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NEW BEDFORD — A U.S. plan to accelerate deportations to Guatemala has impeded access to consular services for many local Guatemalans as fear grips the community, local activists say.
The detention of a Guatemalan man at a shop on Acushnet Avenue Monday in the city’s North End by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents has only compounded that anxiety.
Immigration 2025
“We’ve noticed a very strong reaction of fear from the community,” said Lucia Mateo, community outreach and education coordinator for the Community Economic Development Corporation of Southeastern Massachusetts (CEDC), in Spanish. “People aren’t even leaving to go grocery shopping, they’re so scared.”
In the run-up to President Donald Trump’s inauguration and since, community groups had been advising people to ensure that documents both here and in their home countries are in order should they be deported. Consulates are able to provide services such as identification documents, certain banking services, passports, legal processes, and offer citizenship to nationals abroad, depending on their government’s laws.
“People are scared,” Mateo said. “People are making hasty decisions under a lot of pressure to return to their countries of origin.”
Some governments will authorize mobile consulates — a temporary visit from the consular officials within a jurisdiction. This allows easier access to those for whom financial pressures, health, work schedules, vehicle access, or other circumstances may impede visits to sometimes distant permanent offices.
In an emailed statement to The New Bedford Light, the Guatemalan Ministry of Foreign Relations (MINEX, its Spanish acronym) said the Consulate General of Guatemala in Providence — whose jurisdiction includes Massachusetts — considered holding a mobile consulate in New Bedford in February but chose not to in consultation with local stakeholders.
“It was decided it would be prudent to reprogram the mobile consulate given the current situation,” MINEX said in a Spanish email dated Feb. 10. Instead, the consulate has coordinated with community leaders “to provide consular documentation services to a group of our compatriots that live in New Bedford,” the ministry added.
MINEX added that according to its records, only 58 people in New Bedford were requesting services.
Adrian Ventura, executive director of the Centro Comunitario de Trabajadores, said the Guatemalan consulate in Providence has been in communication with his group.
“I told them we have 200 people on a list asking for help with [Guatemalan] passports and citizenship and that we need a mobile consulate,” he said, in Spanish. Since then, Ventura’s group has learned that the number was lower. “After speaking with them we reviewed the list and found that only 60 or 70 needed consular appointments,” he said.
Ventura added that most people only needed travel documents permitting them to go to Guatemala, for which consular appointments were unnecessary, meaning the risks outweighed the benefits of such an event.
“We have the capacity at CCT to fit 200 people for a mobile consulate,” he said. “But that would call too much attention and I wouldn’t want to risk a raid.”
Mateo said CEDC has a list of about 100 people asking for help accessing consular services.
“Since Trump’s inauguration, we’ve seen the number of people asking for help with consular services increase dramatically,” she said.
But since Monday’s raid, Mateo said, mobile consulates are lower on their list of priorities.
“We’ve decided not to follow up with the Consulate for the time being,” she said. “The last thing we want is for [ICE] to surprise us.”
New Bedford has long been a hub of Guatemalan migration. The most recent census data show that 1,500 Guatemalans now live in the city. Many believe the real count is higher, as many undocumented people tend to not respond to the census for fear of revealing their location to immigration authorities. Many familiar with the community say 6,000 is a more accurate estimate.
The U.S. Census is prohibited by law from sharing personal addresses or individual identifiers with other government agencies — including ICE.
Guatemala prepares
On Feb. 5, Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo made headlines when he announced an agreement during a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio to increase deportation flights by 40% and allow for non-Guatemalan deportees to be sent there.
Guatemala had been receiving about 14 flights per week in December during the closing weeks of the Biden administration. About 66,000 Guatemalans were deported from the U.S. in the 2024 fiscal year. According to the Guatemalan Institute of Migration (IGM, its Spanish acronym), about 80% of returnees came from the U.S. last year, with the remainder coming mostly from Mexico.
IGM data shows that 3,472 Guatemalans had been deported from the U.S. in 32 flights between Jan. 1 and Feb. 3. They added that, as of Feb. 10, 1,266 people — including 67 children — had been deported on 13 flights since Trump’s inauguration.
In January, Arévalo revealed a plan to attend to the needs of returnees called Retorno al Hogar (Return Home). Split into three phases, the plan looks to increase communication between consulates and citizens abroad, and expand infrastructure for receiving returnees and reintegrating them into Guatemalan society.
Though consular services may play a critical role in ensuring local Guatemalan nationals have their affairs in order in their native land, activists say security is more important as fear tightens its grip on their community.
“We are looking at how best to protect ourselves now,” Mateo said. “There is much need for these services but, as a community, we need to make sure we stay safe.”
Kevin G. Andrade is a freelance journalist and occasional contributor to The Light.
The streets of New Bedford during the day are conspicuously devoid of indigenous peoples. Particularly in the Herman Melville Boulevard area.
Are they bad people?
I have absolutely no problem with those who enter our country, USA, legally. All nationalities. No one should feel they have to hide if they are a certain nationality.
It’s going to be interesting to see if apartments in New Bedford become more vacant, and available, and if rent prices will be lowered as property owners compete to rent their vacant apartments when illegal immigrants are deported by ICE.