to drop, falling sharply during the U.S.
recession, but migration flows have
stabilized since 2009. Over the past decade, immigrants from this region were
among the fastest-growing foreign-born
populations in the United States — increasing by 90 percent between 2000
and 2011.9
Northern Triangle immigration has
a variety of causes but is driven primarily by the combination of immigrants’
inability to satisfy their economic aspirations in their countries of origin,
and conversely, labor opportunities in
the United States. The jobs are mostly
in construction, maintenance, food
service, and agriculture. Migration is
also to some degree self-sustaining—as
immigrants become established in the
United States, they can facilitate migration by family members and others
from their home communities.
In spite of a higher socioeconomic
status than they had at home, Central
American immigrants experience more
poverty than the overall U.S. population. In 2009, about a quarter of Honduran and Guatemalan immigrants
to the United States lived below the
poverty line. Salvadoran immigrants,
who are more likely to have authorized
status, had an 18 percent poverty rate.
All three rates were higher than the
general U.S. poverty rate, which was 14
percent (see Table 3).10
Tacaná
San Marcos
Guatemala
Part One: Remittances
Weathering Hurricane Stan from Abroad
In October 2005 Hurricane Stan hit
Guatemala for days, pouring 20 inches
of rain, flooding rivers, and knocking
out roads and bridges.11 Entire villages were buried under torrents of mud
and rock that fell down the slopes of
Table 3 Socioeconomic Status of Northern Triangle Immigrants, 2009
Percentage living
below poverty-line2
Percentage without
high school degree3
El Salvador
$19,715
19%
53%
Guatemala
$17,497
26%
55%
Honduras
$16,723
27%
49%
Total U.S.
$28,900
14%
13%
Andrew Wainer
Median individual
income1
Isaías immigrated twice to the United States to support his family in the department of San Marcos,
Guatemala. He worked as a greens-keeper on a golf course in Florida where he learned about large
irrigation systems, a skill he has been unable to transfer to his own agricultural production because of
a lack of local technology and know-how.
www.bread.org
Figure 2 San Marcos, Guatemala
mountains
and volcanos.12
The
indigenous
village of Panabaj, near
Lake Atitlán, was so completely inundated that relief
efforts were ended several days after
the storm—despite the fact that hundreds of residents were still missing.
The mayor declared the village a mass
grave.13 The department of San Marcos, which borders Mexico in the country’s southwest, was among the most
damaged by Stan (see Figure 2). Even
before the storm, San Marcos was one
of the most impoverished regions of the
country: 85 percent of the population
lived in poverty, while 62 percent lived
in extreme poverty.14 San Marcos also
suffered from economic inequality: 47
percent of the department’s land was
held by 1 percent of the population,
while smallholder producers possessed
only 3 percent of the department’s total
land.15 These economic realities meant
that emigration was a longstanding
tradition in San Marcos. So when the
storm hit, San Marcos native Isaías had
already been living in the United States
for three months. While he was in the
States, Isaías learned that his father had
been killed in a landslide during Stan.
He was desperate to return home,
but weighing his economic prospects
in the United States and in Guatemala,
Bread for the World Institute 3