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News > Latin America

Record Number Of Honduran Deportees Return Home

  • Douglas Almendarez, 37, a deportee from the U.S. who was separated from his son Eduardo Almendarez, 11, at the Rio Grande entry point speaks next to his wife Evelin Meyer, and Marcela, 9, his daughter, in Olancho state Honduras July 14, 2018

    Douglas Almendarez, 37, a deportee from the U.S. who was separated from his son Eduardo Almendarez, 11, at the Rio Grande entry point speaks next to his wife Evelin Meyer, and Marcela, 9, his daughter, in Olancho state Honduras July 14, 2018 | Photo: Reuters

Published 1 August 2018
Opinion

The number of Honduran deportees returned from the US and Mexico jumped by over 15,000 in the first seven months of 2018, compared to last year.

A new report shows that Hondurans are being deported from the US and Mexico at the highest rates since 2015.

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The Consular and Immigration Observatory of Honduras (Conmigoh) released a report indicating that there’s a 55.9 percent increase in the number of returned deportees to the country during the first seven months of 2018 compared to 2017.

Between January and July of this year, 42,636 Hondurans were deported back to their home country by US or Mexican authorities, up from 27,355 at the same time last year. Also, the number of deportees coming back from these two countries rose by nearly 2,000 from 4,255 in January to 6,065 in July.

On average 60,000 Hondurans per year cross into Mexico, of them about 36,000 (60 percent) suffer some type of violence, and at least 200 die en route to the US, according to the Honduran embassy in Mexico, says La Prensa.

Mercedes Perez, Manager of Social Action Commission Mennonite's (CASM) Migration Program that helps returned deportees resettle to the city of San Pedro Sula, tells TeleSUR that of the hundreds of deportees her office tries to help, about half of them reattempt the trip north shortly after returning to Honduras.

She says that the majority are trying to flee the violence of gangs at home, but others want to escape the poverty of Honduras. As of 2016, the World Bank reports, just under 60 percent of the country's citizens live in poverty. 

In early July Honduran first lady, Ana Garcia Carias pleaded to Hondurans not to leave the country for the U.S.,  pledging that the government was going to look for "solutions" to support them. However, Perez says it's the non-profit organizations like her that are doing the greatest amount of work to help returned deportees find jobs and a new life at home. The government is doing very little to help returned deportees, says Perez. She adds that her organizations and others like it are trying to fill the void the state is leaving behind.

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