Carlos Navarro was recently caught eating outside a restaurant in Virginia by immigration officials who told him he had a warrant for removal.
Mr Navarro, 32, said he had never had a run-in with the law, adding that he worked in poultry factories.
“Absolutely nothing.”
Last week, he returned to Guatemala for the first time in 11 years, calling his wife in the United States from a reception center for deportees in the capital, Guatemala City.
Mr. Navarro's experience may be an example of the rapid deportations that have come to communities around the United States under President Trump. 14 million illegal immigrants.
The administration, which has promised the largest deportations in American history, was said to be about to begin them like tuesday. In his inaugural address on Monday, Mr Trump vowed to “begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to where they came from”.
Mr. Navarro's situation provides a glimpse of what mass deportations can mean for Latin American countries at the other end of the deportation pipeline.
Officials there are preparing to accept a significant number of their citizens, although many governments have said they are could not meet With his administration coming on the deportation push.
A small, impoverished nation suffering from a brutal civil war, Guatemala has a sizeable undocumented population in the United States. According to the Pew Research Center, there were 675,000 undocumented Guatemalans living in the country in 2022.
It does is one of the largest countries of origin After Mexico, India, and El Salvador, the United States is a laboratory for unauthorized immigrants and how mass deportations have changed life outside the United States.
Guatemala received about seven deportation flights a week from the United States last year, involving about 1,000 people, immigration officials said. The government has told US officials it can accommodate a maximum of 20 such flights a week, or about 2,500 people.
At the same time, the Guatemalan government is developing a plan designed by President Bernardo Arévalo. Referred to as “Going Home”. – to ensure that Guatemalans facing deportation can expect assistance from consulates in the United States and that they can expect a “dignified reception” in the event of detention and removal.
“We know they are worried,” Foreign Minister Carlos Ramiro Martinez said. “They live in great fear and as a government we cannot just say, 'Look, we fear for you too.' We have to do something.”
The Guatemala plan, shared last week at a meeting of regional foreign ministers in Mexico City, goes beyond immediate concerns shared by many governments in the region — such as how to house or feed deportees for their first night.
It also addresses how to reintegrate deported Guatemalans into society.
The plan, which focuses on connecting deportees with jobs and using their language and work skills, aims to offer mental health support to people dealing with the trauma of deportation.
In a practical sense, when deportees get off the plane, government officials will interview them extensively to get detailed information about the returnees, the help they need, and the work they can do.
Experts say the Guatemala plan reflects the Trump administration's unspoken expectation that Latin American governments not only accept their deported citizens, but also work to keep them from returning to the United States.
Felipe González Morales, who served as the United Nations special rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, said that historically, many people sent back to their countries have tried to return “even under extreme circumstances”.
According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, about 40 percent of deportations in 2020 were of people who had previously been deported and re-entered the country.
Guatemala's foreign minister, Mr. Martinez, said in an interview that the dynamic has been “essentially a revolving door” for years.
Mr. Trump aims to change that.
“As the world watches President Trump and his administration deport illegal criminals from American communities to their own countries, it will send a very powerful message,” Trump transition spokeswoman Caroline Leavitt said in an email. “If you don't plan to do it right away, come to America or you'll be sent home.”
Already, the number of illegal border crossings has fallen sharply, with nearly 46,000 people trying to cross in November, the lowest monthly figure during the Biden administration, according to the US government.
The Trump administration is expected to pressure Latin American governments to support the fight against migration.
According to Anita Isaacs, Guatemala's plan to reintegrate deportees is not just a way to show Mr. Trump that he is cooperating with Guatemala. Expert on Guatemala who created the plan of the plan.
“If you can find a way to integrate them and use their skills, the opportunities for Guatemala are enormous,” Ms. Isaacs said of the deportees.
So far, he said, deportees disembarking in Guatemala City have mostly had some basics, such as new identification documents, sanitary supplies and access to a shelter or the main bus terminal.
Instead, he suggested, Guatemala could embrace its newly returned citizens as an economic asset, including in the tourism sector.
As an example, he pointed to the cases of hundreds of Guatemalans who were deported after an ICE raid on an Iowa meatpacking plant in 2008. they become volcano guides.
However, there are serious challenges to encouraging deportees to stay in their home countries.
Alfredo Danilo Rivera, director of migration to Guatemala, said the forces that drove them to leave in the first place are still present: poverty and a lack of jobs, extreme weather worsened by climate change, and the threat of gangs and organized crime.
Then there's the draw of the US, where not only are there more jobs, but workers are paid in dollars.
“If we're going to talk about the reasons why people migrate, we have to talk about how they settled there and how many of them succeeded,” Mr. Rivera said.
Rev. Francisco Pellizzari, director of Casa del Migrante, the main shelter for deportees in Guatemala City, said deportees feel more pressure to get to the United States than first-time immigrants.
They often owe smugglers thousands of dollars, and poor people in rural Guatemala often hand over documents on their homes or land as collateral to pay smugglers, leaving them homeless if they are deported.
“They can't go back,” said Father Pellizzari.
The Biden administration's tougher border measures have led smugglers, aware of the increased risk of deportation, to offer migrants three chances to enter the U.S. for one try, according to Father Pellizzari and others. .
Jose Manuel Jochola, 18, who was deported to Guatemala last week after being caught illegally crossing the Texas border, said he has three months to make the most of his remaining chances. “I'll try again,” he said, though he would wait to see what Mr. Trump did.
The desire to return to the United States after deportation is particularly strong among those whose families are already there.
Mr. Navarro, who was recently deported from Virginia, said he was not deterred by Mr. Trump's crackdown. “Son, I have to go back for my wife,” he said.
A woman on Mr. Navarro's deportation flight, Neida Vásquez Esquivel, 20, said she was being deported for the fourth time while trying to contact her parents in New Jersey. According to him, there is no question of another attempt.
But some deportees say the biggest attraction to staying in Guatemala is that the alternative doesn't look so good for now.
Jose Moreno, 26, decided not to try to return to Boston, where he spent a decade because of the threat of crossing the border and the new president's attitude toward immigrants after he was deported last week after a drunken driving accident.
Instead, he said, he will use English to offer guided tours in Petén, a scenic lake and Mayan ruins in Guatemala, where his family has a small hotel.
“My parents are here, I have everything,” he said. “Why should I go back?”
Jody Garcia Submitted a report from Guatemala City and Miriam Jordan From Los Angeles.