Latin America: Governments Brace For U.S. Immigration Policy Shift
The campaign promises made by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump to step up deportations of immigrants who have entered the United States without permission have unnerved some Central American governments. On Nov. 16, El Salvador's foreign minister, Hugo Martinez, said that the countries of Central America's Northern Triangle (Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras) plan to cooperate with Mexico to fashion a coordinated regional response to any increased pace of deportations. If the Trump administration fulfills the rhetoric, each of those countries could expect a significant number of returnees. Of Honduras' 8 million citizens, more than 1 million currently reside in the United States. About 2 million of Guatamala's 16 million nationals live in the United States. And almost half of El Salvador's just more than 6 million people reside in the United States.
The economies of all three nations depend on remittances from these migrants: Wages sent back from the United States make up roughly 20 percent of the gross domestic product of Honduras, 17 percent of El Salvador's and 10 percent of Guatemala's. Mexico is in the same boat: In 2015, it received almost $25 billion in remittances, which overtook oil-related revenue in economic preeminence for the first time in the country's history. While only 2 percent of Mexico's GDP comes from remittances, it is is among the top five remittance recipients worldwide. This makes cooperation between the Northern Triangle countries and their neighbor natural as they prepare for potential increased U.S. deportations.
If plans for increased deportation are fulfilled, a proportion — however small — of those sent back will have criminal records. The institutions in all three of these countries are weak due to structural issues like state corruption and narcotrafficking. And because their institutions are so weak, it is unlikely that these governments will be able to cope with high levels of criminal deportees. Such an influx could yield negative security consequences. This is not unprecedented. In the 1990s, the U.S. government deported thousands of undocumented immigrants with gang-related convictions to El Salvador. These returned migrants formed the nucleus of the MS-13 and Barrio 18 organized crime groups, which later expanded into Honduras and Guatemala. Today, the Northern Triangle is the most violent region in the world.
Central America has already had to metabolize returns of migrants: The administration of U.S. President Barack Obama deported 2.5 million immigrants from 2009 to 2015, more than any of his predecessors. The president-elect plans to deport even more. Ultimately, however, the most that the Northern Triangle countries and Mexico can do is to lobby the U.S. Congress, president and Cabinet. The decision, however, will rest with the presidency and the agencies involved in carrying out immigration policy. Foreign lobbying will likely have little effect.
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