Carlos Navarro was recently eating takeout outside a restaurant in Virginia when immigration officials arrested him and said there was a warrant for his removal from the country.
He has never had a run-in with the law, Navarro, 32, said, adding that he worked in the poultry industry.
“Absolutely nothing.”
Last week he returned to Guatemala for the first time in 11 years, calling his wife to the United States from a reception center for deportees in the capital, Guatemala City.
Mr. Navarro’s experience may be a preview of the kind of swift deportations coming under President Trump to communities across the United States that are home to even 14 million unauthorized immigrants.
The administration, which has promised the largest deportations in American history, is reportedly moving them along already on Tuesday. In his inauguration speech on Monday, Mr Trump promised to “begin the process of sending millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places they came from”.
The situation of Mr. Navarre provides insight into what mass deportations could mean in Latin American countries at the other end of the deportation pipeline.
Officials there are preparing to take in significant numbers of their citizens, although many governments have said they are could not meet with the incoming administration about its push for deportation.
Guatemala, a small, impoverished nation wracked by a brutal civil war, has a significant undocumented population in the United States. About 675,000 undocumented Guatemalans lived in the country in 2022, according to the Pew Research Center.
That’s it one of the largest countries of origin for unauthorized immigrants in the United States, after Mexico, India and El Salvador, and a laboratory for how mass deportations can also change life outside the United States.
Last year, Guatemala received about seven deportation flights a week from the United States, according to migration officials, amounting to about 1,000 people. The government has told U.S. officials it can accommodate a maximum of 20 such flights a week, or about 2,500 people, officials said.
At the same time, the Guatemalan government is developing a plan — which is President Bernardo Arevalo called “Homecoming” — to assure Guatemalans facing deportation that they can expect help from consulates in the United States — and, in the case of detention and removal — “a dignified reception.”
“We know they are worried,” said Carlos Ramiro Martinez, the foreign minister. “They live in tremendous fear, and as a government, we can’t just say, ‘Look, we’re scared for you, too.’ We have to do something.”
Guatemala’s plan, which it shared at a meeting of the region’s foreign ministers in Mexico City last week, goes beyond immediate concerns shared by many governments in the region — such as how to house or feed deportees on their first night.
It also deals with how to reintegrate deported Guatemalans back into society.
The plan, which focuses on connecting deportees with jobs and using their language and work skills, also aims to offer mental health support to people dealing with the trauma of deportation.
Practically, this means that when the deportees get off the plane, they will be interviewed extensively by government officials to get a detailed picture of those returning to the country, the help they need and the type of work they might be able to do.
Experts say Guatemala’s plan appears to reflect the Trump administration’s unspoken expectation that Latin American governments not only take in their deported citizens — but also work to prevent them from returning to the United States.
Historically, many people sent back to their homelands have turned around and tried to return, “even under extreme circumstances,” said Felipe Gonzalez Morales, who was the United Nations special rapporteur on the human rights of migrants.
According to the US Department of Homeland Security, roughly 40 percent of deportations in 2020 involved people who had previously been deported and re-entered the country.
This dynamic has been “essentially a revolving door” for years, Mr. Martinez, Guatemala’s foreign minister, said in an interview.
Mr. Trump aims to change that.
“When the entire world watches President Trump and his administration en masse deport illegal criminals from American communities to their home countries,” Carolyn Leavitt, a Trump transition spokeswoman, said in an email, “it will send a very strong message that you should not come to America unless you you don’t plan to do that right away, anyway you will be sent home.”
The number of illegal U.S. border crossings has already dropped dramatically, with about 46,000 people trying to cross in November, according to the U.S. government, the lowest monthly figure during the Biden administration.
The Trump administration is expected to pressure governments in Latin America to continue supporting its crackdown on migration.
But Guatemala’s plan to reintegrate deportees isn’t just a way to show Mr. Trump that Guatemala is cooperating, says Anita Isaacs, expert on Guatemala who drafted the plan.
Ms. Isaacs said of the deportees, “if you can find a way to integrate them and use their skills, then the opportunities for Guatemala are enormous.”
Until now, she said, deportees who got off the plane in Guatemala City generally got some basics, like new identification documents, sanitary supplies and a ride to a shelter or the main bus terminal.
Instead, she suggested, Guatemala could embrace its newly returned citizens as an economic asset, including in its tourism sector.
As an example, she pointed to the case of hundreds of Guatemalans deported after an ICE raid on an Iowa meatpacking plant in 2008. become volcano guides.
However, there are major challenges to encourage deportees to remain in their homeland.
The forces that drove them to leave are still there, said Alfredo Danilo Rivera, Guatemala’s director of migration: widespread poverty and a lack of jobs, extreme weather exacerbated by climate change, the threat of gangs and organized crime.
Then there’s the draw of the United States, where not only are there more jobs, but workers are paid in dollars.
“If we are going to talk about the reasons why people migrate, the causes, we also have to talk about the fact that they settle there and that many manage to succeed,” said Mr. Rivera.
Deportees also feel more pressure to get to the United States than first-time migrants, said the Rev. Francisco Pelizzari, director of Casa del Migrante, the main deportee shelter in Guatemala City.
They often owe thousands of dollars to smugglers, and in rural Guatemala, poor people often surrender their documents to their houses or land as collateral for loans to pay smugglers, essentially leaving them homeless if they are deported.
“They can’t come back,” Father Pellizzari said.
The tough border measures imposed by the Biden administration have also led to smugglers, aware of the increased risk of deportation, offering migrants as many as three chances to enter the United States for the price of one try, Father Pellizzari and others say.
Jose Manuel Jochola, 18, who was deported to Guatemala last week after being arrested for illegally crossing the Texas border, said he has three months to take advantage of his remaining chances. “I will try again,” he said, although 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 there.
Mr. Navarro, a man recently deported from Virginia, said he was not discouraged by Trump’s crackdown. “I have to go back, get my son, get my wife,” he said.
A woman who was on Mr. Navarro’s deportation flight, Neida Vasquez Esquivel, 20, said it was her fourth time being deported as she tried to reach her parents in New Jersey. Another attempt was not out of the question, she said.
But some deportees say the biggest appeal of staying in Guatemala is that, for now, the alternative doesn’t look so good.
After Jose Moreno, 26, was deported last week after a drunken driving accident, he decided not to try to return to Boston, where he had spent a decade, because of the dangers of crossing the border and the new president’s stance on immigrants.
Instead, he said, he would use his English to offer guided tours in Peten, an area in Guatemala with a scenic lake and Mayan ruins, where his family has a small hotel.
“My parents are here, I have everything here,” he said. “Why would I come back?”
Jodi Garcia contributed reporting from Guatemala City, and Miriam Jordan from Los Angeles.
