The antimigrant discourse of the US President, Donald Trump, the increase of raids in workplaces in the United States and the hardening of protocols against undocumented migrants, have caused the panorama for these people to become tense between two realities: to be in a place where the measures against them harden or return to the country that saw them were born and where they were born and where they were born.
In three years (2022-2024) 250 thousand 681 Guatemalans were deported according to figures from the Guatemalan Migration Institute. All of them traveled with a dream like Álvaro Mejía, 54, who, after 16 years of residing in the United States, was arrested during a raid at his workplace and narrated how his process was, since he decided to migrate, until he found a second chance in Guatemala.
Mejía Migró leaving his wife and five -year -old daughter in Guatemala when the problems that afflict thousands of Guatemalans such as the lack of opportunities, economic problems, diseases and hopelessness touched their door. He undertook his journey irregularly, passed through Rio Bravo and arrived in the country in which he thought he would achieve his purpose: build a house for his wife and daughter. He served in several works from agriculture, to the cleaning of streets obstructed by snow and managed to improve his family’s quality of life in Guatemala.
Falls into a raid
One day, like any other, he was in his work without major setbacks when he was surprised by a police operation of which, not having papers and permits, he went straight to a police station where he would start his entire process. After 11 years in the United States he believed that he could defend his case in Cortes and opt for a residence, but it was not. “Trying to fight for that brought me many headaches,” he emphasized.
After two and a half years in a federal prison he managed to take his case before a judge who heard how he had managed to enter the United States irregularly and said: “The United States is a private country and has rules and borders and today they face Álvaro Agustín and the United States to see who wins”, words that made Don Álvar design to fight for his residence. He requested to initiate his deportation process without knowing that he would take two more years. Before leaving the court they made him sign his voluntary deportation, he got up and headed to the door when the judge called him by name and said “if in a time I see him again in this court, I will take care of giving him 15 years in prison”, and left.
He returned to a prison where he waited 13 months to be deported. “In that place there was no recreation, we could only be in our bed seeing the days and nights spend, waiting for us to call us. For breakfast they only gave us a sandwich, two tablespoons of ground meat with an tortilla at lunch and another sandwich for dinner, ”he recalls.
The day comes
Before undertaking the return to Guatemala, they call him to practice the Covid19 test, since his return was in 2021 pandemic period, and that meant that the next day he would climb to the plane back with his family after 16 years of being separated. “They took my clothes in case I wore numbers scored from the other migrants so that I could not make favors and chained me from my waist, hands and feet and headed to the plane,” he said.
At that time the emotion invaded him and began to see how women and children appear in the same chain conditions as him, a situation that marked him. “There was a 9 or 10 -year -old girl, an innocent girl and was chained and deported and that hit my heart thinking that that innocent girl could have been my daughter,” he has tears in his eyes. At the beginning of Guatemalan soil, the guards who guarded the returnees began to take away their chains. “They begin to remove my chains, they notify us that we are arriving at Guatemalan soil, the national anthem begins to sound and the tears are drained, I am free in Guatemala,” he says.
Then, he descends from the plane and between the emotion of the reunion with his family also begins the concern of now, what he will do to maintain it, a thought that disturbed him every day during the five and a half years that passed in prison time during which he stopped providing what is necessary and that therefore survived what his relatives gave him.
He arrives and reunites with his wife and see that daughter who left five years and found her 21 years old, between tears, hugs and smiles were finally together.
“I come and meet a wife who is sick and without a job and with a daughter who is studying,” he recalled with anguish. During the first two weeks in Guatemala, the three made a single food time that consisted of a dish for three people. To have resources, he tried to be hired in a winery, but being a work of force and because of his age he could not opt and thus suffered several failures.
Hope is born
After his various failed attempts, non -governmental organizations that help migrants told him to undertake, however, he did not know what. One day a relative gave him a putting chicken and, as a family, they occurred to them to put a farm of laying hens and fattening chickens. “We started and an NGO gave us an incubator, at the beginning we managed to do some capital and we bought more chickens and out of nowhere one became ill and many died; They told me: Don Álvaro needs help, buy 10 chickens and die 15, ”he recalls with a smile.
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After the support and accompaniment of several NGOs, Álvaro could, next to his family, have a farm with more than one thousand laying hens and fattening chickens, cows, goats and fish of which he now lives. The production of the farm allows you to sell eggs, chickens, goat lactes and cow and fish. In addition, he made their farm self -sustainable, they themselves make the concentrate of their animals and managed to create a small company that now gives work to three people.
Providing opportunities is a dream come true to Álvaro Mejía, who seeks that no person he can help, lives what he had to experience.
Collin Banning, an expert in sustainable entrepreneurship and director of the SwissContact organization points out that it is important that on his return, the deported migrant has “an integral approach” that includes opportunities, management of personal and family finance and psychological support so that they do not perform bad practices that lead them to try to migrate again.
Finally, Álvaro Mejía offers a message of hope to all the Guatemalans returned: “If I succeeded you can also achieve it, if we work here what we work there, we go ahead in our country, where there are those who love us most who we love most,” he said.