美国国家公共电台 NPR Despite Dangers, Intimidation, Guatemalans Still Seek A Better Life In U.S.

Despite Dangers, Intimidation 1, Guatemalans Still Seek A Better Life In U.S.

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Despite a crackdown by the Trump 2 administration, there's new data showing the number of Central Americans crossing illegally into the U.S. is on the rise. The administration blames loopholes in immigration law. But as NPR's John Burnett found in Guatemala, it could be because the push factors in Central America are as strong as ever.

JOHN BURNETT, BYLINE 3: Huehuetenango is a province in western Guatemala that borders Mexico. It has spectacular mountain ranges, a large indigenous 4 Maya population that lives in extreme poverty and the distinction of sending more immigrants to the United States than any other place in Guatemala. Our mission is to find out if the White House's immigration policies are making an impact here. Are people so rattled 5 by a president who separates families, denies asylum 6 and jails immigrants that they're staying put? The first challenge is getting to the villages, nestled in cloud forests and river deltas 7.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Despacio, Juan - despacio.

BURNETT: Our SUV creeps around hairpin 8 turns on sheer mountainsides as my passengers good-naturedly ask me to slow down.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Singing) Despacito - muy despacito.

BURNETT: We pass fields of corn stunted 9 by drought, herds 10 of sheep tended by Mayan women and mansions 11, fancy houses with columns and balustrades and spacious 12 balconies, all built with money earned in the United States. Last year, Guatemalans working in the U.S., legally and illegally, sent home $8.5 billion. These castillos, or castles, as they are called, figure prominently in the calculus 13 of why Guatemalans keep coming north.

After three hours on this twisting, tortuous 14 road, we arrive at the village of Mixlaj, where these shining villas 15 stand next to houses of rough planks 16 and dirt floors. We've come here to meet Alejandro Cano, a 22-year-old farmer. He lives in the comfortable home his uncle constructed with money he earned working in the U.S.

ALEJANDRO CANO: (Through interpreter) In Guatemala, you can work very hard but never be able to build a house. It is the dream of every Guatemalan to have a house.

BURNETT: But a day's wage in Huehuetenango tending a cornfield or working on a construction crew is 40 quetzales, equivalent to $5.23. With this income, a family can afford to eat meat maybe once a week. They cannot send their children to school, much less build a dream house with cement blocks and indoor plumbing 17. Cano says, since last spring, 25 families have left the surrounding hills for the U.S.

CANO: (Through interpreter) Everybody knows that President Trump is doing everything to kick all the immigrants out of the U.S. But this doesn't take away our desire to go there. A man knows he can die on the journey, but he goes anyway.

BURNETT: Alex Cano knows the American dream firsthand. He worked as a roofer in Florida, making $120 a day, until he was arrested and deported 18. Today he's the lucky beneficiary of a U.S.-funded program called the Association for Sustainable Development of Youth. It gave him a small grant to take online classes to become a nurse. It's one of several U.S.-funded efforts to discourage illegal immigration from Guatemala. There is no electricity in Mixlaj. So on Fridays, Cano makes the five-hour trip to the nearest city, walking and riding a public bus, to sit at a computer and go online.

CANO: (Through interpreter) I have no plans to return to the U.S. I'll continue my studies and struggle to get ahead in my own country.

BURNETT: Now meet Secundino Funes. He lives a hundred yards away in a rough-hewn house with chickens scurrying 19 in and out of the door. He's 30 years old with a wife and five kids. He, too, makes 40 quetzales a day tending a corn plot.

SECUNDINO FUNES: (Through interpreter) You work and you work, and your family has to eat. And then there's nothing left afterwards to buy anything like a pair of boots or a kilo of sugar. You just can't get ahead.

BURNETT: Last year, Funes borrowed 85,000 quetzales, about $11,000, an astronomical 20 sum for a subsistence farmer. He paid a smuggler 21 to take him to Florida, where his brother said he could get a farm job. Funes saw it as his only way out of penury 22. But the Border Patrol caught him, and now he's in a predicament.

FUNES: (Through interpreter) I owe 85,000 quetzales. I have to pay it back, and I can't earn that money here. I have to go back to the other side just to earn enough money to pay my debt.

BURNETT: Some Guatemalans, like Funes and Cano, flee to the United States to improve their economic status. Others leave in a hurry to escape gang violence and extortion rings, which are epidemic 23 in Central America. The challenge of successive U.S. administrations has been how to convince Central Americans to stay home.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: (Speaking Mam).

BURNETT: This U.S. government public service announcement is broadcast in the Mam language here in Huehuetenango. A migrant tells of regretting her journey north.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: (Speaking Mam).

BURNETT: Washington has spent tens of millions of dollars on efforts like this PSA. The biggest program, called the Alliance for Prosperity, begun in the Obama era, tries to create jobs in Central America and reduce the need to migrate. Smaller programs aim to make a difference in individual lives, such as Alex Cano's.

(SOUNDBITE OF ENGINE RUMBLING)

BURNETT: A group called the Association of Returned Guatemalans - also U.S.-sponsored - helps arriving deportees and tries to convince potential immigrants not to come to the U.S. Two of their volunteers are riding with us on our trip through Huehuetenango. The sun drops behind the mountaintops as we pull into the village of Quilin Novillo, which smells of wet earth and wood smoke. It's dotted with stately houses built with the wages of Guatemalans working in America as janitors 24 and yard men and housekeepers 25. The houses are billboards 26 for the American dream. One is painted red, white and blue with stars and bars.

LESBYA ESPINAL: (Speaking Spanish).

BURNETT: A volunteer named Lesbya Espinal addresses a dozen young people who've gathered in the center of town. She cautions them that the American dream is over. Immigration laws are tougher under Trump. She tells the girls how smugglers will abandon them in the desert or sexually traffic them.

ESPINAL: (Speaking Spanish).

CANO: She calls for questions.

MARIA CHAVEZ: (Speaking Spanish).

BURNETT: Maria Chavez, the mayor's daughter, speaks up. But how are we going to get ahead, she says earnestly, if we don't go to the United States?

John Burnett, NPR News, Huehuetenango, Guatemala.

MARTIN: Marisa Penaloza produced this story.