SAN PEDRO SULA, Honduras (AP) — As dozens of evacuees enter the gloomy airport terminal in San Pedro Sula, Norma sits under fluorescent lights clutching a cup of frothy coffee and a small bowl of eggs — all that were waiting for her inside. Honduras.
The 69-year-old Honduran mother never imagined leaving her Central American country. But then came unknown death threats to him and his children and armed men came to his door threatening to kill him, just like they killed one of his relatives days ago.
Norma, who asked not to be named out of concern for her safety, used her $10,000 savings on a trip up north at the end of October with her daughter and granddaughter.
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But after his asylum claims to the US were rejected, he was put on a deportation flight. Now, he’s back in Honduras under the same gang, caught up in the violence and economic instability that plagues deportees like him.
“They can find us in every corner of Honduras,” he said in a migrant processing center. “We are praying for God’s protection, because we don’t expect anything from the government.”
Now, as the President-elect of the United States, Mr. Donald Trump, is about to take office in January with the promise of deporting more people from the country, Honduras and other Central American countries where people have fled for generations are expecting an influx of immigrants in danger – their situation. not ready to handle.
‘We can’t’
Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, which have the largest number of people living illegally in the US, after Mexico, could be among the first and most affected by mass deportations, said Jason Houser, former head of the Immigration & Customs Enforcement office. Biden administration.
Because countries like Venezuela refuse to accept deportations by air from the US, Houser suggests that the Trump administration is likely to lead the deportation of “most vulnerable” immigrants who have removal orders but no criminal record, in an attempt to increase the number of deportations. .
“Hondurans, Guatemalans, Salvadorans should be very afraid because (the Trump administration) will push the boundaries of the law,” said Houser.
Migrants and aid networks expelled from these Northern Triangle countries fear that their return could plunge them into deep economic and humanitarian crises, leading to mass migration.
“We don’t have the power” to take in that many people, said Antonio García, Honduras’ deputy foreign minister. “There is little here for the outcasts.” People who return, he said, “are the last to be looked after.”
Returning to the US
Since 2015, Honduras has received nearly half a million refugees. They get off planes and buses to be greeted with coffee, small plates of food and bags of toothpaste and perfume. While some are gasping for breath, not in critical condition in US detention centers, others are crying, gripped by fear.
“We don’t know what we are going to do, what will happen next,” said a woman who was in a group of evicted people waiting for their names to be called by a man who was slapping on a keyboard.
About 560,000 Hondurans, about 5% of the country’s population, live in the US without legal status, according to US government statistics. Among them, immigration experts estimate that 150,000 could be tracked down and immediately deported.
While García said the government provides services to help returnees, many are released with little help to enter the country captured by pirates. They have few job options to pay off crippling debts. Others like Norma have nowhere to go, they are unable to return home because of the gang members who are roaming around her house.
Norma said she is not sure why they were targeted, but she believes it is because the murdered relative had problems with the gang.
Despite the breakdown, García estimates up to 40 percent of Honduran deportees return to the US.
The humanitarian crisis is coming
Larissa Martínez, 38, is among those who struggled to return to Honduran society after being deported from the US in 2021 with her three children. Driven by financial desperation and the absence of her husband, who had moved and left her for another woman, the single mother sought a better life in the US.
Since returning to Honduras, Martínez has spent the past three years looking for work, not only to support his children, but also to pay off the $5,000 he owes a relative for a trip to the north.
What he did was unsuccessful. He built a shabby wooden house tucked away in the mountains of San Pedro Sula, where he sells meat and cheese to get by, but sales have been low and the hot rains have eaten away at the flimsy walls where they sleep.
So he started repeating the song in his head: “If I don’t get a job in December, I’ll leave in January.”
César Muñoz, president of the Mennonite Social Action Commission, said Honduran authorities have abandoned deportees like Martínez, leaving organizations like his to intervene.
A significant departure could leave aid networks, migrants and their families reeling. Meanwhile, countries like Honduras, which rely heavily on remittances from the US, could face economic hardship as this vital way of life is cut off.
“We are on the brink of a new humanitarian crisis,” Muñoz said.
Mr. Trump’s return was met with a number of actions by Latin American countries that are connected to the US through immigration and trade.
Guatemala, a country with more than 750,000 citizens living illegally in the US, announced in November that it was working on a plan to take mass deportations. The president of Mexico, Mr. Claudia Sheinbaum, said that Mexico is already increasing the legal services in the American embassy and that they will ask Mr. Trump to deport non-Mexicans to their countries of origin.
The Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Honduras, Mr. García, expressed doubts about Mr. Trump’s threats, referring to the economic benefits that immigrants provide to the US economy and the problems of mass deportations. Aid leaders like Munoz say Honduras is not fully prepared for the deportation operation.
Even with Trump’s crackdown “it’s not possible” to stop people from migrating, García said. Driven by poverty, violence and the hope of a better life, groups of refugees board buses back to the United States.
As deportations by US and Mexican authorities increase, smugglers are offering migrants packages in which they try three times to reach the north. If migrants are caught on their way and sent back home, they still have two chances to get to the US
After returning to Honduras, 26-year-old Kimberly Orellana said she spent three months in detention in Texas before being returned to San Pedro Sula, where she waited at a bus station for her mother to pick her up.
But, he had already planned to return, saying there was nothing he could do: his four-year-old daughter Marcelle was waiting for him, being cared for by friends in North Carolina.
The pair were separated by smugglers crossing the Rio Grande, hoping to increase the chances of a successful crossing. Orellana promised her daughter that they would be reunited.
“Mami, are you sure you’re coming?” Marcelle asks him on the phone.
“Now, being here it’s hard to know if I’ll be able to fulfill that promise,” Orellana said, holding on to her Honduran passport. “I have to try again. … My daughter is the only one I have.”
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Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america