Donald Trump has promised, if elected, to deport up to twenty million migrants—a statement which has been met by applause from his MAGA cult and his Republican supporters.
While the majority of media outlets in the United States have focused on the domestic impacts of massive deportations, little attention has been given to how such a plan would impact the countries that people leave when they come to the United States. Trump’s massive deportation of migrants from Central America will utterly destroy the region’s economies, which have increasingly relied on remittances from the United States.
“If [Trump] wins and if he does deport [immigrants,] it would be a catastrophe for the countries of Central America,” Carlos Acevedo, a Salvadoran economist who served as the president of El Salvador’s Central Bank during the administration of Mauricio Funes, tells The Progressive. “It would be the worst catastrophe that could possibly occur. It would be worse than a major earthquake.”
Remittances from relatives who have come to the United States have proven to be a lifeline for families in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras. They’ve become a major source of income for families in regions plagued by a lack of employment.
The importance of remittances is captured in the amounts sent home.
In 2023, Honduran immigrants sent home $9.2 billion dollars and Salvadoran immigrants sent home $8.2 billion dollars, both an increase over the year before. Meanwhile, Guatemalans living abroad sent home a historic $19.8 billion dollars last year. As of October 2024, Guatemalan migrants have sent home $15.8 billion dollars this year through remittances. It is estimated that that number could reach $21 billion for the whole year.
These remittances fill a gap in communities across Guatemala, but especially in Huehuetenango, Quiché, Alta Verapaz, and San Marcos, departments which have long been neglected by local and national governments. The remittances mean survival for those areas’ largely Indigenous communities.
“There are some departments that receive a lot of remittances and that income is a very large part of the local economy,” Pedro Pablo Solares, an immigration attorney in Guatemala City, tells The Progressive. He notes that remittances do more for families than investments promoted by the United States in the region.
“If this flow were to stop or decrease,” Solares explains, “the economic impact would be very great, especially in family economies.”
Besides the immediate economic impacts of massive deportations, the region could face another social crisis due to the influx of people from countries including Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras. Their fragile and precarious health care systems, over-extended education systems, and overloaded infrastructures would all be impacted.
Guatemala specifically is facing an unemployment crisis, with the national economy failing year after year to expand the labor market. Recent research shows the country needs to create between 75,000 to 120,000 new jobs in order to combat informal labor markets. These factors drive tens of thousands of people to seek to immigrate to the United States.
“Guatemala could never incorporate millions of people,” Solares says. “Unemployment would reach levels never seen before, it would go through the roof.”
Trump’s plan for addressing immigration would make the problem worse. All efforts to reduce poverty during the last four decades would be quickly undone. Massive deportations would cause poverty in Central America to skyrocket.
“If about five million Central Americans returned to their countries to look for work," Acevedo says, the poverty rate would “double what it currently is."
“It would be the worst catastrophe that could exist in these countries, more than the worst catastrophe that has had an impact by nature or an earthquake,” he explains
Despite the consequences that a Trump victory and mass deportation would bring, there continues to be support for Trump among the region’s proto-authoritarian populists.
High ranking officials within Guatemala’s Public Prosecutor’s office, which was behind an attempted coup d’état in 2023 to block the ascension of Bernardo Arévalo to the presidency, have voiced their support for Trump.
The loudest supporter has been Rafael Curruchiche, the head of the special anti-impunity prosecutors office, who has used his personal Twitter/X account to cheer on Trump, a clear violation of Guatemalan laws that govern the politically independent Public Prosecutor’s office. Curruchiche has also shared conspiracy theories related to the elections, sharing images and tweets suggesting “fraud” in the lead up to the U.S. elections, echoing Trump’s campaign.
Curruchiche and Attorney General Maria Consuelo Porras are both sanctioned by the United States due to acts of corruption and undermining democracy.
El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, has continued to champion the U.S. far-right, which has embraced his controversial crackdown on gangs through a State of Emergency decree.
But the young president, who has called himself the “world’s coolest dictator,” has received criticism from Trump. In July 2024, at the Republican National Convention, Trump took a direct jab at Bukele, accusing him of sending criminals to the United States.
While the U.S. far-right has rallied to Bukele’s defense, he has remained silent about the accusations.
“Everyone here thought that Bukele and Trump were good friends and that a Trump administration would be the best thing that could happen for El Salvador,” Acevedo says. “And then suddenly those words saying that really hit like a bucket of cold water.”
This support for Trump’s populist and proto-authoritarian politics in Latin America comes in spite of the real threat that a Trump administration would mean for the region. The countries of Central America have come to rely on remittances to maintain their economies; if Trump wins, that could all come crashing down.