GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) – The United States, with the completion of the three remaining deportation flights of Guatemalans in 2021, marked a second year of regular decline within the quantity of migrants despatched again to the Central American nation through the COVID-19 pandemic.
Guatemala this year obtained 17,806 of its residents deported from the United States via 184 flights. Nearly 4,000 of the deportees have been minors, in line with information from the Guatemalan Institute of Migration(IGM).
Compared to pre-pandemic figures in 2019 of 54,599 Guatemalan deportees, this year marked a 38% lower within the quantity of individuals despatched again by air. In 2020, when some flights have been suspended, the United States despatched again 21,057 individuals.
Gerson Sanchez, a 40-year-old service provider from northern Guatemala, mentioned that he and 23 others have been arrested in early December crossing into Texas from the Mexican state of Tamaulipas. He was deported on Tuesday from McAllen, Texas, on a flight with 125 different individuals.
“It was my first time making an attempt to get to the United States to work, however after the dangerous expertise in that detention heart, I favor to not strive once more,” Sanchez mentioned.
Despite the lower in deportations from the United States via air, issues on the southern border are worsening as document numbers of migrants arrive in hopes of crossing, in line with Ursula Roldan, a migration professional at Guatemala’s Rafael Landivar University.
“This is as a result of containment insurance policies of the United States initiated beneath the Trump administration. This worries us as a result of borders are locations of threat as a consequence of human trafficking and drug trafficking and migrants are trapped on this space,” Roldan mentioned.
By distinction, the quantity of Guatemalans deported via land from Mexico doubled in 2021 in comparison with the earlier year. The IGM obtained 1,194 buses with a complete of 40,696 individuals, in comparison with 22,901 individuals deportees in 2020.
(Reporting by David Toro, writing by Cassandra Garrison; modifying by Grant McCool)
