......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 US dollars to their families (disposable income from riding the US gravy train--- possibly falsifying documents to show "need.")
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.....it helps the broader Third World economy......and ultimately fills government coffers....(and the pockets of greedy govt honchos).
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%).
NOTE WELL---billions in remittances doesn't include the tens of hundreds of billions annual in US foreign aid tax dollars......
US taxpayers handout billions in foreign aid to these do-nothing Third World hellholes--specifically earmarked to subsidize their poverty populations.
US Aid figures do not include military aid and millions in aid from other US agencies:
El Salvador: $280.4M Honduras: $680M Dominican Republic: $223.7M Mexico: $958.2M Guatemala: $391.8M
SOURCE http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_foreign_aid_received
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This report shows US aid $’s for the past few years (see page 9 (US Assistance) and pages 25-30 show various other agencies providing aid (DOD, etc.) (needs more research)
LINK http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R42582.pdf