<p>In Guatemala City, Trump’s deportees are in tears, disoriented, or greeted by sobbing relatives. People who, in the trite world of simplistic metaphors, had a dream that they called American. When they leave that place, that dream, if it was one, is over.</p>
11-66 Hincapié Avenue in Guatemala City is a very sad place. Those who leave are in tears or have just stopped crying, are looking around disoriented, or are greeted by relatives who also break into sobs when they see them.
They were all people who, in the trite world of simplistic metaphors, had a dream that they called American. When they leave that place at 11-66 Hincapié Avenue, that dream, if it was one, is over.
With an average of three flights per day, from the inauguration of President Donald Trump through October 15, 398 planes from Global X and Eastern Air Express landed at La Aurora International Airport carrying 34,539 deportees. In his last 10 months as president in 2024, Joe Biden deported 53,701 migrants by air, almost 20,000 more than Trump. It would seem that the current president who waves deportations as a banner is not making good on his threat, but experts on the subject point out that there may be another reason: Due to the terror he has instilled in the migrant world with his rhetoric, attempts to enter the United States have dropped dramatically, and therefore there are fewer people detained at the border and thus far fewer deportees, despite the more publicly abrasive raids taking place in schools or U.S. immigration courts.
Most of those deported are people who had been living in the United States for years and were detained on their way to work or returning from a long day at a restaurant or construction company, and those people, fewer and farther between, who were detained by Border Patrol while crossing from Mexico.
But the numbers are cold until you catch a glimpse of faces passing distressed and disoriented through the main gate of 11-66 Hincapié Avenue. That’s where the Reception Center for Returnees in Zone 13 of Guatemala City is located. Those raw numbers become flesh and blood, real names, separated families.
Every time a plane lands, the protocol is the same: An immigration official welcomes them in a room that can hold about 200 people and offers them a “desayuno chapín” —a simple, classic Guatemalan breakfast at least carrying eggs and beans—, coffee, and water. They tout job opportunities and speak of how wonderful Guatemala can be. On the receiving end, the newly deported listen to this speech, which sounds like a self-help sermon. Most of them are dark brown-skinned men who fled poverty and unemployment. Many have Indigenous surnames that the immigration officer has difficulty pronouncing.
According to data from the Guatemalan Migration Institute, most of the deportees are from the western border departments of Huehuetenango, San Marcos, and Quiché.
Beyond the gate is a palpable uncertainty among those left waiting: families who keep watch until each plane lands. Many travel for up to eight hours, leaving at midnight from remote municipalities such as San Juan Ixcoy, 270 kilometers from the capital, in the department of Huehuetenango. Such is the case of Vidalina Mendoza, a Maya Q’anjob’al woman who arrived at 11-66 Hincapié Avenue on October 15 to wait for her 28-year-old daughter Rosa. But she didn’t arrive on any of the three flights that day. Uncertainty reigns among those who, once in Guatemala, find no-one waiting for them. They fire off urgent calls to their relatives in the United States, asking if they have any relative in Guatemala who can take them in. Some get a response from the North; others will have to head for a shelter in Zone 5.
Some men resign themselves to contemplating robbery: “There are no opportunities here; all that’s left is to go steal.” Others, with their savings, plan to start businesses in their villages: “Until Trump leaves, we’re not going back to that country,” says one. Others will try to return to the United States weeks after being deported. Others just remain silent. 11-66 Hincapié Avenue in Guatemala City is a sad place indeed.
Surprised by a Guatemalan military exercise flying overhead, a group of deportees looks out toward the runway at La Aurora International Airport. In the center, without the classic uniform of a U.S. detention center with which they are usually deported, Juan Bernardino, 29, also watches the military. Juan, who worked at a car wash, was arrested on October 1, 2025, during an ICE raid in Chicago and deported to Guatemala nine days later. “On the day of my arrest, they also caught several colleagues, but they were from other countries. They spoke to us in English, and we didn’t understand anything until other agents called our families to let them know the day we would be deported,” he said as he left the center.On the morning of October 15, 2025, Raúl Ramos slept on the metal bench in front of the Reception Center for Returnees. He had slept little, anxious to welcome his daughter Berta and exhausted from a journey that had begun at midnight in San Marcos, in western Guatemala, and ended at 6 a.m. Four years ago, he paid $12,000 for a coyote to take his daughter to the United States. His daughter, now 24, worked cleaning a restaurant in Dallas, earning $10 an hour. She lived with her older brother and, according to Raúl, he will use the money she saved to return to Dallas.Many of those deported were returning home from work when ICE agents got out of a van, spoke to them in English, and did not give them time to say goodbye to their families or change their clothes. They landed in Guatemala with their pants and shirts still covered in paint from that last 14-hour workday. Before that, they spent about ten days in U.S. detention centers, wearing the same clothes and shoes. Cell phones, wallets, and documents were confiscated and returned upon landing in Guatemala.
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Upon landing in Guatemala, Alicia Hernández was struck by the reality faced by hundreds of deportees who migrated in recent decades. She learned that no-one was waiting for her, that she had no family left in Guatemala to welcome her. She cried and, in desperation, made one last call to her relatives in the United States to see if they knew anyone who could take her in. The response wasn’t encouraging. No-one had a relative left in the country, but they said they would let her know if they found any friends. That day, Alicia checked into a migrant shelter in Zone 5 crossing her fingers for a sympathetic ear.“What’s your full name and date of birth?” asks the immigration officer. “Marcos Ajcabal. I was born on May 15, 1984.” “When did you leave for the United States?” “I don’t remember the date I left, but I think it was between June and July 2013. I was there for about 12 years.” “Do you have an ID?” “No, ICE took it away from me and didn’t give it back.” The conversation ends. Immigration officials ask all deportees the same questions. Most don’t remember the date they left Guatemala. Many of them made the journey by land to the United States when they were children or teenagers, returning as adults with no relatives to welcome them back to the country.“Welcome, your country is here to receive you. We know you want some warm tortillas with a desayuno chapín. You will also have the opportunity to share your personal information with us so that you can apply for job opportunities,” an employee of the Guatemalan Migration Institute tells 165 deportees who arrived on a Global X airline flight on October 10, 2025. The deportees returned to the country they fled for lack of opportunities. At the end of 2024, according to the National Institute of Statistics, the average salary in Guatemala was 2,538 quetzales, just over $330 dollars per month. Informal work accounts for 67.9 percent of the national workforce.First in line is Ronald Martínez, 27, originally from Escuintla. He was deported after working for seven years in construction companies in Orlando, Florida. He was arrested at his job, his cell phone was taken away, and he was unable to notify his family in Guatemala that he was going to be deported. “I’m not going back to that country until Trump is out. The situation is really bad,” he said before taking a taxi and venturing out to find his family in Escuintla.
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Marta Cortez was deported after living in the United States for 20 years. In Guatemala, she was welcomed by her brother Héctor, who had not seen her since he was in his twenties. Tears made it impossible for them to have a conversation. “It’s inhumane to deport people who helped build the United States. My sister isn’t a criminal,” said Héctor. Marta spent two months in a detention center in Florida before being deported to Guatemala.Bartolo García, 37, was deported from Chicago. The only belongings he took with him were two gold chains he was wearing on the day of his arrest. He lived in the United States for 17 years and married a Guatemalan woman. His daughters are now teenagers, aged 14 and 16, both U.S. citizens by birth. They will have to travel to Guatemala, as it’s financially unviable for their mother to keep them in Chicago. Bartolo called his wife and advised her to abandon the process to obtain a work permit. “They’re going to arrest her there and deport her. It’s better for them to come to Guatemala and, when my daughters are old enough to work, they can go back,” he said.These are the belongings of 165 people deported on a Global X flight at the Reception Center for Guatemalan Returnees. In the bags —the mere existence of which is a stroke of luck for some deportees— are personal documents, work shoes, cell phones, and clothing. These are the items that people were carrying on the day they were captured by ICE agents.Vidalina Mendoza arrived in Guatemala City with her husband Marcos from San Juan Ixcoy, 328 kilometers away, at the foot of the Cuchumatanes mountains. It was her first time in the city. Their journey began at 11 p.m. on October 14, 2025, and ended at 7 a.m. on the 15th. They arrived hoping to welcome their daughter, who was due to be deported after being captured in Dallas. The hours passed, and Rosa, their daughter, didn’t come out. Desperate, Vidalina tried to find out if her daughter had boarded one of the buses that take deportees to the Zone 5 shelter. After a few minutes, an immigration worker came out to inform them that the daughter of the Maya Q’anjob’al couple wasn’t on the list of people who had arrived that day. Vidalina and Marcos returned to San Juan Ixcoy without their daughter and with a phone number that would notify them when their daughter was deported back to Guatemala.
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Ricardo Yax bawls in despair, grabbing his head. He was deported from the United States after ten years living in Chicago. His bank accounts with part of his savings were left behind. Ricardo and his family are originally from Quetzaltenango, and he doesn’t plan to stay in Guatemala. “For me, there’s no future here in Guatemala. I’m going to rest for a month and, with what I have saved, I’ll head back to the United States,” he said as his mother and brother tried to console him at the exit of the reception center.Migrants are deported on a flight from Harlingen, Texas, before entering the Reception Center for Guatemalan Returnees. Those deported describe the ordeal as inhumane. It all starts with the treatment they receive from ICE agents, who speak to them in English and throw them to the ground to handcuff them. In the final stage of the process, they’re chained by their hands and feet before being put on the plane. The chains are tightened around their wrists and ankles and are only loosed minutes before landing.Most deportees pass by a wall with posters advertising jobs for carpenters, drivers, or waiters. But the jobs are offered by companies in the city, while most of the deportees are from rural areas, more than 300 kilometers and up to eight hours away.On October 15, 2025, a flight carrying 82 deportees from states such as Louisiana and Ohio landed in Guatemala City. Outside the reception center, one of the men who was detained while returning from work took off his work boots with the U.S. flag and left them there. “I don’t want to go back to that country until that president leaves. For me, that dream is over for now,” he said, declining to be identified.
