David W. Marshall

 For those of us who are not living in poverty, we may not fully understand the plight suffered by those who are poor. 

This is true despite having degrees of empathy and compassion. It takes a lasting moral commitment to become sensitive to recognizing and addressing the systemic barriers that keep people impoverished. However, we can never intimately relate to the hardships without experiencing them. 

Breaking the cycle of poverty means that discrimination and racism need to be discerned and confronted at every turn. Breaking the cycle of poverty means addressing the root causes, such as lack of access to housing, education, health care, transportation and economic opportunities. Insight into these challenges will enable fair-minded policymakers to propose effective social programs and economic policies that will provide a reliable safety net, reducing suffering. 

In doing so, these lawmakers are fulfilling a moral and social responsibility by addressing the root causes of poverty. Unfortunately, not all policymakers are fair-minded and moral. While immoral lawmakers may also have a degree of insight, they have proven to be strategic and proactive in crafting ways to cut the social safety net. 

Many of us are not in a situation where we have to deal with the issue of family remittances. Millions of migrants support their families and communities of origin through the money they send back home. Remittances affect one in eight people worldwide. About 200 million immigrant workers support 800 million family members in their home countries each year. 

While Haitian immigrants face economic challenges, they continue to send a significant portion of their earnings home, often at a personal sacrifice by working multiple jobs or forgoing their own needs to support relatives abroad. 

“Haiti is literally being held together by those of us who are outside of the country and sending money back home,” said Guerline Jozef, co-founder of the Haitian Bridge Alliance. 

Haiti’s decades-long humanitarian crisis deepens each day, forcing immigrants to send record-high payments back home. Each Haitian immigrant living abroad supports a dozen or so friends, family or community members, many of whom rely on those payments to survive, Jozef said. Remittances make up a significant portion of Haiti’s economy, representing more than 22% of its gross domestic product. 

While the pain resulting from the gutting of foreign aid from USAID is still fresh, the recently enacted 1% U.S. tax on cash remittances as part of the “One Big Beautiful Bill” hurts even more. Typically, remittances increase when foreign aid is cut, but that will not be as easy since many countries are hit by cuts in foreign aid and taxes on money transfers. A 1% tax may appear small, but the consequences are massive. 

In this case, the specific target of this surcharge will inflict additional emotional and financial pain on people who are already suffering and can least afford another deliberate hit to the safety net, which will disproportionately impact poor families. Most low-income and undocumented migrants use cash-based services such as Western Union, which are subject to the tax, while wealthier individuals who use bank transfers are exempt. 

Haiti is not alone. In more than 60 countries, remittances make up more than 3% of GDP. In some places, remittances make up over a quarter of the entire economy. Haitians could lose about $61 million annually in direct payments for food, shelter and health care, according to the Center for Global Development. Globally, the losses will amount to about $4.5 billion. 

Lawmakers and lobbyists who developed the details of the “One Big Beautiful Bill” are fully aware of how cash remittances serve as a vital financial lifeline and safety net for many of the world’s poorest families. 

“The purpose is not to be mean,” said Ira Mehlman, who works at the anti-immigrant Federation for American Immigration Reform. 

The group lobbied hard for the 1% tax, which Mehlman hopes will encourage immigrants to self-deport. Actually, this is being mean-spirited and another way of waging war against immigrants and people experiencing poverty. The wealthy receive their tax cut while the poor receive a tax increase. 

“It’s really a drop in the bucket for this country, but elsewhere, that kind of money is transformative,” said Dulce Guzman, executive director of Alianza Americas, a network of immigrant-serving groups. 

The writer is the author of the book “God Bless Our Divided America.”