On Monday, January 19, the Guatemalan Congress ratified by an absolute majority vote a state of siege decreed by President Bernardo Arévalo, after three prison riots and the murder of nine police officers by the 18th Street gang this weekend highlighted the growing insecurity in the country. Arévalo’s state of siege will last 30 days and allow joint police and military patrols to carry out arrests and raids without a warrant. “We do not negotiate with criminals or tolerate terrorist actions,” Arévalo said in a national broadcast on Sunday night, surrounded by his interior and defense ministers.
Arévalo’s state of siege comes in the week marking his second year in power, amid a fierce struggle over Guatemalan prisons. On Sunday morning, members of 18th Street simultaneously seized Renovación I, the Zone 18 Preventive Detention Center, and Fraijanes II, taking dozens of prison guards hostage. Arévalo reported that the authorities regained control without killing any incarcerated people but that, in retaliation, the gang murdered eight National Civil Police officers on the streets of the capital. In the early hours of the morning, a ninth police officer died in the hospital.
On Monday, after the declaration of the state of siege, during a tour of the neighborhoods of Zone 18 controlled by the gang along the way to the Preventive Center, police presence was minimal. The only group of police patrolling the area warned a group of photojournalists: “Don't get too close to us; we’re under attack and we have to be careful.” The Preventive Center was guarded by soldiers and an armored tank with machine guns.
Back in the city center, in Zone 1, the soldiers and police who were not in the neighborhoods mounted a strong show of force in front of Congress. Outside, columns of soldiers patrolled the perimeter. Inside, deputies discussed the ratification of the state of siege. Of the five “state of exception” mechanisms in the Guatemalan Constitution for dealing with national crises, a state of siege is the second most serious after a state of war; the Public Order Law reserves it for acts of terrorism, sedition, serious violence, or threats to the constitution or state security.
On Monday morning, seven of the nine slain police officers were honored at the headquarters of the Interior Ministry. Lines of police officers and flowers received seven coffins covered with the Guatemalan flag while the funeral band played. Family members, President Arévalo, Interior Minister Marco Antonio Villeda, and senior police officials paid their respects. “We will not rest or spare any resources to punish and find those responsible for these crimes,” the president said during the ceremony, before handing the flag to the families.
Although the state of siege was ratified with 149 out of 160 votes in favor, some opposition lawmakers blamed the Arévalo administration for the insecurity in the country. Ronald Portillo, of the Vamos party, the movement of former President Alejandro Giammattei, said that Arévalo and aligned lawmakers “have lied and continue to lie” about security. On the contrary, Boris España, another member of the same party, argued that insecurity is not Arévalo's fault, but that of the entire state. Representative Inés Castillo of the UNE, the party of former presidential candidate and opposition leader Sandra Torres, said that although her party supports the state of siege, the government “will not be able to capture any terrorists.”
At the same time, Representative Samuel Pérez of Raíces —a faction of Semilla, the canceled ruling party— proposed a motion to compensate the families of slain police officers. The money comes from the Congress fund and amounts to 300,000 quetzals ($39,000 U.S. dollars) for the families of deceased police officers and 100,000 quetzals for injured police officers. “It will be delivered immediately,” Pérez said. “With more than 140 votes, it was a matter of broad consensus.”
Arévalo says that his state of siege should be restricted to “combating organized crime,” without affecting “daily life in its normal activities” or the right to mobility. Arévalo “did not mention curfews or restrictions on free movement,” constitutional lawyer Édgar Ortiz wrote on X. “Nor did he announce the suspension of political rights, something that the law would allow under a state of siege, but it was not applied.”
Growing insecurity
Under Arévalo’s government, Guatemala faces a crisis of insecurity. Homicides in 2025 reached a rate of ten per day or 17.2 per 100,000 inhabitants, according to a data analysis by Diálogos. It was the highest annual rate since before the pandemic.
Following the riots and murders of police officers, the Municipality of Guatemala suspended its neighborhood activities for the day, such as Pasos y Pedales, a Sunday event that closes boulevards to traffic and attracts thousands of pedestrians and cyclists every week. Arévalo also canceled school classes nationwide for Monday, May 19, and declared three days of national mourning.
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“I see a prison system run by the leaders of Guatemala’s traditional criminal structures, who have been empowered by the state’s neglect over several administrations,” said Stu Velasco, former deputy director of criminal investigation for the police, on the radio program ConCriterio. He attributed the prison violence to a “drug trafficking war and various other crimes that are very profitable in Guatemalan territory.”
Amid the attacks, political opponents, such as the Foundation Against Terrorism, called for Arévalo’s resignation on Sunday. Multiple presidential contenders also took a stance: conservative Zury Ríos supported the use of “legitimate force” against gangs, while businessman Carlos Pineda demanded militarization and a “crackdown” on gangs to prevent a “failed state” caused by decisions made by “the political administration.” Sandra Torres pressed for a state of exception in the afternoon, accusing Arévalo of “passivity,” but deleted the tweet after the decree was announced.
The ruling party accuses its enemies of conspiring with the gangs. Arévalo points to “destabilizing political structures” as orchestrating the 18th Street attack. “The torres [towers] of corruption and impunity that have sustained organized crime for decades are falling,” he added. In Congress, Representative Pérez, of Raíces, condemned Attorney General Consuelo Porras for not “including the crime of murder against the terrorists who killed the police officers” and for authorizing telework for its employees on Monday. He also accused the UNE party, led by Sandra Torres, of being “the true leaders of this terrorist structure.”
Pérez claims that Torres has sued him for defamation, along with his colleague Andrea Villagrán, for stating that the former candidate has family ties to 18th Street. Among those arrested is Aldo Dupié Ochoa Mejía, alias “El Lobo,” the visible face and historic leader of 18th Street, whom authorities accuse of coordinating the three riots over the weekend. According to Guatemalan outlets such as eP Investiga, Lobo is married to Sandra Torres' niece, María Marta Castañeda Torres. Castañeda was implicated in the 2016 murder of former military officer Byron Lima, who had taken control of the prisons where he was being held in a battle against 18th Street within the prison system.
“Even though we Guatemalans are dying, many of us of all political stripes maintain political rivalry and ideological struggle to take advantage of a crisis of this magnitude [and] continue our war of interests,” lamented Commissioner Velasco.
A prison crisis
For the government, prisons have been a major focus of confrontation with gangs. Early last year, the government began a series of prisoner transfers in a campaign to fragment gang leaderships across different facilities. In Escuintla, they remodeled the El Infiernito prison and inaugurated it in November 2024 as the Renovación I Maximum Security Detention Center. In July 2025, a dozen leaders of 18th Street and MS-13 were moved to Renovación I. That prison was one of three facilities where 18th Street launched its riots this weekend.
The takeover of prisons by gangs has become a recurring theme under the Arévalo administration. Between June and August of last year alone, gangs launched seven riots, establishing a practice of taking guards hostage. They killed a police officer during the same period. Months after Renovación I reopened, gang members destroyed the camera circuit, according to Prensa Libre.
But the depth of the crisis was revealed in October, forcing the resignation of Interior Minister Francisco Jiménez. Former prosecutor Juan Francisco Solórzano Foppa revealed on social media that 20 leaders of 18th Street had escaped from Fraijanes II two months earlier, without the government saying anything publicly. Foppa also accused police and prison leaders of helping them escape. As of last week, at least 13 of these leaders were still at large, despite a reward of three million quetzals —about $391,000— for information leading to their recapture.
In his place, Arévalo appointed Marco Antonio Villeda, a prominent anti-mafia judge and High Risk Appeals Court magistrate. The Supreme Court of Justice allowed him to take a leave of absence from the judiciary until the end of April to head the Interior Ministry; Villeda said this week that he will request an extension.
Regional crackdown
In recent months, the crackdown on Central American gangs has dominated regional discourse. In November last year, Arévalo signed the Anti-Gang Law, increasing penalties for extortion, recruitment of minors, and usury, and designating 18th Street and the Mara Salvatrucha-13 as terrorist organizations. Guatemala is now the third country currently under a state of exception in Central America, after El Salvador and Honduras.
Since early 2025, the governments of Arévalo and Donald Trump have established a collaborative relationship. On Monday afternoon, the U.S. Embassy condemned the weekend attacks. “These terrorists, those who cooperate with them or are linked to them, have no place in our hemisphere,” they wrote. “We reaffirm our support for Guatemala’s security forces to curb the violence,” they added.
In September 2025, the Trump administration added 18th Street to its list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO), which had already included MS-13 since January. In November, members of the Vulcan Joint Task Force, a Justice Department initiative to destroy gangs in U.S. courts, arrived in Guatemala.
It was a sign of shifting priorities in Washington: At the same time, the Trump administration obstructed the trial in New York against Salvadoran MS-13 leaders, at the request of Nayib Bukele, to dismiss charges and annul cooperation agreements with key witnesses, discarding years of Vulcan’s work.
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Faced with overcrowding in Guatemalan prisons, Arévalo has proposed building a “mega-prison” in Izabal exclusively for gang members, prompting comparisons with the Terrorist Confinement Center (CECOT) in El Salvador. He has commissioned the project to the Army Corps of Engineers, with a “first phase” of construction that will cost 450 million quetzals ($58.7 million). He promised to inaugurate it in October of this year, but the Constitutional Court suspended the entry into force of the national budget in December, citing irregularities in its approval that have not yet been corrected.
Meanwhile, pressure is mounting on Arévalo, who promised to respect human rights, to implement a heavy-handed approach like Bukele in El Salvador. On Saturday, one day before the riots, Bukele posted on his X account: “You can’t fix crime with education and opportunities. Criminals can only be stopped with force.” Elon Musk, owner of the platform and a former Trump administration official, responded: “It’s true.”