Thread: Thousands deported to Guatemala every year

Thousands deported to Guatemala every year
Growing numbers sent back as immigration security gets tighter
By Matt O'Brien, STAFF WRITER
Article Last Updated: 12/26/2007 01:54:27 PM PST

GUATEMALA CITY — Unmarked U.S. government jets roared into La Aurora International Airport, dropped off a crowd of forlorn passengers and roared back into the sky almost every weekday this year.
In their wake, orderly lines of men, women and children, all wearing wristbands, filed down the tarmac. An observant traveler staring out the oval windows of a commercial airliner taxiing nearby might have guessed they were prisoners of some sort.

It has become routine, this daily march of the deported. "Pass right this way," bellowed Rene Mendez, trying to comfort his weary compatriots while also adhering to a tight schedule. "Bienvenidos. Good afternoon. Welcome, muchachos."

In 2004, the United States deported 7,029 Guatemalans; in 2005, it deported 11,512; in 2006, it deported 18,305.

This year, the numbers had already surpassed 21,000 by early this month.

Lori Haley, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said deportations have gone up because of an increase in worksite raids and other enforcement measures in the United States.

Most of the deportees end up passing through this aging air force terminal in Guatemala's capital city airport. That makes Guatemalan immigration official Mendez a busy man. On Aug. 6, two planes arrived in quick succession with more than 200 deportees to process.

"I have an important question. Are all of you guatemaltecos?" Mendez yelled above a din of activity and confusion, just in case the big white Boeing MD-83 planes dropped someone off in the wrong Central American country.

"Si!" the crowd responded in unison.

Domingo Algua Morales, 18, was one of them.

The teenager had been on his way to San Rafael, hoping to slip anonymously into an established pocket of Mayan immigrants living modestly in wealthy Marin County.

"My brother has lived there for almost two years, going to the street corner for work," Morales said. "Later, he found a job in a restaurant.

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He said if I wanted to come there for a year, he would find me work."
He said his older brother sent back photographs and money to his family in Chichicastenango. He bought land and had a three-story concrete house built for when he returns.

Domingo tried to join him. But he had hardly crossed the infamous Sonora desert into Arizona when border agents picked him up and put him on track for an expedited deportation.

Next, here he was, fresh off his first — albeit involuntary — plane ride, waiting for Mendez to call out the numbers of the luggage piled in the center of the room.

Domingo's was the last of the lot to be called, and the teenager reached down into a brown paper bag and pulled out his two belongings: a pair of ragged shoelaces and his belt — temporarily confiscated, as most were, to make sure he wouldn't strangle himself or others.

Otherwise, all he had left were two Mexican pesos in his pocket, he said, smirking because that would hardly buy him a snack, never mind the trip back to Chichicastenango. But he had a T-shirt on his back. His jeans. His life.

"Many people have died in the desert," said Mendez, the anxious deportees now seated in rows of chairs in front of him. "Others have drowned. Others were mutilated on the trains. Thank God that you're all here, that you're alive!"

The crowd uttered a chorus of thanks for the bureaucrat's glimmer of optimism. Then they had to fill out a form. And soon it was time to move on — another plane was landing, with 88 more men and 16 more women to process.

One organization passed out bagged lunches. Another offered bus vouchers to help deportees get to their far-flung hometowns. There was a table to pick up information about possible job opportunities, but otherwise they were left to fend for themselves.

The Guatemalan government began expanding the scope of its deportee arrival process earlier this year, in an effort to make the system more dignified, but officials there have argued that deportees are still putting a significant burden on the country because it is difficult to reintegrate them into the economy.

And of those so far deported from the United States last year, more than 3,000 faced jail time in the United States for criminal charges, although some of those were strictly immigration law violations.

Rutilo Morales, 36, from the San Marcos department of western Guatemala, said he was surprisingly relieved to be here after the harsh treatment he said he received at the hands of prison guards in Texas.

"I told them there were insects in my food," Morales said. "The guard told me, 'The worms also have a right to eat.'"

Carlos Gustavo Martin, 43, a carpenter who spent months detained in a Limestone County, Texas, jail, said, "We feel like terrorists. We are humble people, simple people, working people."

Jose Salvador Enriquez, 33, who spent 15 years in Los Angeles and has three children there, said he had temporarily obtained political asylum to live in the United States, but lost it and was deported last year. He tried to cross the border and was arrested and deported again.

"I have to think a lot about what I'm going to do now," he said.

Another man had lived in Long Island so long — since he was 11 years old — that he had no idea what to do in Guatemala.

"I want to know where the American embassy is and stuff like that," he said in English, with a New York accent, declining to give his name.

Two other men, speaking in separate interviews, sported splotches of white paint on their forearms. A few days earlier, they were staying at a Texas detention facility when a guard ordered them to come out and paint a wall in the middle of the night, from 11 p.m. to 3 a.m., they said.

"He just said paint there, and I painted," said Santos Ajucum, as he mulled over how to get home to Totonicapan.

As the migrants arrived, journalists from El Diario, Guatemala's biggest tabloid newspaper, were waiting.

The newspaper covers deportation flights as meticulously as it does soccer scores — with each article comes the number of deportees who arrived that day, the total year-to-date number, and a smattering of photos and quotations from those willing to talk.

The faces of rejected migrants, and their stories of desperation, danger and disappointment, appear in Guatemala's national media almost every day.

And yet, every day, they keep coming.
http://origin.insidebayarea.com/timesst ... ci_7810288

A large number of Haitians also get deported every year from South Florida. I am going to look up stats on deportations in my area.

A large number also come in from Belize BUT the clincher for them is it is much easier to get a legal visa to visit for them and then they just STAY!

I am glad those deported are given some help when they arrive home.A lunch,possibitlity of a job and a bus voucher home.That little bit of help probably keeps many from heading north again.

Yes Swatchick I would be interested in the deportation stats on Haitians as they are a growing IA problem in So. Fla.

Ooh, I would give a month's salary to witness this!! What a lovely vision...invading freeloaders being sent back where they came from.

Finally...JUSTICE BEING SERVED.

Americangirl: I have seen a woman at the INS office get taken away due to a standing deportation order. It was priceless. What is interesting is that I friend of mine used to escort them out of the country. He has some amazing stories to tell.

Originally Posted by swatchick

Americangirl: I have seen a woman at the INS office get taken away due to a standing deportation order. It was priceless. What is interesting is that I friend of mine used to escort them out of the country. He has some amazing stories to tell.

Yep, I'd pay admission to see that!