Carlos Navarro was recently eating outside a restaurant in Virginia when immigration officials arrested him and said he was ordered to be removed from the country.
He had never been in contact with the law, said the 32-year-old Mr. Navarro, adding that he worked in poultry farms.
“Absolutely nothing.”
Last week, he returned to Guatemala for the first time in 11 years, calling his wife in the United States from a deportee reception center in the capital, Guatemala City.
The experience of Mr. Navarro may be a preview of the kind of fast-track deportations under President Trump to communities around the United States that are home to as many as 14 million unauthorized immigrants.
The administration, which has promised the largest deportations in American history, is said to begin them on Tuesday. In his opening speech on Monday, Mr. Trump promised to “begin the process of returning millions of criminal aliens to the places they came from.”
The condition of Mr. Navarro provides a look at what mass deportations could mean in Latin American countries at the other end of the deportation pipeline.
Officials there are preparing to welcome significant numbers of their citizens, although several governments have said they have been unable to meet with the incoming administration about the deportation push.
Guatemala, a small, impoverished nation wracked by a violent 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 makes 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 are also changing life outside the United States.
Last year, Guatemala received about seven deportation flights a week from the United States, according to immigration officials, which translates to about 1,000 people. The administration has told US officials it can accommodate a maximum of 20 such flights a week, or about 2,500 people, the officials said.
At the same time, the Guatemalan government has developed a plan — which President Bernardo Arévalo has referred to as “Returning Home” — to assure Guatemalans facing deportation that they can expect help from consulates in the United States — and, if detained and removal — a “dignified reception.”
“We know they are worried,” said Carlos Ramiro Martínez, the foreign minister. “They live in immense 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, shared at a meeting of foreign ministers from the region in Mexico City last week, goes beyond immediate concerns shared by many governments in the region — such as how deportees will be housed or fed on their first night.
It also examines how to reintegrate Guatemalan deportees back into society.
The project, 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.
In practical terms, it means that when deportees get off the plane, government officials will interview them extensively to get a detailed picture of those returning to the country, the help they need and the kind of work they might be able to do.
Experts say Guatemala’s plan appears to reflect an unspoken expectation on the part of the Trump administration that Latin American governments not only welcome their deported citizens — but also work to prevent them from returning to the United States.
Historically, many people sent back to their home countries have turned around and tried to return, “even under extreme circumstances,” said Felipe González Morales, who served as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants.
According to the US Department of Homeland Security, about 40 percent of deportations in 2020 involved people who had previously been deported and re-entered the country.
The dynamic has for years been “basically a revolving door,” said Mr. Martinez, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Guatemala, in an interview.
Mr. Trump aims to change that.
“When the entire world watches President Trump and his administration mass-deport illegal criminals from American communities back to their homelands,” Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s transition spokeswoman, said in an email, “it will send a very strong message not to come to America unless you plan to do so immediately or they will send you home.’
Already, the number of illegal U.S. border crossings has fallen sharply, with about 46,000 people trying to cross in November, according to the U.S. government, the lowest monthly number during the Biden administration.
The Trump administration is expected to pressure governments in Latin America to continue supporting immigration crackdowns.
But Guatemala’s plan to reintegrate deportees isn’t just a way to show Mr. Trump that Guatemala is cooperating, according to Anita Isaacs, a Guatemala expert who drafted the plan.
Ms. Isaacs said of the deportees, “if you can find a way to integrate them and utilize their skills, then the opportunities for Guatemala are enormous.”
Until now, he said, deportees getting off a plane in Guatemala City mostly had some basics, such as new identification documents, toiletries and a ride to a shelter or the central bus terminal.
Instead, he suggested, Guatemala could embrace its newly returned citizens as an economic asset, including in its tourism sector.
As an example, he pointed to the case of hundreds of Guatemalans deported after a 2008 ICE raid on an Iowa meatpacking plant who had become volcano drivers.
However, there are major challenges in encouraging deportees to remain in their home country.
The forces that drove them to leave in the first place are still there, said Alfredo Danilo Rivera, Guatemala’s immigration director: dire poverty and a lack of jobs, extreme weather exacerbated by climate change, the threat of gangs and organized crime .
Next is the draw of the United States, where not only are there more jobs, but workers are paid in dollars.
“If we’re going to talk about why people migrate, the causes, we also have to talk about the fact that they settle there and many manage to succeed,” said Mr. Rivera.
Deportees also feel more pressure to get to the United States than first-time immigrants, said the Rev. Francisco Pellizzari, director of Casa del Migrante, the main shelter for deportees in Guatemala City.
They often owe thousands of dollars to smugglers, and in rural Guatemala, the poor often surrender titles to their homes or land as collateral for loans to pay the smugglers, effectively leaving them homeless if they are deported.
“They can’t go back anymore,” Father Pellizzari said.
Tougher measures imposed by the Biden administration at the border have also led smugglers, aware of the increased risk of deportation, to offer migrants up to three chances to enter the United States for one try, according to Father Pellizzari and others. .
José Manuel Jochola, 18, who was deported to Guatemala last week after being arrested for illegally crossing the border into Texas, said he had three months to use his remaining chances. “I’ll try again,” he said, though he would wait to see what Mr. Trump.
The desire to return to the United States after deportation is particularly strong among those whose families are there.
Mr. Navarro, the man recently deported from Virginia, said he was undaunted by the crackdown on Mr. Trump. “I have to go back, for my son, for my wife,” he said.
A woman who was on the deportation flight of Mr. Navarro, 20-year-old Neida Vásquez Esquivel, said it was the fourth time she had been deported while trying to reach her parents in New Jersey. Another attempt is not excluded, he said.
But some deportees say the biggest appeal of staying in Guatemala is that, for now, the alternative no longer looks so good.
After Jose Moreno, 26, was deported last week after a drunk-driving accident, he decided not to try to return to Boston, where he spent a decade, because of the dangers of crossing the border and the new president’s attitude against immigrants.
Instead, he said, he would use his English to offer tours of Petén, an area in Guatemala with a scenic lake and Mayan ruins where his family runs a small hotel.
“My parents are here, I have everything here,” he said. “Why should I go back?”
Jody Garcia contributed to the report from Guatemala City and Miriam Jordan from Los Angeles.
