As the COVID-19 pandemic iced up the US financial system, no longer all Latin American immigrants residing there were affected equally, as indicated by the money they sent reduction to their birthplaces
By
CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN Associated Press
August 31, 2020, 5: 37 PM
3 min study
MEXICO CITY — As the COVID-19 pandemic iced up the US financial system, no longer all Latin American immigrants residing there were affected equally, a study about at the money they sent reduction to their birthplaces reveals.
Whereas remittances for the first six months of 2020 were lower than the identical period in 2019 for Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, they were up for Mexico and the Dominican Republic, primarily primarily based on an prognosis of central financial institution records by the Washington-primarily primarily based Pew Evaluate Middle published Monday.
The six nations integrated within the prognosis are the birthplaces of about eight of 10 Latino immigrants residing within the US and receive the overwhelming majority of their remittances from the U.S. All six nations had situation narrative highs for the money they sent home in 2019, receiving $71.5 billion, primarily primarily based on the file.
Mexico stands out for recording a 10.6% amplify within the money it got all the intention through the first six months of the twelve months, despite the pandemic. On the opposite cease of the spectrum is El Salvador, which got 8% less.
Designate Hugo Lopez, Pew’s director of World Migration and Demography Evaluate, acknowledged there doubtless isn’t one situation off of the discrepancy.
Mexico benefited from an substitute rate that makes the buck saunter farther whereas El Salvador uses the buck for its forex. There are no longer immense variations within the occupations of the immigrants from the 2 nations. Geography could perhaps perhaps honest be yelp: Salvadoran immigrants are concentrated in California, Texas and spherical Washington, D.C., whereas Mexicans are extra broadly settled in California, Texas, Georgia and for the duration of the Midwest, he acknowledged.
Lopez also accepted that a elevated percentage of Mexican immigrants have lived within the U.S. longer than 16 years. Others have suggested that the elevated population of Mexicans residing legally within the U.S. will have made them extra resilient because the financial system tanked.
On Monday, Mexico President Andrés Manuel López Obrador acknowledged money sent by Mexicans residing within the US could perhaps perhaps be a extreme yelp in Mexico’s financial recovery.
“In spite of the pandemic within the US and also the crumple of the US financial system, remittances that our countrymen send to their family contributors have elevated and that reaches 10 million families,” the president acknowledged.
The decline in remittances to El Salvador, as wisely as Guatemala and Honduras, within the first six months of the twelve months could perhaps perhaps signal that as soon as the U.S. border closure below health provisions is lifted, high ranges of immigration could perhaps perhaps resume. Many families depend on the money sent home from their family contributors to attain ends meet.
In El Salvador and Honduras, remittances made up extra than 20% of wrong domestic product closing twelve months, primarily primarily based on the file.