Funds from migrants sent back home help fuel some towns' economies. A GOP plan targets that

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

Funds from migrants sent back home help fuel some towns’ economies. A GOP plan targets that

By FATIMA HUSSEIN and MEGAN JANETSKY
Updated 11:12 AM EDT, May 14, 2025

WASHINGTON (AP) — Israel Vail’s entire life in the small western Guatemalan town of Cajolá is built off the money that his three children send home from the United States.

The money from their construction jobs paid for the two-story white home where Vail now lives — and where his children, who are in the U.S. illegally, would also reside if they ever get deported. Vail, 53, invested some of the money in opening a local food shop, which he uses to keep his family afloat.

In small migratory towns like Cajolá, it is not unusual for the entire economy to be built off remittances, the funds sent by migrant workers back to their home countries.

“People here, they don’t live luxuriously, but they live off remittances,“ Vail said.

House Republicans have included in President Donald Trump’s big priority bill a 5% excise tax on remittance transfers that would cover more than 40 million people, including green card holders and nonimmigrant visa holders, such as people on H-1B, H-2A and H-2B visas. U.S. citizens would be exempt.

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Read more: https://apnews.com/article/immigrant-remittances-tax-republican-trump-47ce7c2b4a0fcf47be96b0ef2ad0739d

[Bayard]

1. When I lived in Calif,

I was in the mountains above the Central Valley's big ag spreads. You could tell when it was payday because at the closest town there would be Hispanic workers lined up around the block to send money back home. Hard working people doing the jobs no one else will to take care of their families.