HONDURAS-MIGRATION: Deportees, an Unexpected Burden

By Thelma Mejía Reprint | | Print |

Thelma Mejia

TEGUCIGALPA, Aug 1 1997 (IPS) - Honduras, like other Central American countries, is facing a new challenge: dealing with the thousands of people deported from the United States due to the recent stiffening of immigration laws there.

In the first six months of the year, over 2,700 Hondurans were sent back home from the United States, nearly triple the 1995 total, according to the Interior Ministry’s Office of Population and Migration Policy (OPMP). Experts say that if the trend remains steady, the number of repatriates could exceed 4,000 this year.

While the population of Honduras is close to six million, nearly 800,000 Hondurans live in the United States, 500,000 of them illegally.

The tougher immigration legislation passed by the U.S. Congress in April “‘hit us hard, because it was unexpected,” said the OPMP’s Carlos Sanchez.

Honduras lacks policies and mechanisms for attending uprooted repatriates who return penniless, jobless and frustrated, and who are faced with readapting to local living conditions. Many of the returnees also have drug abuse or pyschological problems and contagious diseases that need attention, he pointed out.

Although U.S. Attorney-General Janet Reno announced a temporary suspension of deportations in order to review the new legislation, the flow of returnees has continued, and Central American countries are beginning to realise the need for policies focusing on the reinsertion of the repatriates, said Sanchez.

Two months ago, Honduras’ Interior Ministry proposed that a high-level commission be set up to analyse the problem and design health, housing and legal assistance programmes, he added. Migration authorities suggested the creation of temporary assistance centres to help the repatriates in the process of reinsertion into the local labour market.

The deportees are a new burden in a country already plagued by high unemployment, poverty and crime. Furthermore, analyst Victor Meza told IPS, Hondurans returning from the United States have adopted new cultural patterns and work habits, and are used to higher wages.

“The phenomenon should be studied, with all these aspects taken into account,” he said. “Solutions must be proposed in order to keep the political and social situation from getting out of hand due to aspects that have not been considered, and that without a doubt will affect the Honduran economy.”

Alcides Hernandez, president of the Honduran Association of Economists, pointed out that there were two main stages of migration: the exodus of rural people towards the cities, and emigration abroad by people setting out to seek their fortune.

Hondurans living in the United States are an important source of foreign currency. They send nearly 300 million dollars a year in remittances to their families – a figure authorities expect to fall significantly by year-end thanks to the current wave of deportations.

For now, only the Catholic church’s Caritas organisation is attending the deportees. It has set up two temporary refuges in western Honduras, along the Guatemalan border, one of the routes most frequently used by people trying to get to the United States.