Central Americans fear Trump will cut vital dollar lifeline

INTIPUC ( El Salvador): Families across Central America are living in fear that US President Donald Trump’s anti-immigration policies will stem the vital flow of money sent home by migrants each year.

The concern is that relatives who have emigrated without authorisation will be deported, suddenly ending the billions of dollars in annual remittances sent to their impoverished countries.

There are millions of Central Americans living legally in the United States, according to esti- mates by the Pew Research Center.

Most of them come from the poorest, gang-ridden three countries known as the Northern Triangle – Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. Intipuca, a town south of El Salvador’s capital, symbolises the life-changing value of the US dollars sent back home.

The town features big, coloured houses but heir owners live in the US, and return only for special occasions like Christmas.

Jose Corpeno paces around as he speaks on the phone with his daugh- ter who has been living in the US state of Maryland for a year and now “is living a nightmare.”

“We are so worried. Immigration agents went to a place close to where she lives,” Corpeno said.

The daughter paid a smuggler US$10,000 (RM44,370) to lead her up north, and now she is living without authorisation.

“She’s working. But she’s afraid that at any moment she could be found out and detained,” he said.

The money she sends goes to a small plot of corn that her family depends on to survive.

The same anxiety is felt in Guatemala.

Victoria Flores, 70, said she relies on her 50-year-old son Estuardo, who works as a dental technician in Los Angeles and whose remittances pay the mortgage and bills where she lived.

“This is a difficult situation, with worries every day because Trump has said that he will deport all the illegals,” Flores said.

She called that policy “unfair.” But she also lays part of the blame on Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama for overseeing changes in US migration law.

Remittances make up a significant chunk of the economy in the Northern Triangle countries, so any decline would be felt immediately.

Ninety per cent of remittances go to consumption, and any decline will impact consumption and tax income,” said Mauricio Diaz, a coordinator in Fosdeh, a non-governmental Honduran body that monitors the country’s external debt and development. — AFP