Guatemalans risk everything for shot at crossing into U.S.

Alvina Jeronimo Perez and her husband, Anibal Garcia, peel beans that they grew themselves to cook an early lunch in December at their home in Tizamarte, Guatemala. Jeronimo made a failed attempt to migrate last year to the U.S. in part to pay off a loan for the addition to their single-story concrete block house, which Garcia built on land passed down from Perez's great-grandparents.
(AP/Moises Castillo)
Alvina Jeronimo Perez and her husband, Anibal Garcia, peel beans that they grew themselves to cook an early lunch in December at their home in Tizamarte, Guatemala. Jeronimo made a failed attempt to migrate last year to the U.S. in part to pay off a loan for the addition to their single-story concrete block house, which Garcia built on land passed down from Perez's great-grandparents. (AP/Moises Castillo)

TIZAMARTE, Guatemala -- Alvina Jeronimo Perez tries to avoid going out. She doesn't want to see neighbors. She's even changed the chip in her cellphone since her failed journey to the U.S.

The 42-year-old woman is fearful her unsuccessful migration could cost her everything -- even the single-story concrete block house her husband built on land passed down from her great-grandparents in this mountaintop hamlet in south-central Guatemala.

Her husband, Anibal Garcia, recently added another room onto the back. The family borrowed money to pay for the addition and was having trouble paying. Jeronimo thought she might be able to find the money if she migrated.

From afar, it seemed a safe bet. Many others in town, even in her own family, had made similar journeys. "Since people were passing [the border], we thought they were going to let us pass," Jeronimo said.

The smuggler told her to bring her daughter to make it a sure thing, banking on the idea U.S. authorities wouldn't deport a minor or her parent.

He promised her a job in the U.S. that would allow her to pay her debt.

So she put the house up as collateral to pay the smuggler $7,700. "The deal was that when we had arrived there, we were going to pay that money and they would return [the deed], but it wasn't possible," she said.

In March 2020, she and her daughter Yessenia, then 14, left Tizamarte. Three weeks later they were caught entering Texas. They were deported a week after that.

When Jeronimo realized they would be sent back, she cried. "I thought of everything the trip had cost me. I asked myself 'What am I going to do?' I've lost everything."

Jeronimo's story is similar to that of thousands of Guatemalans who scramble to gather the money needed to migrate to the United States. Often it comes from relatives already living in the U.S. or networks of informal lenders. Sometimes migrants must sell their possessions, including their homes, or like Jeronimo, use the deeds as collateral. They are driven by the chance of breaking the cycle of poverty that affects 60% of the country's population.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported more than 30,000 encounters with Guatemalan migrants at the Southwest border this April.

President Joe Biden put Vice President Kamala Harris in charge of finding ways to address the root causes of migration, and Harris was scheduled to arrive in Guatemala on Sunday.

She has been talking with officials and nongovernmental groups about the forces at play, including poverty, corruption, violence and climate change.

The Biden administration fears that an unmanageable number of migrants, especially children and families at the southwest border, will distract from its domestic policy goals even as it tries to present a more compassionate face than its predecessor.

Jeronimo is among more than 228,000 Guatemalans deported by the U.S. since 2015. They were sent home with the stigma of failure and staggering debts that can't be paid in a country where the minimum wage is about $11 per day.

She, like many others, sees no way out but to try again.

For three weeks mother and daughter walked, rode on buses and in cars. Jeronimo says she doesn't recall the details of their route, but also clearly did not want to share them.

At the Mexico-U.S. border -- Jeronimo says she doesn't remember what part -- they spent days locked inside a safe house before crossing into Texas, only to be apprehended hours after entering the U.S.

The U.S. Border Patrol held them together for seven days and put them on a plane back to Guatemala City. It was the first time Jeronimo set foot in her country's capital.

Jeronimo said neither she nor her daughter were tested for covid after being detained or flown back -- something that led to widespread complaints against the President Donald Trump administration's deportation flights during the pandemic.

Guatemala's health minister said in April 2020 -- the same month Jeronimo and her daughter were deported -- that deportees from the United States were driving up the country's covid-19 caseload, adding that on one flight some 75% of the deportees tested positive for the virus.

Smugglers in recent years have promised would-be migrants three tries at successfully crossing the U.S. border -- an acknowledgment that it's a large investment that doesn't always pan out.

But Jeronimo had hired the smuggler through an intermediary -- a neighbor-- who apparently pocketed a significant portion of the fee, according to Jeronimo. So the smuggler refused to take her again.

That neighbor also had arranged a loan for Jeronimo -- turning to a migrant living in the U.S. and his father, who lives in a town not far away.

Those lenders call and send text messages from time to time asking when she will pay. The first deadline was last October and Jeronimo asked for more time. The threats of seizing her house then became so frequent that Jeronimo changed the chip in her phone.

The anxiety of potentially losing the house affects Yessenia as well. The teenager says she's willing to take the risk of trying on her own to return to the U.S.

Yessenia's parents disagree. If there's a way, even if it means risking more debt, Jeronimo said she herself will go.

"That is what makes you desperate enough to migrate," she said. "It's pure necessity."

This story was supported by The International Women's Media Foundation.

Volunteer Santiago Sanchez, right, measures a baby's weight alongside the girl's mother at a health center in Cachoche village near Tizamarte, Guatemala, Thursday, Dec. 10, 2020.  A nurse vaccinates and measures babies and spots the effects of malnutrition at this community center where there is no running water. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)
Volunteer Santiago Sanchez, right, measures a baby's weight alongside the girl's mother at a health center in Cachoche village near Tizamarte, Guatemala, Thursday, Dec. 10, 2020. A nurse vaccinates and measures babies and spots the effects of malnutrition at this community center where there is no running water. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)
Alvina Jeronimo Perez kisses her grandson Wilman as they accompany Wilman's mother, Jeronimo's daughter, while she works harvesting coffee on someone else's farm near Tizamarte, Guatemala, Wednesday, Dec. 9, 2020. Eight months after arriving in the U.S., Wilman's father sent the boy back to his mother on a commercial flight and sends his wife $125 each month to support their three children. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)
Alvina Jeronimo Perez kisses her grandson Wilman as they accompany Wilman's mother, Jeronimo's daughter, while she works harvesting coffee on someone else's farm near Tizamarte, Guatemala, Wednesday, Dec. 9, 2020. Eight months after arriving in the U.S., Wilman's father sent the boy back to his mother on a commercial flight and sends his wife $125 each month to support their three children. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)
Homes line the road on top of a mountain in Tizamarte, Guatemala, Tuesday, March 16, 2021. A five-hour drive from Guatemala’s capital, Tizamarte is in the so-called “dry corridor,” a swath of land extending from southern Mexico to Panama where climate change has evolved into an endless series of punishing droughts and devastating tropical storms. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)
Homes line the road on top of a mountain in Tizamarte, Guatemala, Tuesday, March 16, 2021. A five-hour drive from Guatemala’s capital, Tizamarte is in the so-called “dry corridor,” a swath of land extending from southern Mexico to Panama where climate change has evolved into an endless series of punishing droughts and devastating tropical storms. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)
A boy helps his family carry home food that, before the COVID-19 lockdown closed schools, was fed to students as they leave the school in Tizamarte, Wednesday, Dec. 9, 2020. Average monthly earnings here are less than the cost of the basket of basic goods. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)
A boy helps his family carry home food that, before the COVID-19 lockdown closed schools, was fed to students as they leave the school in Tizamarte, Wednesday, Dec. 9, 2020. Average monthly earnings here are less than the cost of the basket of basic goods. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)
Delmi Jeronimo, the niece of Alvina Jeronimo Perez, sits in Jeronimo's kitchen before breakfast in Tizamarte, Guatemala, Friday, Dec. 11, 2020. In the dry winter months, the house is dark and cold seeps through the corrugated tin roof. In the rainy season, it is hot and stifling. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)
Delmi Jeronimo, the niece of Alvina Jeronimo Perez, sits in Jeronimo's kitchen before breakfast in Tizamarte, Guatemala, Friday, Dec. 11, 2020. In the dry winter months, the house is dark and cold seeps through the corrugated tin roof. In the rainy season, it is hot and stifling. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)
People ride on a temporary replacement bridge across the Jupilingo River to Tizamarte, Guatemala, Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2020, after the river overflowed during Hurricane Eta. President Joe Biden put Vice President Kamala Harris in charge of finding ways to address the root causes of migration,  including poverty, corruption, violence and climate change. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)
People ride on a temporary replacement bridge across the Jupilingo River to Tizamarte, Guatemala, Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2020, after the river overflowed during Hurricane Eta. President Joe Biden put Vice President Kamala Harris in charge of finding ways to address the root causes of migration, including poverty, corruption, violence and climate change. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)
Alvina Jeronimo Perez poses for a photo with her teenage daughter Yessenia in Tizamarte, Guatemala, Wednesday, March 17, 2021. The pair took a failed trip to the U.S. in March 2020 and returned in debt. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)
Alvina Jeronimo Perez poses for a photo with her teenage daughter Yessenia in Tizamarte, Guatemala, Wednesday, March 17, 2021. The pair took a failed trip to the U.S. in March 2020 and returned in debt. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)
Men play soccer at the end of their workday picking coffee in Tizamarte, Guatemala, Wednesday, March 17, 2021. Residents eke out a living with subsistence agriculture to feed their families and harvesting coffee for their cash needs from school fees to medicine. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)
Men play soccer at the end of their workday picking coffee in Tizamarte, Guatemala, Wednesday, March 17, 2021. Residents eke out a living with subsistence agriculture to feed their families and harvesting coffee for their cash needs from school fees to medicine. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

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