INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY---Central America Border Rush Fueled By Remittances
(extortion racket---US taxpayers to prop up corrupt govts)
......52,000 unaccompanied illegals crossed the south Texas border this year.....as the political debate focused on immigration enforcement, a key economic factor has been lost in the clamor. Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, which are supplying three-quarters of the latest cross-border flood, and are dependent on their diaspora in the US to prop up their own woeful economies.
Immigrants send back billions of dollars to their families. Remittances have risen to 16.5% of El Salvador's GDP, 15.7% of Honduras' and 10% of Guatemala's, according to World Bank data. Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic and Bolivia rely on remittances for 4.1% to 9.7% of GDP.
But the figure drops precipitously for every other country in Latin America. Mexico, with the largest immigrant population in the U.S. with as many as 13 million people, now relies on remittances for just 2% of GDP.
Migrant remittances to Mexico were $22 billion in 2013, 29% below their 2006 peak.For Colombia, once a locus of drug-war violence, that has turned itself around, remittances are only 1.1% of GDP. Free-market star Chile's figure is 0%.
It's not surprising to see Central American leaders urging the U.S. to let the newest arrivals stay. Those migrants' remittances offer a lifeline to desperately poor countries. While the money goes to families, it helps the broader economy......and ultimately fills government coffers.
A 2008 Pew Research Center survey found that 54% of foreign-born Hispanics send remittances to their home countries, compared to 17% of U.S.-born Hispanics. Undocumented immigrants are believed to send more cash home than either.
Virtually all the cash received by the three remittance outliers is from the U.S. (Guatemala 89%, El Salvador 90%, Honduras 87%).
