SALCAJA, Guatemala — Werner Dominguez is a pioneer.

In 1981, he became one of the first migrants from this city nestled among verdant mist-shrouded mountains to leave for the US. He worked in Chicago and later settled in Trenton, NJ, where his sister and extended family now live.

“In those days, you could cross the border for $300,” said Dominguez, 58, a weaver, who has moved back to this city of 21,200 people. “Now you need more like $15,000 to pay a coyote to get across the border.”

Since a handful of local residents first made the journey to Trenton in the 1980s, more than 5,000 have followed. They have sent many millions of dollars back home that have transformed Salcaja — which means “bitter salt” in the native Quiche language — into a prosperous community of paved roads, a new colonial-style city hall and dozens of brick homes, some four stories high.

In recognition of the migrants’ contributions, local officials in 2010 commissioned an Homage to the Migrant monument that dominates the traffic circle at the city’s entrance.

The 40-foot-tall Soviet-style statue, concrete painted bronze, depicts a migrant wearing a backpack and facing north, toward the US. A plaque at the base features a migrants’ prayer seeking “protection and intercession from God” for the journey to create “a decent life for my family.” It cost $100,000 to build.

“Between 1980 and 1985, the population of Salcaja began to migrate and most settled in Trenton, New Jersey,” Salcaja Mayor Miguel Ovalle said at the statue’s unveiling in 2010. “Since then, their remittances have completely transformed the area.”

The mayor estimated that both legal and illegal immigrants to the US have poured nearly $400 million into the city since the 1980s.

In Trenton, the Salcaja community is so well established that it is home to an annual beauty pageant and numerous small businesses.

The migration has sparked the interest of Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Purcell Carson, who is documenting the experience of the migrants.

“What you see in Salcaja is the effect of four or five decades of remittances,” she said. “Migration is not something that started in 2017. It’s the thing that’s sustained this community.”

In Salcaja, some of those who have returned run used-car dealerships, featuring pickups that they have imported from the US.

Like many of the early migrants, Dominguez found life in the US too difficult. He missed his family, and after working at a frame factory in Trenton and in a restaurant, he decided to return home after only a few years.

Asked about the recent surge of migrants at the southern US border, he said he was not surprised. Times are still difficult, he said, and most jobs in Salcaja pay barely $300 a month.

“We have the same problems with poverty, corruption and unemployment that we did when I left,” said Dominguez, a father of four. “They prefer to die on the journey, but not die of hunger if they stay here.”