The ripple effects of deportations in Honduras

Abstract

Hondurans have been targeted for deportation since the 1980s, but today their deportations have grown disproportionate to their immigrant population size. They are more likely to face deportation than other targeted groups, such as Mexicans, Salvadorans and Guatemalans. Given Hondurans’ singular position in the deportation system and the dearth of research about this group, we ask: What are the potential short- and long-term consequences of deportation for Honduran migrants, their families, and the broader community? To address this question, we utilize qualitative interviews with deportees, their families, and community members collected in Honduras in 2011 and 2014 as part of a multi-country research project our team conducted on the social impacts of deportations. While our findings in Honduras parallel those in other studies, we capture economic, social, and emotional effects beyond the individual deportees, including non-migrant family members and the broader community that receives them. Our longitudinal approach allows us to capture re-migration patterns as well.

1. Introduction

The late 1970s witnessed the rise of Central American migration to the USA, patterns that consisted primarily of Salvadorans and Guatemalans fleeing social conflict and economic deterioration in their home countries (Menjívar 2000; Jonas and Rodriguez 2014). However, by the late 1980s thousands of Hondurans joined the US-bound Central American flow as their country faced economic decline and government repression against popular sectors (Booth and Walker 1993; Schmalzbauer 2005, 2008; McKenzie and Menjívar 2011). These Central Americans joined the much larger Mexican unauthorized migration, increasing the undocumented population in the USA to an estimated five million by the 1990s (US INS 1997, Table P). One US government response to the growth of the unauthorized migrant population was the passage of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) in 1996 to facilitate the deportation of non-citizen immigrants and in other ways restrict legal and unauthorized migrants (Hagan and Rodriguez 2002). In this paper we investigate the consequences of deportation to Honduras by examining its ripple effects at three levels: the individual deportees, their families, and communities, as well as observations three years after the deportation, an approach that allows us to capture the broader and potential longer-term effects of deportations today.

Hondurans appeared for the first time as a nationality of ‘deportable aliens’ in the 1987 statistical report of the US Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), which recorded 2,602 Hondurans apprehended mainly for illegal entry at the Southwest border (US INS 1988, Table 60). By 1990, the US Border Patrol apprehended 5,595 undocumented Honduran migrants at the US-Mexico border (US INS 1991, Table 58), roughly indicating that from 16,000 to over 23,000 unauthorized Honduran migrants entered the USA that year, depending on the got-away apprehension ratio at the time (see Espenshade and Acevedo 1995). By 1996, the number of apprehended Hondurans at the border surpassed the number of Guatemalans apprehended, and in 1999, after the destruction in Honduras brought by Hurricane Mitch, the 18,805 Hondurans apprehended at the border was the largest of all the Central American nationalities apprehended (US INS 2002, Table 56).

In 1996, the US Congress harnessed IIRIRA with harsh measures that some scholars have described as draconian (Aceves 2006) and as a form of legal violence (Menjívar and Abrego 2012). IIRIRA measures dramatically raised annual deportations (‘removals’), from 50,064 in 1996 to over 400,000 by 2012 (US DHS 2015, Table 39). This law increased the number of offenses for which legal and unauthorized immigrants could be deported, from murder, drugs and trafficking in weapons to 28 separate offenses called ‘aggravated felonies,’ and it made the offenses retroactive without a time limit; even legal permanent residents who decades prior to IIRIRA committed a newly defined deportable offense were subject to deportation under the new law (Hagan and Rodriguez 2002). Moreover, almost all cases designated for deportation were placed in mandatory detention. To expand the policing of immigrant populations, IIRIRA authorized through its Section 287(g) measure the recruitment and training of state and local police forces in immigration inspections (Rodriguez and Hagan 2004). The creation of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in 2003 accelerated deportations through its Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) bureau, which took on an aggressive enforcement role. By 2014, the US government had carried out 5,100,435 deportation orders for permanent removals or 10-year bars from reentering the country (US DHS 2015, Table 39).

With their greater numbers, Mexican migrants account for the largest percentage of annual deportations, but Salvadorans, Guatemalans, and Hondurans have accounted for the second largest category of deported migrants. But while it may seem that Mexican migrants take the brunt of IIRIRA enforcement impacts because they account for the largest share of deportations, i.e. 67 percent of 414,481 deportations in 2014 (US DHS 2015, Table 41), Honduran migrants experience the greatest risk of removal compared to Mexicans and other Central Americans. For 15 of the 18 years of massive deportations (1997 to 2014), Hondurans have been the first or second most deported nationality among Central Americans. In 2010, the number of deportations per 1,000 non-citizens in the USA for each group was as follows: Hondurans (73), Mexicans (32), Guatemalans (54), and Salvadorans (26) (US DHS 2011, Table 38; US Census Bureau 2010). This level of Honduran deportations is disproportionate to population size: the Honduran immigrant population in the USA is smaller than half the size of the Salvadoran immigrant population and smaller than two-thirds of the Guatemalan immigrant population. The Honduran case therefore provides fertile ground for an in-depth examination of the broader impacts of deportation that are experienced in families and communities.

Thus, we pose the question: ‘What are the potential short- and long-term sequelae of deportation for migrants, their families, and the broader community?’ To examine this question, we utilize qualitative data collected in Honduras at two points in time as part of a multi-country research project conducted by our team on the social impacts of deportation. While the effects we identify parallel those found in other recent studies of deportation, we also unveil some nuanced results that vary across the social groups identified, and suggest important links between the experiences of individuals and those of the broader community that receives them. Thus, in contrast to most studies of deportation, we capture the ripple effects beyond the deported individual to include the views of non-migrant family and community members who have not been deported but who are nonetheless affected. And our longitudinal approach allows us to assess the ripple effects beyond the immediate time around the deportation. The ripple effects we capture in this study resonate with Drotbohm and Hasselberg’s (2015) observation that deportation is a process that begins long before and has consequences long after the actual removal of an individual.

Deported Central American migrants have experienced unemployment, stigma, and pressures to re-migrate in their home communities, even if doing so may mean serving federal prison time because deportees who return are charged with illegal re-entry, a felonious crime under new laws (Cardoso et al. 2016). Deported migrants who were brought to the USA as small children can face major challenges integrating into the country where they were born but do not know (Gutierrez 2017). With the loss of migrant remittances, the families of the deported may fall deeper into poverty, and public institutions (e.g. schools) in Honduran sending communities may become strapped with the service demands of returning migrants. Research has reported on the impacts of deportations in El Salvador (Dingeman-Cerda and Rumbaut 2015; Coutin 2016) and to a lesser extent in Guatemala (Kanstroom 2012; Padilla 2015), but less is known about deportation effects in Honduras, whose deportation figures are disproportionately higher compared to the size of their immigrant population.

First, we place deportations to Honduras in context, followed by a presentation of the impacts that these deportations have at three levels: the individual, family, and community levels, to then discuss implications for Honduran communities and for broader patterns of migration. We identified slightly different issues for each of the three levels we present, preventing us from discussing these effects topically. Thus, we present these impacts by level, in concentric circle manner, underscoring the ripple effects of deportations on the lives of many others beyond the individuals deported. Importantly, in reality these three levels intertwine in multiple ways.

2. Return migration and deportations

We situate our examination within the scholarship on return migration and the emerging research on deportations. Research on return migration has examined immigrants’ longings for, potential for, and plans for return (Cassarino 2004) as informed by a wide range of factors, including length of time they spend in the receiving country to which they migrated abroad (Moran-Taylor 2001; Razum et al. 2005), pressures migrants experience to remain in the receiving country to generate remittances (Hart 1997) especially during economic crises (Bastia 2011), development of attachments in the receiving country (Moran-Taylor and Menjívar 2005; Senyurekli and Menjívar 2012), as well as the presence of family members in the home country (Klimt 2002; Dustmann 2003). This scholarship also has examined the consequences of return, including difficulties in (re) adaptation, perceived discrimination from non-migrants, challenges in dealing with bureaucracies, and social and cultural distance from the non-migrants (King and Strachan 1980; Medina and Menjívar 2015). This research has noted the negative effects of employment discontinuities in the home country for return migrants, and the role that time in the receiving country and timing of return play in the consequences of return (Muschkin 1993). Some scholars have argued that to cope with the challenges of return, migrants develop specific identities that help them navigate the new social terrain (Takenaka 1999; Koven 2013). Even when return migration is a central feature of a flow, changes over time in the characteristics of the return flows impact the non-migrant communities (Masferrer and Roberts 2012).

The exponential increase in deportations has brought an increase in the scholarship on deportations (Coutin 2015). This growing area of research has examined the effects of the ‘deportation turn’ (Gibney 2008), racialization practices that have contributed to the increase in deportations (De Genova 2002; Inda 2008), and the functioning of this new system (Kanstroom 2007) in countries around the world (Ellerman 2009; De Genova and Peutz 2010).¹ This body of work has examined the dramatic increase in deportations and their normalization (Galvin 2014), new forms of deportation or ‘removals’ of permanent residents (Nethery 2012; Golash-Boza 2014), and the effects these have had on individuals, families, and communities (Brabeck, Lykes, and Hunter 2014; Menjívar and Kanstroom 2014; Drotbohm 2015). This scholarship has looked at the consequences of deportation for the ‘sending’ countries (Mensah 2016) that is, the home countries of the migrants and which through large-scale deportations have become receiving societies themselves. This work shows the strains that deportations place on non-migrant families (Hagan, Rodriguez and Castro 2011; Drotbohm 2015) and the challenges of adjusting to societies to which deportees are returned (Boehm 2015). In some cases, a large number of deportees can overwhelm the infrastructures of the countries to which they are returned (Griffin 2009), which can destabilize those societies (Morris and Palazuelos 2015). In other cases, deportees can use skills acquired abroad, such as English language (Gutierrez 2017) or work skills (Hagan, Hernández-León and Demonsant 2015), but stigma against the deported and lack of job opportunities can undermine these possibilities (Golash-Boza 2015).

Recent research also has examined return migration as forced return in the context of intense enforcement (Masferrer and Roberts 2012). Accordingly, new enforcement strategies force migrants to return, either through deportation or through their ‘deportability’ (De Genova 2002), which leads them to ‘voluntarily’ return (Medina and Menjívar 2015; Mensah 2016). Increasingly, return flows from contexts of increased enforcement or hostile conditions are difficult to classify into voluntary and involuntary, ‘return’ or deportation (Medina and Menjívar 2015; Mensah 2016). Thus, new forms of state enforcement and policing are creating novel migratory flows that need reconceptualization and perhaps a new vocabulary to capture their dynamics (Medina and Menjívar 2015).

3. Methods

The empirical data for this paper are based on 25 semi-structured interviews with migrants, members of their families, and community leaders in El Progreso, Honduras, using tested interview guides specific for each group. In addition, data were obtained from re-interviews conducted three years after the initial interviews.

The 10 migrant participants in the first round of interviews were asked questions related to their experiences in the USA, circumstances of their deportation, the experiences of return, life in Honduras, and their opinions on Honduran–US migration. Ten family members, one for each migrant, were asked similar questions, relating their experiences while their family members were in the USA, and the changes they have (or have not) experienced since their family member’s return. Five community leaders including a teacher, police officer, elected local official, pastoral worker, priest, and nurse, were asked questions regarding their opinions about the impact of deportation/return for their respective work in relation to community members.

Potential interviewees—e.g. people who had been deported or returned voluntarily from the USA within the past five years—were identified through connections with two local organizations working with families of migrants and a local parish. Eleven migrants were identified as eligible, 10 of whom met the inclusion criteria, and one was excluded because he had not reached the USA and had been deported from Mexico. Of the migrants included in the study, the majority (n = 8) identified as male, were under age 35 (n = 8), had studied less than six years of school (n = 6), and were single (n = 6).

Although the research initially cast a wide net to include all returnees, including purely voluntarily returns, the interviews revealed that all of the interviewees were effectively ‘forced’ to return. Seven of the study participants who returned had been formally deported. Of the remaining three, one left the USA after receiving a deportation notice, another had been detained and was released with an ankle bracelet, and the third was involved in a workers compensation case that appeared to be a losing battle given his lack of immigration status. As we mentioned, the US enforcement regime has led not only to increased numbers of ‘formal’ deportations (i.e. removals carried out by the government); it also has created a fear of deportation which has driven individuals to return in ways that appear to be voluntary but in reality are based out of fear of deportation (Medina and Menjívar 2015). Since all study participants who returned did so for reasons connected to the US enforcement system, for brevity we use the term ‘deportee’ to refer to these two types of returnees throughout the paper.

The 10 family members interviewed included mothers (four), uncles (two), a wife, brother, granddaughter, and aunt. Of these family members, the majority (n = 7) identified as female, were under age 35 (n = 6), had studied less than six years of school (n = 7), and were married or in a civil union (n = 9). All names of study participants have been substituted with pseudonyms.²

Interviews were primarily conducted in Spanish by the second author; however, two interviews were conducted in English per request of the interviewee. The majority of interviews were audio-recorded, though two interviewees elected to not be recorded, and hand-written notes were used. Comprehensive field notes were maintained. Identifying information was not recorded and all data files were stored on an encrypted flash drive kept with the first author at all times and on encrypted computers.

Qualitative analysis for our research questions was performed using a mix of conventional and directed content analysis approach (Hsieh and Shannon 2005). Our inductive approach allowed us to identify a number of ‘ripple effects’ related to the social and economic impacts of deportation. All quotes were initially transcribed in Spanish and then translated into English. Translations were cross-verified by at least one other bilingual member of the research team.

Approximately three years after the initial data were gathered, research was conducted again to gather information about the post-deportation experiences of the original study participants. Follow-up was conducted through interviews with community leaders who were familiar with nine of the 10 deportees interviewed in the first stage. This approach was taken since, due to the high rates of emigration of this population, our original study participants were likely to have left the community. Based on their respective post-deportation experiences, each migrant was assigned to one of the following categories: successful reintegration (these include migrants who have found steady employment, remarried, are studying, etc.), unsuccessful reintegration (these include migrants who have remained unemployed primarily, experienced mental health problems or substance abuse issues that have inhibited their reintegration, experiences problems with the law, etc.), and re-emigration. The follow-up status of the migrants is compared to the initial codes assigned to them in order to identify the potential risk factors for a negative outcome following deportation.

4. Local context and background

This brief summary is intended to situate Honduran migration in time and space, within specific economic and political forces, as well as to provide a picture of the context of return for the deported. In contrast to Mexican and other Central American migratory flows to the United States, Honduran migration has received far less attention (but see Schmalzbauer 2005, 2008).

El Progreso is a municipality located on the northern coast of Honduras, in the Department³ of Yoro, just west of San Pedro Sula’s metropolitan area. The region has a large migratory population, and a migration history marked by key social, political, and natural events.

Initial emigration from El Progreso to the USA can be traced back to the 1950s. In the 1970s and 1980s, emigration intensified, stimulated by the political, economic, and social crises occurring throughout Central America. While no active combat occurred within Honduras, the country was deeply involved in the regional conflict. Perhaps most notable was the US-supported military infrastructure to fight the contra wars in Nicaragua that also provided support to the Salvadoran government to fight the opposition. The Soto Cano military base was utilized as a launching pad for exerting military control in the entire region.

The 1990s saw increased emigration from the countryside to the city. Rural Hondurans, struggling to survive on subsistent farming and attracted to the offers from both national and foreign agricultural corporations to buy up their land, increasingly left behind their lives in the countryside in hopes of better-paid work in the cities (Angel et al. 2004). The lure of the cities was spurred on by the rapid growth of the maquila industry, and many Hondurans arriving from the countryside found work in maquilas. However, given the low wages, poor job conditions and lack of protections, and increased cost of living in the cities, many of them still found it an insufficient solution to meet their economic needs.

These migratory flows expanded considerably after Hurricane Mitch in 1998. By this point in El Progreso, many of the 7,000 workers for the Tela Railroad Company lived in ‘company towns’ located close to the banana plantations and were largely dependent on the banana industry for their work and basic services (Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada 1998). Due to the devastation of Mitch, much of the Tela Railroad Company’s banana fields were destroyed and, after weighing the costs and benefits of replanting, the government ultimately decided to shut down the banana plantation (Barahona 2005). The resulting lack of jobs, combined with the loss of infrastructure and material destruction of homes and belongings that many families were facing, many locals, primarily young, male workers, headed north to the USA (McKenzie and Menjívar 2011).

Emigration from Honduras to the USA has continued at high rates since the 1990s, (Blanchard et al. 2011). Today, there are approximately 573,000 Hondurans living in the USA, with over half of whom having arrived in 2000 or later (Brown and Stepler 2016). Significantly, the demographics of migration are also changing. Whereas in earlier flows migrants were primarily single men, now there is an increasing number of women and minors making the journey north. In 2014 alone, more than 17,500 minors were apprehended at the border (US CBP 2016), many of whom migrate in search of jobs.

A number of factors have fueled the continued emigration: a poverty rate of 62.8% in 2014 (World Bank 2014a), inadequate health care access (Barahona and Posadas 2009), a national unemployment rate of nearly 45% (Alvarenga 2013), and one of the highest homicide rates in the world, with 90 murders per 100,000 inhabitants in 2012 (Gonzalez-Barrera, Krogstad, and Lopez 2014) and 74.6 in 2014 (World Bank 2014b). Finally, migrants, including children, also leave to reunite with their families in the USA (US GAO 2015). Thus, a variety of social and historical factors underpin emigration from El Progreso to the USA, and they contextualize the lived experience of migrants and their families upon deportation. The following section presents findings of the deportees’ experiences of return to El Progreso and related effects felt by their families and community.

5. Consequences of deportations

Our research revealed multiple distinct and mutually reinforcing sequelae at the individual, familial, and community levels related to deportation from the USA, with short- and long-term consequences. For analytical purposes and to highlight these ripple effects, we present them separately, and begin with the effects from the point of view of the deportees—how they see themselves, relations with their families, and with the broader community. We then move to discuss the effects from the point of view of non-migrating family members, and lastly we present the viewpoint of those in key institutions affected by deportations, such as the police, the health care system, schools, and the church. We organize this presentation around the topics that emerged inductively during the interviews and fieldwork.

5.1. Deportees’ point of view: Individual-level effects

5.1.1. The ‘shock’ of return.

Nearly all of the deportees interviewed described their experiences of arriving in Honduras as a ‘shock.’ The time migrants spent in the USA varied from one month to 25 years, with an average stay of six years. Yet all of the migrants described returning to Honduras as a significant change, requiring adjustment and adaptation.

For many, part of that adaptation was related to changes from the material conditions they had in the USA. All study participants originated in poor, working class families. For them, returning to Honduras meant going back to the challenges of living in poverty and leaving behind some of the relative comforts they enjoyed in the USA, where many had access to a car, more affordable food, and some free time for leisure activities and all had access to running potable water, home heating/cooling, and well-paved roads. As Javier, aged 24, explained his return: ‘I lacked everything from life over in the United States. The freedom in the United States. Life is nice over there. Everything is organized and clean. Even the transportation is more comfortable there. Here one is hot and sweaty.’

For others, the need to adapt was even more pronounced, and related to a change in cultural experience. José, 26, had moved to the USA when he was one year old. Before he was deported, he was living with his mother and siblings, taking classes in college, and working as a telecommunications technician. Arriving to Honduras was like coming to ‘another planet.’ Suddenly, he was living with his uncle and his family, adapting to new foods, agricultural work in the fields, and a lifestyle with limited access to technology or transportation. He described the benefits and challenges this type of change offers him: ‘The good thing is that I’m meeting a new family I never had, learning about roots, culture. When it comes to weather, jobs, poverty; everything’s just difficult here.’

5.1.2. Family reunification, estrangement, and separation.

Change in family structure is another major ‘shock’ facing deportees. For many migrants it was not easy to reunite with family members they had not seen in years. Given US enforcement policies that do not allow easy back-and-forth migration and leave immigrants ‘stuck’ in the USA, indefinite family separation has become a common experience (see McKenzie and Menjívar 2011; Abrego 2014).⁴ These new experiences of reunification provoked mixed emotions for interviewees; while some migrants expressed happiness and joy at seeing their families, others also pointed out the challenges they had in renegotiating their relationships with their families. Rosa, age 40, had left her children in the care of her mother, but came back to discover that her children wanted to live with their father and not with her. Her mother, Claudia, aged 60, described the process of estrangement as occurring over several years: ‘Her [Rosa’s] daughter resented her for leaving … but I would tell her that her mother did that in order to help her.’ Similar cases have been identified in other contexts of long-term family separation (see Abrego 2014).

In addition to estrangement from relatives in Honduras, many migrants described challenges they faced related to separation from family left behind in the USA. Thus, deportations are creating new family modalities as returning migrants arrive to encounter families they hardly know, even their own children, but leave close family members in the USA, such as their US-born children. Three deported migrants had children still living in the USA. Rosa, who had been separated from her eight-year-old son for three years at the time of the interview, described this separation as causing her the most grief: ‘At first it was very hard for me. … It’s only now that I’m just starting to more or less get back into things. … It took me almost two years. I started to get depressed, I didn’t go out, I didn’t leave my room, nothing. I didn’t want to see anybody. It’s impossible to recuperate because you leave behind your dreams back there, with your children.’

5.1.3. Community isolation.

Similarly, many deportees describe experiences of estrangement and isolation from the broader community. Several migrants commented that upon return they felt their relationships within the community had changed, and that they now had no true friends. As Lionel, aged 28, put it: ‘There was no longer that same trust that I used to have with the guys and girls here.’ Others felt treated differently and even targeted for violence within the community because people assumed that, as deportees, they either are involved in gang activity or have returned with money. Enrique, 24, commented: ‘People have their opinions. They think that you come back with money.’ Heriberto, 26, had a similar experience: ‘I started noticing that people were looking at me funny,’ he stated, ‘I even had guns pointed at me.’ Negative local stereotypes about deportees, combined with migrants’ feelings of estrangement can lead to significant social isolation, with negative consequences for their reintegration in Honduras.

5.1.4. Unemployment.

Another common theme to all deportee narratives was the challenges they faced in finding gainful employment in Honduras, not surprising given the conditions they exited and to which they returned. Indeed, for all of the migrants interviewed except one (who emigrated because of domestic violence), lack of jobs and economic resources was the primary reason that prompted their own or their families’ initial emigration. While in the USA all of the migrants in our study found work and all at least occasionally sent remittances to Honduras.

Returning to Honduras, study participants described difficulty finding any kind of work, let alone a stable, a well-paying job. The reasons were multifactorial. First, the limited job market and the struggling economy of Honduras affected all residents. The common refrain, ‘Aquí no hay trabajo,’ (There is no work here) was stated or implied in all of the interviews. In addition to the dramatically narrow employment opportunities, migrants mentioned discrimination related to their deportee status that inhibited their ability to find work. Indeed, stigma of migration failure or of being associated with deportation, has been observed in various contexts of deportation (Drotbohm 2015; Schuster and Majidi 2015). Heriberto described how he got tattoos while living in the USA because it was a normal, fashionable thing to do. But now, he states: ‘[It’s] very difficult because I have tattoos and everyone thinks I’m a “marero” [gang member]. They don’t want to give me work.’ Other deportees said that their age at the time of return would impede them from obtaining jobs. Rosa did not bother applying for a job in the maquila because they have a reputation of refusing to hire any woman over 30 years old.

At the time of the study, only one of the interviewed deportees (Lionel) had a stable job; he had a contract for agricultural work with the Tela Railroad Company. Four of the others were working as day laborers with short-term contracts. The other five were either attempting some entrepreneurial work to get by (cutting hair and doing upholstery work), actively looking for work, or had simply given up on the job search. As a local priest summarized: ‘There is no work for those who return. Some of them find day jobs here and there, doing fieldwork. But they don’t find a good job, a well-paying job.’

5.2. Family-level effects

5.2.1. Emotional impacts on the family.

A central theme among the non-migrant family members was the emotional impact of their loved ones’ return. While some family members described initial feelings of estrangement, the majority emphasized how much happier they were at having their loved one home, even when these feelings are nuanced and not always positive. Lionel’s 50-year-old mother Maribel described her experience of greeting her son when he returned after five years of separation: ‘When he came back … I felt so glad I started crying out of happiness when he arrived. My life had changed because I now have all of my kids with me.’

Many other family members described a sensation of relief, given that they no longer had to worry about their children being alone and potentially vulnerable to dangers in the USA. Prior research in Honduras has found that family members experience fear and anxiety at the uncertainty of their relatives’ migration to the USA and risks of detention and deportation (McKenzie and Menjívar 2011). Enrique’s aunt, 35-year-old Cinthia, described the changes she noted in the family upon Enrique’s return: ‘For us it was a huge relief when he returned and, I’ll repeat, the change is most notable in his mother. She had suffered so much. Now that he’s back here she’s happy.’

Deportees’ children also experience an emotional change with reunification. For some, like the young son of Carlos, the change is bittersweet, as it highlights how much this son misses his father when he is in the USA. Carlos’s wife Alma, aged 25, explained: ‘The kids missed their father [when he was away.] Now that he has returned, our son … is even more glued at the hip with his father.’

5.2.2. Economic challenges.

In nearly the same breath that they described their joy at having their loved ones back, most of these family members also point out that despite being reunited, they are now facing more severe economic challenges with the decreased inflow of remittances, combined with the few job opportunities for their loved ones in Honduras. As Alma described the experience of her children: ‘[When my husband was away] the kids behaved well because he was sending money. Now the kids still behave well because at least they have their father present. But now it’s difficult to get everything we need.’ Claudia highlighted a similar balancing act: ‘On the one hand, it’s an advantage [having my daughter back], but on the other hand, it’s a disadvantage.’

Family members said that without the remittances, it is harder to afford the basic necessities for the house, food, and medications for sick relatives. For Rosa’s daughter and for the grand-daughter of another migrant, Manuela, the deportation of their family member cut off the remittances they were using to attend university. They have had to suspend their studies, since the family could no longer afford tuition costs. Moreover, even when families are able to cover their basic needs, many are saddled with the debt they incurred to pay the smuggler’s fee to bring their family member to the USA. These debts are now a significant impetus for remigration and a contributing factor for further economic vulnerability and impoverishment of migrants’ families (McKenzie and Menjívar 2011). As the community nurse explained: ‘In this country there is no work, and everyone takes out loans to pay the coyote [smuggler].’ This leads to additional consequences when a family member returns deported. Carlos, aged 31, described: ‘I’m still paying my debts. And there’s always something missing. For example, there’s not enough money for our meals. With kids there are so many expenses.’

Families have responded with whatever solutions their conditions allow. Maribel had stopped working when her son was in the USA, but when he returned she restarted a small business selling trinkets. She makes pennies, just enough to help her get by. However, despite these efforts, the lack of remittance money is a major change for deportees’ families, and can negatively affect the education, health, and well-being of the family members involved. Faced with these challenges, many deportees turn to other solutions, such as engaging in the underground economy or in re-emigration (see also Schuster and Majidi 2015), to be able to meet their needs.

5.3. Community-level effects

5.3.1. Absent community members.

Community-level impacts were discussed both in terms of the active roles deportees can play, as well as their absence in certain community roles. The local priest commented on the lack of participation of deportees in civic society. ‘The deportees, I hardly know them. … These people who return deported aren’t the people who will rebuild the country. They think in a different way … They are distant. They don’t invest in the community.’ Indeed, none of the deportees interviewed in our study were actively involved in community organizations or initiatives whereas many of the non-migrant family members who were interviewed were quite involved. The reasons for this lack of participation are not entirely clear; however, interview and observational data suggest that deportees’ experiences of social and cultural isolation (i.e. missing how life was in the USA), combined with the mental health challenges and stress many of them face, are likely contributing factors.

It is worth noting that interviewees highlighted some isolated cases in which deportees are seen as an advantage to the local community and economy. The police officer told a story of a local migrant who worked in restaurants in the USA and, upon returning to Honduras, set up a popular local business as a chef. Other deportees, such as Enrique, decided to study and develop a profession upon returning. And some deportees have marketable job skills. For example, José and Heriberto both speak fluent English that they can use to find work (see Hagan, Hernández-León and Demonsant 2015).

Nevertheless, the vast majority of deportees do not experience these kinds of benefits and successes. These cases are an exception rather than the rule. More typically, deportees are seen as a drain on local resources, as another mouth to feed that does not contribute much in return (either civically or economically, as discussed above). As the local teacher stated plainly: ‘No, deportations don’t bring any benefit to the community.’ Ironically, these negative attitudes can contribute to the cycles of social and economic isolation described above (see individual-level effects), by fostering discrimination and thus further alienating deportees from their communities, which in turn increases the motivation to re-migrate to the USA. Research has found this situation to especially concern deported migrants who had not contacted their families for long periods of time prior to their deportation, and who had stopped sending remittances to them (Rodriguez and Hagan 2004).

5.3.2. Community-level violence.

The economic challenges facing deportees and their family members intertwine with existing structures in various ways. In addition to mentioning increased unemployment levels and poverty rates that the deportees supposedly contribute to, perhaps the most common impact noted by the community members interviewed was the relationship they saw between family poverty and increasing local violence, and the role in this that the returned migrants seem to play. The local police officer describes the process as follows: ‘When people arrive [deported] and don’t have any money, they try to help their family and they end up in delinquent activities.’ In other words, for deportees from poor families with few other educational resources or social capital, when faced with such a limited job market, getting involved in crime may seem like the only way for their family to survive. Otherwise, as the teacher stated: ‘The people [in the community] will die of hunger. Because those who come back are not able to find work.’ From the point of view of these community members, the deportees may not engage in crime because they are criminal per se but because they have no other options in the dramatically narrow job market in Honduras.

Furthermore, community members pointed to the lure of more serious criminal behavior for the deportees, including gang activity. According to the police officer, some of the deportees returning to El Progreso were already involved in gangs before returning. ‘Some deportees are already gang members and when they arrive here they join up with the same gangs here. And those who were not gang members there, sometimes they end up engaging in delinquency because, since there’s no work here, they can’t find any other way to make money. They go around assaulting people. And they are more likely to join the gangs.’ The local nurse noted: ‘[Deportation] will bring more social problems to the country. Because the people are not going to be able to make ends meet, they will work in whatever comes up. They’ll end up prostituting themselves, or selling drugs.’

While these community leaders describe a situation where the majority of deportees end up engaging in delinquent behavior, based on our observations and interviews with all study participants, it is more likely that it is only a minority of deportees who are involved in this behavior. For example, many of the deportees interviewed complained about the high levels of violence in El Progreso, and not one of them endorsed engaging in these behaviors. To the contrary, the deportees interviewed were painfully aware of how violence committed by some deportees created negative stereotypes that affected all deported migrants. One deportee, Santos, aged 22, commented on this situation as follows: ‘Some [deportees] return and start harming others; for the actions of one person, we all pay.’

Nevertheless, even with a minority engaged in criminal behavior, the role of deportees is perceived as enough to contribute to violence that impacts all community members. Indeed, anything that might increase violence is hugely relevant for Hondurans, given the staggering rates of crime currently plaguing the nation. Santos describes how intense the violence has become in El Progreso: ‘People are robbing other people. Even for just a cellphone they’ll kill you. The community can’t live in peace.’ The daily experience of violence, the additional economic and psychological challenges that come when families experience a death or injury in the family as a result of violence, and the restrictions violence places on community members’ freedom of travel and movement—all can augment the economic despair and frustrations local progreseños experience in their daily lives.

5.3.3. The push to re-emigrate and its implications.

It is therefore not surprising that these same challenges of community integration, economic strife, and community violence lead many deportees to seek out alternative opportunities by re-emigrating to the USA. Of the deportees interviewed, the majority (8 out of 10) reported that they would like to make the return trip at some point, even though, as previously deported persons, they would be charged with ‘illegal reentry’ if they attempted to reenter the USA, which today constitutes a felonious crime and could land them with up to 20 years in prison. Nevertheless, the situation they face in Honduras is so dire that two of our study participants were actively planning their journey back to the USA at the time of their initial interview. Ruben’s 26-year-old brother Mateo, who is also a deportee, explained some of their motivations: ‘Now there is a huge lack [of resources]. I have my wife. I’d love to build a house for us. For that reason people do it [emigrate]. Instead of having to be renting. One desires to have their own separate room. Here one just earns enough to eat. And that’s what makes people get up and leave.’

For others, violence was the main propelling factor. Manuela, aged 60, described being afraid that her ex-husband, whom she initially fled because of his abuse, would abuse her again and potentially kill her. She is one of tens of thousands of women fleeing gender-based violence in Central America today (UNHCR 2015). Others described their frustrations with the increasing violence in the community as contributing to their overall dissatisfaction with life in Honduras.

Challenges with social integration and nostalgia for life in the USA also play a role in the desire to re-emigrate. Alma describes how her husband Carlos constantly thinks about leaving for the USA, ever since his arrival back in Honduras: ‘Well, I’ll tell you, he can’t get rid of that desire to go back.’ Carlos agreed that his difficulty with psychological adaptation to life in Honduras influences his wanting to re-emigrate: ‘When I came back, everything was complete, it was a joy. But then I started changing. The mind starts working differently, and you start thinking that it’s time to take off again.’ Other deportees mentioned wanting to reunite with their families in the USA. Heriberto explained: ‘I have my daughter there and my mom is taking care of her. I feel like it’s my responsibility. Also, I miss my life there, and all my friends and cousins.’

Significantly, some of the reasons deportees give for wanting to re-emigrate are issues impacting all local residents in El Progreso and, for most, a combination of factors inform their desires and plans to re-migrate. The violence, economic strife, lack of jobs, and for many progreseños, family separation (from relatives who have emigrated) affect the vast majority of community members, as well as the potential re-migrants. It is therefore likely that, as deportations continue to increase, these community-level issues which are compounded by deportations themselves might not only lead to the re-migration of the deportees, but will also likely lead to increased emigration of other Hondurans. As migration scholars have noted (Massey 1986; Massey and Garcia España 1987; Massey et al. 1994), each act of migration often leads to future migrations.

Most migrants stated that they were willing to re-migrate even though they were fully aware of the risks that awaited them in the journey to the USA, in particular the violence occurring along the migrant trail in Mexico targeted against immigrants (see also Sladkova 2016). As Carlos, who was a personal witness to the violence in Mexico, describes:

Yes, I feel compelled to migrate again. In spite of the danger of the journey and in spite of the fact that they [US immigration officials] gave me a 10 year bar to re-enter. … The Zetas [a paramilitary gang in Mexico] nearly kidnapped me on this last attempt. I escaped. They did kidnap the majority of the friends I was traveling with. But I prefer to risk it in order to try again. … Because here life is so tough. There is hardly any work, and the work is poorly paid.

Indeed, all of the study participants who commented on this issue stated that they do not believe these dangers are enough to deter the flow of migrants northward.

Ultimately, in follow-up three years after the initial interview, slightly over half (five out of the nine) of the deportees had already returned to the USA. Of those who remained in Honduras, one has continued to struggle with depression, one has drug addiction issues, one has graduated college and is now working, and the fourth continues to work. Thus, for a small portion (1 in 5) of the deportees in this study, it was possible to reintegrate and become a productive family and community member. However, for the vast majority, deportation is a costly endeavor, physically, financially and psychologically, but it does not significantly alter their goal of earning an income in the USA to support their families in Honduras.

6. Discussion and conclusion

The findings in Honduras indicate that large-scale deportations have far-reaching effects in the migrants’ communities of origin. Deportations often create new economic hardship for many deported migrants and their families, and create new challenges for their communities. But the effects are more complex and go beyond economic hardship, as they can include social and emotional responses as well, including estrangement, stigma, and isolation, all mixed with the joy of being reunited with estranged family members. Although based on a small number of cases, our research indicates that deportations can generate ripple effects beyond those who are deported, as non-migrant family members are profoundly affected by deportations, as are the institutions in the communities to which migrants are deported. These findings need further examination as massive deportations can profoundly affect the communities and institutions that receive them, long after the arrival of a deportee (see Drotbohm and Hasselberg 2015). For migrants who had been gone for years, deportation often means returning to conditions of worsening poverty, unemployment, and violence—made all the worse when compared to lives left behind in the USA. Not surprisingly, tens of thousands of deported migrants annually re-migrate to the USA (Hagan, Eschbach, and Rodriguez 2008), and many are apprehended for illegal re-entry and sentenced to federal prison or deported, starting the vicious cycle all over again (Kanstroom 2012).

As mentioned, to the extent that US deportation policies exacerbate conditions of poverty, unemployment, and violence in Honduran sending communities through the regular arrivals of unemployed deported migrants, the very deportation policies become a causal source for unauthorized (re)migration to the USA. Our longitudinal approach allowed us to capture ripple effects three years after a deportation; in the overwhelming majority of cases, the deportees have no other option but to re-migrate. Not only do many deported migrants undertake new unauthorized journeys to the USA, but the constant deportations add to the adverse conditions in local communities that motivate new migrants to undertake the northward undocumented migration. As such, US deportation policies can be a cause—not a deterrent—of unauthorized migration, producing a latent effect that demands further research. Contemporary US deportation measures generate contradictory effects in communities abroad where deportees arrive as deportations worsen economic and other social conditions more than they contribute to the uplifting of these communities through the return of capital human resources. Thus, it should be unsurprising that for the first time in 2014 the US Border Patrol apprehended more Central Americans than Mexicans attempting to cross the USA–Mexico border (US CBP 2014). While this statistical development is partly due to the decline of Mexican unauthorized migration, it is also greatly due to the sharp rise of unauthorized Central American migration to the USA (Krogstad 2016).

The research findings in El Progreso also suggest that more attention needs to be paid to how immigration-related state policies in countries of destination affect communities abroad. Research has focused on transnational communities using individuals and families as the units of analysis as well as on the impacts of returning migrants on communities of origin. However, our research findings in El Progreso indicate that, far from being autonomous social structures produced by migrant agency (Rodriguez 1996), migrant networks across borders can be significantly affected—and reshaped—by state policies whose effects transcend the physical borders of the nation receiving migrants to impact even the everyday lives of non-migrants in communities abroad that send migrants to the USA (Menjívar 2014). These findings raise questions for further research concerning how state policies in destination countries shape the social worlds of immigrants in the places where they settle, as well as in their communities of origin.