The telltale indicators of a group constructed with cash earned overseas are unmistakable on this mountain hamlet.
There’s the ornate entrance gate outdoors one of many first properties on the town. Brightly painted houses dot the village, lots of them being expanded to a second ground. Shiny filth bikes stand out among the many donkeys and dusty vans within the rocky backyards.
However for Juan Eduardo García, that doesn’t essentially imply the group is healthier off. “Remittances have benefited particular person households, constructed our houses, contributed to our well-being,” says Mr. García, who was 11 years previous when his father first went to work in america with out documentation.
Why We Wrote This
Lots of the unauthorized migrants whom President Donald Trump plans to deport have been maintaining their family in Latin America financially afloat with their earnings. What does their future maintain?
“However extra broadly talking, no. For those who have a look at this group over the previous 50 years because it was based, it hasn’t developed so far as water and different primary companies are involved,” he says, though so many villagers ship cash dwelling from the U.S.
Remittances are the lifeblood of many Latin American nations, contributing about 25% of Honduras’ and El Salvador’s gross home merchandise and shut to twenty% of Guatemala’s. In Mexico, the area’s second-largest economic system, remittances accounted for 3.5% of GDP, or practically $60 billion, in 2024.
If President Donald Trump carries out his menace to deport thousands and thousands of unauthorized migrants, that would value billions of {dollars} in remittances. And people losses may devastate households that rely on them for every little thing from new houses to well being care and faculty charges.
However there’s additionally an uncomfortable actuality, evident in communities like Tamahula. Whereas households are depending on remittances from family members working overseas, they’ve little to indicate when it comes to group growth or sustainable adjustments in household economics. Research present that households receiving remittances are inclined to have decrease ranges of resilience and monetary safety.
“Solely 28.6% of remittance-receiving households can cope fully or very effectively with a serious unexpected expense, vs. 33.9% in households that don’t obtain” cash from overseas, based on a 2024 report by the worldwide monetary establishment Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria.
For rural Mexicans, no work from home
Mr. García’s father despatched cash to construct a house, the place Mr. García’s sister now lives. He additionally constructed a room that is develop into a part of Mr. Garcia and his younger household’s dwelling. His grandparents nonetheless rely on the {dollars} coming from “El Norte” to cowl medical payments and roughly 80% of their month-to-month bills.
This group of filth roads and subsistence cornfields was linked to the electrical energy grid when Mr. García was barely a youngster, round 2014. That made it potential for him to check on-line for his highschool diploma and school diploma, and to develop into one of many few in his technology right here to have knowledgeable profession. He works as a renewable vitality engineer, touring to his workplaces in a neighboring state each different week.
Migrating to the U.S. remains to be seen as one of the simplest ways to assist a household right here. For many who don’t go north, development – typically constructing the very houses of these sending remittances – is likely one of the few sectors providing jobs.
“I believe there are extra folks going [to the U.S.] for work than in earlier generations,” says Gustavo García Hernández, a former classmate and neighbor of Mr. García’s who dropped out of faculty after sixth grade.
For the previous six years, he has traveled to the U.S. to work in landscaping for six to eight months at a time on a U.S. work visa. It’s an “alternative,” he says, gesturing towards the cherry-red dwelling he constructed for his household with the cash he earned within the U.S.
“Anytime I’m dwelling, I’m out of labor. It’s troublesome to seek out employment that may preserve a household,” says Mr. García Hernández. For 40 to 45 hours of landscaping per week within the U.S., he may make $700, he says. Of that, he tries to ship dwelling two-thirds, maintaining simply sufficient to pay for his personal meals and lease.
He expects that the impression of mass deportations from the U.S. can be felt most closely on the household stage. “Much less of every little thing: much less meat on the desk, much less toys and garments. Much less revenue, and that impacts every little thing,” he says.
Locals have realized classes from previous deportations, says neighbor Patricio Martínez. “Folks will stick round just a few weeks, strive to determine methods to make a residing at dwelling. Nevertheless it’s at all times the identical factor. They return to the U.S. the place they know they’ll discover work.”
And if the cash dries up?
Guanajuato state, the place Tamahula is situated, obtained more cash in remittances final yr than every other state within the nation, drawing some $4.2 billion from household and buddies within the U.S. between January and September.
“Earnings from remittances on this nation is a powerful factor,” says Adriana Cortés Jiménez, who has spent her decadeslong profession engaged on group growth tasks, like entry to schooling, in rural communities in Guanajuato similar to Tamahula.
“How that cash is spent and the place that cash goes is one thing that must be studied extra profoundly,” she says. “It’s a lot cash, and nobody actually is aware of.”
Remittances are without delay the lifeblood of rural communities, and a priority.
“As soon as the cash is right here, folks spend it to outlive: They pay for the lights, for schooling, on lease and well being care,” says Miguel Vilches Hinojosa, investigative professor of politics and authorities on the College of Guanajuato. “Within the worst circumstances, folks spend it on alcohol, medication, issues that aren’t benefiting” households or the group. However observers are nonetheless puzzled by how billions of {dollars} in remittances may have so little lasting impression.
Some fear that the federal government is shirking its accountability to offer public companies, as a substitute anticipating native residents to fund such tasks with remittance cash. The result’s some cities nonetheless with out working water or electrical energy in 2025.
For practically 20 years, the Mexican authorities ran a program meant to assist increase the attain of remittances to profit communities extra broadly. Program 3×1 matched migrant-funded investments with cash from nationwide and native governments to construct roads, parks, and group facilities.
This system was canceled by former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador as a part of his broad austerity measures. There had been complaints that development contracts had been typically unnecessarily costly.
Guanajuato’s monumental remittance revenue signifies that “the economic system is strengthened by productive exercise that doesn’t truly happen” in Guanajuato, however slightly “inside particular person households,” says Dr. Vilches. That advantages the federal government: “Folks will pay for extra electrical energy, extra fuel; folks should purchase extra companies, extra merchandise.”
Again in Tamahula on a cold afternoon in January, a mom and daughter stroll dwelling from a close-by dam, main a donkey laden with jugs stuffed with murky water for family chores. It’s a hilly route that takes them about 20 minutes spherical journey.
Regardless of the cash flowing in from overseas, Tamahula has no working water. However villagers band collectively to purchase potable water that’s trucked in every week. No matter occurs beneath Mr. Trump, they are saying, neighbors right here will proceed to look out for each other.
