By Monica Showalter www.americanthinker.com
With Joe Biden's migrant surge, migrant remittances follow, and some very baleful developments are happening abroad.
The one that stands out is that of Marxist socialist Daniel Ortega, Nicaragua's little dictator, who along with a string of failed leaders before him, impoverished his country in relative obscurity, leaving it the hemisphere's second-poorest after Haiti. The country boasts a per capita income of about $2,200 per year which is lower than even Cubans are paid, and hard as heck to live on even in a low-cost country. A Nicaraguan can live on welfare in the states more richly -- and nearly a half a million of them from that country of 7 million already do. And as poverty has engulfed that country, Ortega then began dismantling political freedoms -- first with stolen elections -- then with making himself permanently electable in rigged elections and appointing his relatives to keep posts. Don't think there won't be more Nicaraguans leaving that place for those reasons -- they're coming, and already are well represented in the current migrant surge.
The migrant remittances tell the story.
In 2021, the State Department reported that Nicaragua took in a 'record' remittance haul of $1.2 billion.
It doubled in 2022.
Now it's doubled again, in 2023. According to a report from Reuters:
SAN JOSE, CALIF. —
Nicaraguan migrants sent relatives back home record remittances this year through November, data from the country's central bank showed on Wednesday, fueled by massive waves of migration leaving the Central American nation in recent years.
In a statement, the bank noted a record haul of about $4.24 billion in remittances for the 11-month period, 47% more than the amount sent home during the same period last year.
The money sent home by Nicaraguan migrants represent a key lifeline for the economy during the latest year of President Daniel Ortega's government, which has been marked by growing unemployment and poverty.
The more people Ortega drives out of his country, the richer he gets. Money is fungible, and as it comes through the banking system, Ortega has use of it same as the migrants do. The IMF notes that migrant remittances amount to assets without liabilities for governments receiving them, the way issuing bonds or printing money would not be. So the more people Ortega can drive out from his country, the richer and more powerful he is going to get. They also tend to 'underdevelop' a country based on its deprivation of human capital.
We see some of this same dynamic going on in Cuba and Venezuela, where two nations that produce little but misery are now rolling in the dough from remittances, stronger than ever with cash rolling in
It's curiously parallel to the last great oil booms and surges seen in Venezuela, where cash rolling in from high oil prices in the early aughts, made Hugo Chavez rich and tyrannical, turning his country from a productive and functioning democracy into a socialist dump.
Migrant remittances seem to be doing the same thing for Daniel Ortega, who's gotten very mean with his newfound wealth indeed -- jailing at least two bishops, kidnapping now 8 priests, shutting down free elections, and instituting an intrusive state snitching system to make Nicaraguans' lives hell in their own country. He's issued arrest warrants for the most improbable people -- a beauty queen organizer whose girl won a big international pageant, a lot of little-guy political opponents, keeping careful tabs on who attends protests. They get charged with treason and plenty have not been heard from since.
What this tells us is that Joe Biden's open borders are doing a lot to destroy these little weak democracies in at least some of these countries, undermining the opposition as they grow impoverished and the state grows rich, but also by taking a pressure point off the regime -- people who would be protesting in the streets are now begging for cash from New York City government officials.
It shows that Joe Biden's open border is a horrible democracy killer.
One more thing he can take a bow for.
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