US President Donald Trump has directed the State Department to end foreign assistance programmes to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.
Mr Trump said it follows the failure of the three countries to stop immigrant caravans heading to the US.
He had warned of such a move last year.
Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador were not able to do the job of stopping people from leaving their country and coming illegally to the U.S. We will now begin cutting off, or substantially reducing, the massive foreign aid routinely given to them.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 22, 2018
The State Department said that Mr Trump made the move after he accused the three countries of doing nothing to stop the outflow of US-bound migrants.
A state Department spokesperson said that at the instruction of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, "We are carrying out the president's direction and ending FY 2017 and FY 2018 foreign assistance programmes for the Northern Triangle (of Central America)".
The "Northern Triangle" includes El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, where tens of thousands of migrants have fled poverty and violence in recent years to try to enter the United States.
Over the last two years, $1.3bn was earmarked for Central America for US official development aid, most of it to these three countries.
Mr Trump blames their governments for looking the other way as "caravans" of migrants head through Mexico to reach the United States.
He has also accused Mexico of failing to curb the flow of migrants illegally entering the US, and threatened to close the US-Mexican border "next week" unless something changes.
"We will be engaging Congress as part of this process," the spokesperson added.
Democrats have said that the move will make immigration worse and are threatening to block the President's move.
