Possibly relatives who are as ignorant as the borrowers-but more likely loan sharks with tentacles/agents in the US-the cartels have agents in anything that makes money. Those people have nasty ways of collecting, too-as do the coyotes who do the actual trafficking-indentured servitude in fields and the like, being sold into a brothel, holding relatives for ransom, etc-until the “loan” is paid back.
As grim as all that is, they still don’t care enough for themselves or their kids to get a visa and do the thing legally-they get no sympathy from me...
Either that or Honduran banks are giving them loans they could never pay back otherwise. (Sucking up American money by way of remittances)