Alex Ritson

Our correspondent Will Grant sent this report from Honduras.

Donald Trump's relentless crackdown on undocumented immigration shows no sign of letting up.

Chicago, Charlotte in North Carolina and communities in Minnesota, the latest focal points of raids by the immigration agency ICE.

Authorities say scores of immigrants with criminal records were detained.

In each city, though, ICE was met by protests.

Yet even as their numbers dwindle in the US, Honduran migrants have been sending more money home than ever.

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

I spoke to one undocumented Honduran migrant, who I'll call Marcos, on the phone from a major US city where he has lived for five years, working in construction.

Marcos said he's currently sending home every spare dollar he has to his wife in Tegucigalpa, while he lives on as little as possible in the US.

This way, he reasons, if he is picked up on the streets by ICE, at least he'll return to a little money set aside.

Marcos has gone from sending home around $500 a month to more like $300 a week, he explains, partly so his family will have funds if he's held in a detention centre for months.

Remittances remain key to Honduras, worth around 25% of GDP.

But the Trump administration has also begun to target those funds.

The Treasury Department has issued an alert to money services businesses like Western Union and others, saying they must file a suspicious activity report for transactions that involve at least $2,000, and which they suspect involves the cross-border transfer of funds derived from unlawful employment.

That could hit many migrants where it most hurts, sending money home.

In conjunction with the ICE raids at schools, churches and at places of work, the Trump administration's aim is to both remove people from U.S.

soil and deter others from even trying to reach the U.S.

In the case of Elias Padilla, it worked.

An Uber driver in Tegucigalpa, he says he often makes as little as $12 a day.

Elias had planned to make the journey north this year.