A new report on migration from Guatemala to the U.S. reveals a number of noteworthy statistics:

  • COVID however, money remittances from Guatemala’s diaspora jumped to a file $15.3 billion final 12 months. At $4.2 million per day, these private wire transfers exceeded the worth of the Latin American nation’s materials exports and much surpassed the federal government’s whole tax revenues.
  • The burgeoning money stream is all of the extra spectacular on condition that Guatemala accounts for an outsized share of unaccompanied youngsters, who, presumably, should not huge wage earners.  
  • Whereas not each Guatemalan migrant heads to the U.S., most do. Coming from a rustic that’s perennially one of many prime sending nations – no imply feat for a land of simply 16 million folks – an estimated 1.5 million to three million Guatemalans are actually in America. Whether or not that’s the scale of Dallas or greater than Chicago, precise figures are elusive due to the massive variety of unlawful migrants concerned.

The Migration Coverage Institute (MPI) report, funded by USAID and the Worldwide Group for Migration, stresses that poverty and concern of violence are driving Guatemala’s exodus. Little doubt they’re contributors, significantly within the dirt-poor western highlands, a busy transit hall for northbound caravans and a revenue middle for cartels.

In a current dispatch from the area, the Center for Immigration Studies reported that “73,000 indignant, mobbing, rioting migrants” had crossed Guatemala’s northern border into the Mexican metropolis of Tapachula.

Clearly, Vice President Kamala Harris’ journey to Guatemala final summer season to debate the “root causes” of migration did nothing to stanch the stream. Apparently keen to stay with diminished remittances, President Alejandro Giammattei requested the U.S. “to ship extra of a transparent message to stop extra folks from leaving.” That message was neither despatched nor acquired.

MPI’s report tries to strike a stability: recommending better financial alternatives for beleaguered Guatemalans at residence, together with extra “authorized pathways” into america. However a comment final week by USAID’s mission director in Guatemala reduce to the foundation of the migration drawback.

Anupama Rajaraman associated that migrants imagine they’ve an “80 to 90 %” probability of efficiently getting into america. In response to the info on the bottom, they’re not fallacious.

Rajaraman’s nugget – not discovered anyplace in MPI’s 34-page report and solely talked about in passing on the finish of a 75-minute briefing – is extra proof that the “pull” of the Biden-Harris administration’s disastrous immigration coverage is each bit as robust as any “push issue.”