As Trump threatens mass deportations, Central America braces for an influx of vulnerable migrants

Norma, who requested anonymity out of concern for her safety, spent her life savings of $10,000 on a one-way trip north at the end of October with her daughter and granddaughter.

But after her asylum petitions to the U.S. were rejected, they were loaded onto a deportation flight. Now, she's back in Honduras within reach of the same gang, stuck in a cycle of violence and economic precarity that haunts deportees like her.

"They can find us in every corner of Honduras," she said in the migrant processing facility. "We're praying for God's protection, because we don't expect anything from the government."

Now, as U.S. President-elect Donald Trump is set to take office in January with a promise of carrying out mass deportations, Honduras and other Central American countries people have fled for generations are bracing for a potential influx of vulnerable migrants — a situation they are ill-prepared to handle.

'We don't have the capacity'

Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, which have the largest number of people living illegally in the U.S., after Mexico, could be among the first and most heavily impacted by mass deportations, said Jason Houser, former Immigration & Customs Enforcement chief of staff in the Biden administration.

Because countries like Venezuela refuse to accept deportation flights from the U.S., Houser suggests that the Trump administration may prioritize the deportation of "the most vulnerable" migrants from those countries who have removal orders but no criminal record, in an effort to rapidly increase deportation numbers.

"Hondurans, Guatemalans, Salvadorans need to be very, very nervous because (Trump officials) are going to press the bounds of the law," said Houser.

Migrants and networks aiding deportees in those Northern Triangle countries worry their return could thrust them into even deeper economic and humanitarian crises, fueling migration down the line.

"We don't have the capacity" to take so many people, said Antonio García, Honduras' deputy foreign minister. "There's very little here for deportees." People who return, he said, "are the last to be taken care of."

Making their way back to the U.S.

Since 2015, Honduras has received around half a million deportees. They climb down from planes and buses to be greeted with coffee, small plates of food and bags of toothpaste and deodorant. While some breathe a sigh of relief, free from harsh conditions in U.S. detention facilities, others cry, gripped with panic.

"We don't know what we'll do, what comes next," said one woman in a cluster of deportees waiting for their names to be called by a man clacking at a keyboard.

Approximately 560,000 Hondurans, about 5% of the country's population, live in the U.S. without legal status, according to U.S. government figures. Of those, migration experts estimate about 150,000 can be tracked down and rapidly expelled.

While García said the government offers services to help returnees, most are released with little aid into a country gripped by gangs. They have few options for work to pay off crippling debts. Others like Norma have nowhere to go, unable to return home because of the gang members circling her home.

Norma said she's unsure of why they were targeted, but she believes it was because the relative who was killed had problems with a gang.

Despite the crackdown, García estimates up to 40% of Honduran deportees make their way back to the U.S.

A looming humanitarian crisis

Larissa Martínez, 31, is among those who have struggled to reintegrate into Honduran society after being deported from the U.S. in 2021 with her three children. Driven by economic desperation and the absence of her husband, who had migrated and left her for another woman, the single mother sought a better life in the U.S.

Since her return to Honduras, Martínez has spent the past three years searching for a job, not just to support her kids, but also to pay off the $5,000 she owes to relatives for the trip north.

Her efforts have been unsuccessful. She built a wobbly wooden home tucked away in the hilly fringes of San Pedro Sula, where she sells meat and cheese to get by, but sales have been slim and tropical rains have eaten away at the flimsy walls where they sleep.

So she's begun to repeat a chant in her head: "If I don't find work in December, I'll leave in January."

César Muñoz, a leader at Mennonite Social Action Commission, said Honduran authorities have abandoned deportees like Martínez, leaving organizations like his to step in. But with three deportation flights arriving weekly, aid networks are already stretched thin.

A significant uptick could leave aid networks, migrants and their families reeling. Meanwhile, countries like Honduras, heavily reliant on remittances from the U.S., could face severe economic consequences as this vital lifeline is cut.

"We're at the brink of a new humanitarian crisis," Muñoz said.

Trump's return has been met with a range of reactions by Latin American nations connected to the U.S. through migration and trade.

Guatemala, a country with more than 750,000 citizens living unauthorized in the U.S. , announced in November it was working on a strategy to take on potential mass deportations. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Mexico is already beefing up legal services in its U.S. consulates and that she would ask Trump to deport non-Mexicans directly to their countries of origin.

Honduras' Deputy Foreign Minister García expressed skepticism about Trump's threat, citing the economic benefits immigrants provide to the U.S. economy and the logistical challenges of mass deportations. Aid leaders like Muñoz say Honduras isn't sufficiently preparing for a potential surge in deportations.

Even with a crackdown by Trump it would be "impossible" to stop people from migrating, García said. Driven by poverty, violence and the hope for a better life, clusters of deportees climb aboard buses on their way back to the U.S.

As deportations by both U.S. and Mexican authorities spike, smugglers are offering migrants packages in which they get three tries to make it north. If migrants get captured on their journey and sent back home, they still have two chances to get to the U.S.

Freshly returned to Honduras, 26-year-old Kimberly Orellana said she spent three months detained in a Texas facility before being sent back to San Pedro Sula, where she waited in a bus station for her mother to pick her up.

Yet, she was already planning to return, saying she had no choice: her 4-year-old daughter Marcelle was waiting for her, cared for by a friend in North Carolina.

The two were separated by smugglers crossing the Rio Grande, in hopes to increase their chances of successfully crossing over. Orellana vowed to her daughter that they would be reunited.

"Mami, are you sure you're coming?" Marcelle asks her over the phone.

"Now, being here it's difficult to know if I'll ever be able to follow through with that promise," Orellana said, clinging to her Honduran passport. "I have to try again. … My daughter is all I have."