Three million Central Americans, or almost 10 percent of the combined populations of Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador, migrated into the United States before 2018, mostly for economic reasons, says a December 2019 report by the Inter-American Development Bank.
But the rising deportation of migrants from the United States provides those countries with a new supply of U.S.-trained workers and managers, the bank survey said:
The return migration can represent an opportunity for the countries since they have a human capital greater than that of the local population, knowledge of the English language, work experiences in that country, and even savings, which would allow them to make fundamental contributions to the growth of the economies of their countries.
The deportation opportunity is the flipside of claims by U.S. investors that migration provides them with additional U.S.-based skilled and unskilled workers, consumers, and renters to curb wages, boost returns, and spike rents.
President Donald Trump’s border controls, however, have curbed the inflow in late 2019, so helping to raise Americans’ wages.
But the extra 2018 and 2019 inflows likely delivered another one million-plus Central Americans into U.S. communities, further nudging down Americans’ wages and forcing up rents.
The 2018 and 2019 population movement ensures that roughly 12 percent of the three nations’ populations are living in the United States — largely because the migrants walled through the border loopholes preserved since 1980 by U.S. legislators, despite growing public pressure for a secure border.
The Central American migrant population is a mix of relatively prosperous migrants and sidelined indigenous Indians, according to the Spanish-language survey, which was reported by estrategiaynegocios.net:
The profile of the recent migrant from these three Central American countries is a young person, with a high incidence of indigenous population (15%) who, although initially considering migration temporarily, once in the United States wants to remain. Their educational level is low compared to other migrants in the United States, but high compared to their country of origin. The migrant is economically integrated in the United States, with high labor participation (80%), saves (50%) and pays taxes (60%).
The survey showed:
The search for economic opportunities (74%), family reunification (43%) and violence (41%) are the main causes of migration. In this sense, the migratory flow related to family reunification will be difficult to stop, which continues to make people trafficking through coyotes profitable and angular, a service for which they can pay between US $ 4,000-US $ 8,000 and at that migrants access through the help of family members (45%), loans (40%) or savings (11%). The study concludes that it is necessary to generate quality jobs to achieve greater roots, as well as expand social protection networks in order to improve the quality of life of people in their countries.
The data is based on a survey of 1,859 migrants from El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala, who arrived in the United States after 2007. The surveyed migrants were living in Los Angeles, New York, and Washington, DC.
The new survey showed that roughly 60 percent of the pre-2018 Central American migrants arrived as illegals.
However, it is likely that any of those quietly gain citizenship, either through marriage, or the slow-motion “Adjustment of Status” amnesty.
The percentage of migrants from the countries underlines the need to deter and block a huge number of would-be migrants from many nations. For example, U.S. border officials have been using new rules set by President Donald Trump to block migrants from African countries such as Cameroon. The West African country has a population of 20 million, suggesting that at least 2.4 million people would try to migrate to the United States. Cameroon’s neighbor, Nigeria, has a population of 200 million, suggesting a possible migrant population of 24 million.
Surveys show that many millions of people wish to migrate to the United States. For example, a Gallup survey posted in November 2018 showed that another five million Central Americans — or one-in-three adults — would like to migrate into the United States if a pro-migration Democrat president cancels the new border rules set by Trump.