GUATEMALA: U.S.-born children struggle to adapt to rural life in impoverished Guatemala after their parents are deported by American immigration officials

Record ID: 348515

  • Title: GUATEMALA: U.S.-born children struggle to adapt to rural life in impoverished Guatemala after their parents are deported by American immigration officials
  • Date: 3rd May 2012
  • Summary: FAMILY SHOWING OFF PHOTOS
  • Embargoed: 18th May 2012 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Guatemala
  • Country: Guatemala
  • Topics: International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVA1CHT829PDPAFE0JEU7A1FX7T9
  • Story Text: Nestled amongst Guatemala's mountains, the impoverished town of San Jose Calderas has seen an influx of U.S. citizens descend on the small community in recent years. An unlikely destination for international visitors, the new locals are the American-born children of illegal immigrants deported from the United States.
    More than a dozen children - reportedly born in United States - came to live in Calderas after immigration officials raided a factory in Iowa in 2008 and deported nearly 300 Guatemalans. With sons and daughters left with no choice but to follow their parents back to their poverty-stricken home town, returning families are left with little more than just fond memories of their time in America.
    Fidelino Gomez is one of the hundreds of Guatemalan's forced to return home with four of his U.S.-born children.
    "In the beginning it was all beautiful, arriving in the United States and not going through what we went through here. Here there is no work and because of this we think about returning (to the U.S.) but its up to God if one day we'll return," said deported immigrant, Fidelino Gomez.
    With little financial prospects in the rural town and work scarce in the region, the young family is struggling to makemeet with as little as $13 U.S. dollars.
    "What I earned (in the United States), just me, was $380 to $420 and he earned $450 or $480 and so there we could buy food, clothes and what we needed. Upon arriving here, for many weeks he (husband) has earned 100 quetzals (approximately $13 U.S.) or two hundred quetzals (approximately $25 U.S.) which does not last for anything," said deported immigrant, Maria Velazquez.
    The four-thousand strong poverty-stricken town suffers from poor infrastructure with many local families barely surviving on subsistence farming and irregular casual work.
    Another immigrant deported back to Calderas, Lorena Adelso, told Reuters her two American-born children sometimes have to go without food.
    "I like the United States more. I like it more because the life is different and there is a better future for your children because here sometimes there is no bread or anything to give to them," she said.
    Officials at Guatemala's National Migrants Council visit the returning residents to offer assistance for the struggling families as they adjust back to a life of poverty.
    Migrant worker Claro Gordillo said many families are hopeful the American passports of their children will see their sons and daughters return to the United States for a better future.
    "Now the hope is that those children that were born in the United States reach adulthood and return (to the United States) or if they have family in the United States they could go with them. This is what their parents hope because they can't go with their children because they are living very difficult circumstances," she said.
    Living in a state of limbo, the U.S.-born children forced to follow their deported families back struggle for the basic schooling and living essentials that their American friends back home take for granted.
    "We sleep on the floor, we don't have anything to eat, sometimes we eat sometimes no. Me and my brother were sad for my mum to come here once more," said U.S. citizen Isebela Catalan.
    Unlike other children living in the town and often with limited Spanish language skills, the executive secretary of Guatemala's National Migrants Council, Alejandra Gordillo, said adjusting to rural poverty in Guatemala is a difficult experience for the minors.
    "It's a very strong cultural clash, trying to fit in in a society where the majority of times they are rejected for being different or having different customs and vice versa this happens when the children return. Many times they were born there or grew up there and they already have a different vision and culture," she said.
    Roughly 12 million illegal immigrants live and work in the shadows in the United States, around two million of them from poverty-hit and disaster-prone countries in Central America.
    In recent years, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has sent home thousands of Guatemalans. Still scarred by a 36-year civil war which ended in 1996, Guatemala is ill-equipped to deal with large numbers of returning citizens, jobless, to a shaky economy.
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