been increasing over the last three years, so have the remittances that Central American nations have received.
According to a leaked June 4, 2014 internal Department of Homeland Security (DHS) report from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that Breitbart Texas obtained, remittances from those in the United States to El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras make up at least 10% of each country’s GDP.
The report estimates that remittances to El Salvador from those in the United States totaled $3 billion in 2010 but ballooned to an estimated $4.2 billion in 2013, which is 16% of El Salvador’s GDP.
Remittances to Guatemala from those in the United States totaled $3.76 billion in 2010 and increased to $4.4 billion in 2012, which is 10% of Guatemala’s GDP.
And remittances to Honduras from those in the United States totaled $2.3 billion in 2010 and increased to $3.2 billion in 2013, which equaled 20% of Honduras’s GDP.
There have been an estimated 53,375 illegal immigrant children from countries other than Mexico that have crossed the Southwest border since October of last year, and federal officials estimate that at least 95,500 more will enter next year, according to the leaked documents. Other estimates have indicated that at least 150,000 more illegal immigrant children will flood across the border next year.
The White House recently gave nearly $250 million in taxpayer funds in foreign aid to Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, and critics have said the U.S. government should cut off all aid until those nations take steps to stem the tide of migrants making the trek to America.
According to the Christian Science Monitor, “during the decade preceding fiscal year 2012, the federal government agency tasked with caring for unaccompanied minors who cross the border illegally dealt with an average of 7,000 to 8,000 cases a year.” In fiscal year 2011, there were 6,560, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.
Yet, as the Monitor noted, the following year, when Obama enacted DACA, “the number jumped to 13,625,” and at least 50,000 have entered illegally since October of last year. Officials estimate at least 150,000-160,000 more will try next year.
Though White House officials have gone on a public relations campaign to tell Central Americans that they will not receive amnesty, many illegal immigrants have said they traveled to America believing the Obama administration would never deport them if they made it across the U.S.-Mexico border.
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