These days, Alejandra has been cutting back on expenses. She no longer eats out at restaurants and has stopped shopping online. Since U.S. President Donald Trump announced his immigration policy promising mass deportations, Alejandra has been saving money to pay for a lawyer in hopes of legalizing her immigration status.
She arrived in the United States in January 2023 with her husband and their one-year-old son. They traveled on group excursions departing from 7 Sur in Managua to Guatemala, then crossed into Mexico through unauthorized routes. At the U.S. border, they turned themselves in. Alejandra was released almost immediately along with her son, while her husband spent a little over a week in a detention center.
“My husband was released with an ankle monitor and had to send photos and his location to immigration agents for months,” says Alejandra. They began their legalization process through the CBP One app, which allowed undocumented individuals to schedule an appointment with an immigration officer at the border. The app enabled users to submit personal and family biographical information before presenting themselves at a port of entry to process their asylum case.
Since its launch in January 2023, more than 930,000 people used the app to present themselves at ports of entry for processing, according to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
However, when Trump took office on January 20 of this year, the app was shut down. A message on CBP’s website, which refers to migrants in transit through Mexico as “undocumented foreigners,” states that all scheduled appointments have been canceled.
The Decline of Strong Remittance Flows
Alejandra and her family, who had an upcoming appointment, were left in limbo. This is why she is saving to hire a lawyer and legalize her status with her family. “I only send money for food for my three dogs that I left behind in Nicaragua,” she says.
DIVERGENTES spoke with two other Nicaraguans who have been undocumented since 2021. They say they have stopped sending remittances in recent weeks because they fear taking temporary jobs in hardware stores or construction sites, worried about being caught in immigration raids and deported.
The drop in remittances caused by Trump’s new immigration policy poses a serious threat to Nicaragua’s economy. According to the latest report from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), published on February 7, 2025, “Nicaragua’s economic performance remains strong, driven by prudent macroeconomic policies and a steady influx of remittances.”
More Migrants, More Remittances
Remittances are a keystone of Nicaragua’s economy. In 2024, remittances reached an all-time high of $5.24 billion. According to the IMF, this accounted for 27.2% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which measures the value of goods and services produced in the country.
The majority of remittances come from the United States (82.7%), according to the Central Bank of Nicaragua (BCN). In December 2024 alone, Nicaraguans in the U.S. sent $393.6 million. The previous month, November, saw a record $400.2 million sent.
Remittances to Nicaragua have risen alongside the increase in Nicaraguan migration over recent years. Since 2018, when Nicaragua’s sociopolitical crisis began, nearly 500,000 Nicaraguans (497,216) have migrated to the U.S. As a result, remittances from the U.S. have nearly quintupled between 2017 and 2024, increasing by 464.24%. In 2017, Nicaraguans in the U.S. sent $769.2 million, while in 2024, that number rose to $4.34 billion.
In just the last two months of 2024, Nicaraguans sent $793.8 million from the U.S.—almost $25 million more than the total remittances sent in all of 2017 before the crisis.
A recent report by the Bridges for Development Foundation notes that “remittances have played a crucial role in stabilizing Nicaragua’s economy during periods of economic turbulence, such as the 2018 sociopolitical crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Remittances Declining Due to Fear of Going Outside
This entire system has been threatened since Trump took office. As he promised during his campaign, his first policies have focused on restricting immigration: increasing military presence at the Mexico border, suspending refugee admissions, and shutting down the mobile app asylum seekers used to request appointments.
The Department of Homeland Security has also authorized migrant arrests at schools and churches, and has begun using military planes to deport undocumented individuals in what is expected to be the largest deportation operation in U.S. history.
A Nicaraguan worker at a remittance agency in Florida says that money transfers “have dropped significantly” in recent weeks. “People from Guatemala and Mexico usually send the most money, but lately, hardly anyone is coming in because they’re afraid of the immigration raids,” he added. “People are scared to go outside.”
Identification Required to Send Remittances in Florida
Two weeks ago, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced restrictions on sending remittances from the state. He proposed a verification system for international money transfers similar to E-Verify, which is used to check the immigration status of employees.
DeSantis claims the measure aims to ensure that only citizens and legal residents can send money from Florida, directly impacting thousands of undocumented immigrants who rely on remittances to support their families abroad.
The governor argued that this restriction would serve as a “major deterrent” for undocumented immigrants by limiting access to money transfer services.
A worker at a remittance agency explained that most senders are undocumented, and companies are increasingly tightening requirements. For example, in his agency, customers can send money without a passport if the amount is under $1,000, but “now they’re starting to require some form of identification.”
A Country Dependent on Remittances
Remittance and migration expert Manuel Orozco, from the Inter-American Dialogue, says Nicaragua’s economic growth has been solely driven by the significant increase in remittances.
According to Orozco’s data, more than one million households now receive remittances, compared to fewer than 600,000 in 2018. Without the remittance boom between 2021 and 2024, Nicaragua’s economy would have grown by just 1.5% annually, instead of the more than 4% growth seen in the last two years.
The IMF warns that real GDP growth will slow to 4% in the short term and 3.5% in the medium term, “amid a lower growth rate of remittances and limited labor force contributions to growth.”
A recent study by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) found that Nicaragua is one of the lower- and middle-income economies most influenced by remittances. The study indicates that remittances play a more significant role in Nicaragua’s economy than in other Central American countries like Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador, or even Haiti.
Meanwhile, Alejandra says she used to send up to $250 a month to relatives and for her pets’ food, but last month she sent less than $100 and plans to send even less in the future. “What we save will go toward paying the lawyer,” she says, adding, “If we have to go back to Nicaragua, at least we’ll return with some savings.”