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

San Pedro Sula: As dozens of deported migrants pack into a sweltering airport facility in San Pedro Sula, Norma sits under fluorescent lights clutching a foam cup of coffee and a small plate of eggs – all that was waiting for her in Honduras.

The 69-year-old Honduran mother had never imagined leaving her Central American country. But then came the anonymous death threats to her and her children and the armed men who showed up at her doorstep threatening to kill her, just like they had killed one of her relatives days earlier.

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 US 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 US 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.

Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, which have the largest number of people living illegally in the US, 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.