Fearing deportation, Hondurans in the US send more cash home than ever before

For more than a year, Elías Padilla had been saving money to travel from Honduras to the United States as an undocumented immigrant.

It wasn’t easy for him to put aside money as an Uber driver on the complicated streets of the capital Tegucigalpa. On bad days he earns as little as $12 (£9) per 12 hours.

But now their plans are on hold.

Images of undocumented immigrants in major US cities being dragged by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers with their wrists zipped have deterred at least one would-be immigrant in Central America from traveling north.

“I want to improve my living conditions because we earn so little here,” Elías explains as we walk around the city. “Take this line of business, for example: An Uber driver in the US does in an hour what it takes in a day.”

Like many Honduran immigrants, Elías says the main purpose of reaching the United States was to send money home.

“But I see what Trump is doing, and it makes me think twice,” he admits.

“I’ll wait to see what the change of government here brings,” he says, referring to the last presidential election. “I hope things get better.”

Elías’s change of heart would undoubtedly be welcome news for the architects of President Donald Trump’s immigration policies, including border czar Tom Homan and homeland security adviser Steven Miller.

In addition to removing undocumented immigrants from U.S. soil, controversial ICE operations in Los Angeles, Chicago, Charlotte, and Minneapolis were always intended to deter people like Elías from even trying to leave Honduras.

But these policies brought an unexpected benefit to the Honduran economy: Thousands of Hondurans living undocumented and secluded in these cities are sending home more money than ever before.

While many undocumented Hondurans share a sense of looming threat or deadline over their future, many are trying to send every dollar back to their families before it’s too late.

Between January and October this year, there was a 26% increase in remittances to Honduras compared to the same period last year.

In fact, although their numbers in the US have decreased, Hondurans have increased the amount sent home from $9.7bn (£7.2bn) in the whole of 2024 to more than $10.1bn (£7.5bn) in the first nine months of this year alone.

The BBC spoke to Marcos (not his real name) by phone from a major US city where he has lived and worked in construction for five years.

“Most of the money I send home is to cover the family’s basic needs like food. But they can also put something aside to buy a small piece of land that we can eventually build a house on, maybe buy a car,” he says.

Since President Trump took office, Marcos says he only has the bare minimum he needs in the U.S. for rent and food. Everything else goes to Honduras.

He says he has steadily increased the amount he sends to his wife and two children in Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, “from $500 a month to $300 a week.” He’s also trying to send even more in December to cover Christmas expenses.

“It’s like a race against time,” Marcos explains, to send home as many people as possible without getting caught in ICE’s detention net.

“I used to consider bringing my family here. Now, with what’s going on with Trump and ICE and so much fear on the streets, I want to make sure there’s some money set aside there if I get caught.”

He adds that he tried to prepare for the possibility of arrest, in part, knowing that his family would not be able to trust him if he ended up in a detention center for two months.

However, President Trump’s policies do not only affect the formal economy through remittances. The illegal economy through human trafficking has also been affected.

Jimmy (not his real name) is an old jackal or the people smuggler who agreed to speak to the BBC somewhere outside the capital. For 20 years, he made a living crossing Mexico, generally considered the most dangerous leg of the journey.

This is an illegal industry run primarily by Mexican organized crime groups, and although Jimmy claims not to be working specifically for any of the major cartels, he admits to operating with their knowledge and approval.

Today, he says, potential customers are seeing “the price doubling, from $12,000-$13,000 to $25,000-$30,000 per person.”

“People still get along, though,” Jimmy insists. “There was so much more under CBP One implementation [a Biden-era legal pathway to lodge asylum requests] But maybe 40% still reach that point.”

He adds that fewer people are leaving because “not everyone can afford” the high costs of human trafficking.

Among them is Uber driver Elías Padilla.

Having worked hard and sold personal belongings to raise the money, Elías cannot risk deportation immediately after arriving in the United States.

Although he knows his chances of successfully settling in the United States have diminished under Donald Trump, Elías says he has no choice but to wait for either the current wave of ICE raids or the entire Trump presidency to pass.

He adds that Central American migrants have been subjected to all kinds of harsh policies against them over the years, both from regional governments and from Washington. With the economic outlook in Honduras still bleak, Elías thinks there is little that can hold people back for long. There isn’t even the current pressure.

“Trump just postponed my plans,” he insists. “I didn’t cancel them.”