The children who stayed
Illustration for palabra by Gardel
The violence Central American migrants encounter on the journey can be deadly. It also threatens the future of the children left behind
Editor’s note: For a version of this story in Spanish click here.
She carried a small backpack on her shoulders and a rosary around her neck. She vowed to return with money to provide for the children. Her plan was to spend three years up north. Then she would return to Guatemala, and they would marry.
She reiterated all that on January 11, 2021. It was the last time that César Ambrocio and Dora Amelia López Rafael spoke, made plans, and dreamed. Eleven days later, on Jan. 22, César received earth-shattering news.
A van consumed by flames had been found in the border town of Camargo in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas. Inside were the charred remains of 19 migrants. At the time, as raw images spread on social media and the news went viral, it was unclear if all the victims were Guatemalan. As the days went on, however, the bodies were identified, and their nationalities were confirmed.
Most had set out on the migrant trail from two towns southwest of Guatemala City: Comitancillo and Sipacapa. It was soon confirmed that Dora had died in the van.
Twelve days later, in Mexico, Tamaulipas attorney general Irving Barrios Mojica announced the arrest of 12 state police officers for alleged participation in the massacre. The trial began in August. According to a report in Vice World News, “Most of the officers involved in the mass killing belonged to a Tamaulipas special forces unit whose members had received training by the U.S.”
The tragedy orphaned 10 children, including César and Dora’s three children, according to interviews palabra conducted with families, and information from Guatemala’s National Council for Attention to Migrants (CONAMIGUA in Spanish).
The tragic toll speaks of childhoods stunted by the need to migrate and altered by the trauma of losing a parent. The media has given plenty of attention to the separations that occur when families arrive at the U.S. border, but little is said about the fate of children left behind in Guatemala.
These children, if they are lucky, remain in the care of a parent who did not travel. Others stay with aunts and uncles, grandparents, or even neighbors. For children who stay behind, depression and orphanhood often inhibit social development. What’s worse: some children don’t have caregivers who care much about even their personal hygiene. These children lack focus in academics and have low self-esteem that often lead to juvenile depression, according to experts, teachers and family members.
A child’s grief
Inside a home made of cinder blocks and sheet metal in Sicapaca, César fights back tears as he describes his day-to-day life after losing Dora, who was 23. Sitting next to his children on a wooden bench, he explains that since her death, the children have exhibited drastic changes in their personalities. The oldest has no interest in schoolwork and the middle child angers easily.
“At any moment they might ask about their mother: ‘When are we going to see her? Where is she? We want to see her.’ It’s been very hard to explain the situation,” says César. “Because they are so young, they don’t understand what happened or grasp that someone who dies never returns. They don’t get it.”
César, 30, is a federal police officer. Since Dora’s death, he has had to juggle his job with caring for the three children, ages 7, 5, and 3. César’s sister watches them when he works. Although he is not their biological father, when he began a relationship with Dora four years ago, he unconditionally pledged to look after them.
“Sometimes tears come quietly and I do what I can so they don’t see me, but it’s hard and they ask me: ‘Why are you crying, dad?’” He tells them he’s crying tears of joy so they won’t feel so terrible.
The youngest boy sometimes cries with him, while the middle child might crack jokes, César says. “There’s a river nearby, so I tell them, ‘Let’s go to the river’ so that they will forget.”
“Because they are so young, they don’t understand what happened or grasp that someone who dies never returns. They don’t get it.”
The couple had decided it would be Dora who would travel. She wanted to make it possible for her oldest to one day study engineering or medicine because he showed great potential as a student.
“Unfortunately, that dream of hers came to an end,” says César.
Dora Amelia López Rafael was 23. She was on her way to the United States with the hopes of making enough money to fund the education of her three children. Photo courtesy of César Ambrocio.
Low-income communities
For César, providing for his three children has been a challenge. When they contracted COVID-19, despite the seriousness of their condition, they were denied care because of lack of resources in the community clinic.
“We don’t have that access, so I had to take them to a private doctor, because I had no other choice. They had fevers and coughs. Fortunately, they are doing better,” he explains.
Sipacapa, over four hours west from Guatemala City, has a population of approximately 22,000 and the majority are Maya. According to the 2011 National Survey of Living Conditions, 90% of the municipality’s residents live in poverty. A 2018 statistic had 82% of the population in nearby San Marcos municipality living in poverty or extreme poverty.
Complicating things for César and his children, Guatemala’s Ministry of Education closed schools on March 16, 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“They are only assigned homework in a notebook. They don’t even have virtual classes or anything like that,” César explains, adding that compared to the city, “where we live we don’t have specialized schools or medical centers that offer good services.”
According to the 2018 census, seven of 10 homes in Guatemala have a television, two have a computer, and fewer have Internet access. In rural communities, the digital gap is enormous.
The lack of resources for public health and education contrast sharply with the development of the mining industry in the region.
Sipacapa was the site of the first gold and silver mining ventures under Guatemala’s 1997 Mining Law, which allowed the growth of international companies such as Glamis Gold and Montana Exploradora, which had already operated in the region. After extracting 63.2 tons of gold and booking $4.4 million in profits, both mines closed in 2017. For 12 years, the relationship between the mining industry and the community was tense: locals denounced the environmental impact of open-pit gold mining. The riches that the mining industry extracted did not translate into resources for the community.
The population of Sipacapa is no stranger to migration, but there is no official count of how many people from that municipality have attempted a journey north. Almost 67% of families reported that at least one member lived outside the country, according to the 2018 census from the Guatemala’s National Institute of Statistics (INE, in Spanish).
The children who stay behind
Beginning in 2016 through March of this year, more than 249,000 adult migrants from Guatemala have been detained at the U.S.-Mexico, according to data from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). The number of migrants trying to enter the U.S. without their families has doubled compared to last year.
Immigration authorities in Guatemala don’t keep an official tally of how many children have been left behind by at least one parent. What is clear is the psychological impact of separation.
“There is a loss of affective bonds, and emotional detachment, and that impacts family relationships,” explains lawyer and psychologist Linda Rivera, who specializes in migrant childhood and adolescence at the Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala. She adds that this can cause children to become insecure, have low self-esteem, and struggle to adapt to their surroundings, combined with aggressive behavior.
Emotional instability can become a problem when a child grows up without an authority figure or caregiver, says Rivera. The lack of a support network can result in students performing poorly in school, or just dropping out. This can aggravate emotional instability that, in turn, stops personal and professional development, Rivera adds.
This is something that Francisco Pérez says he witnesses on a daily basis.
“The children experience trauma and they don’t give 100% in class because of the sadness. They spend their days thinking about their parents on the other side,” says Pérez, director of the Porvenir Candelaria school in Comitancillo, San Marcos.
A group of unaccompanied Central American minors who crossed the Rio Grande River to request asylum wait to be processed by the Border Patrol in La Joya, Texas on May 26, 2021. Photo by Vic Hinterlang via Shutterstock
Children on the migrant trail are also vulnerable. According to the International Organization for Migration’s World Migration Report 2020, “Unaccompanied children remain a significant part of irregular migration flows.” Between October 2020 and March 2021, more than 18,000 children traveling alone were detained in the U.S.-Mexico border.
Teachers try to lift the students’ spirits by reminding them that their relatives are supporting them economically, says Pérez.
“We see each child appearing dirtier, unkempt. And each has to make an enormous effort just to get up in the morning because the mother is no longer around. Once the mother heads north, there is no unconditional support for the minor,” says the educator.
Guatemala’s Office of Social Welfare is the governmental agency in charge of following up and supporting these children. The agency declined an interview request from palabra.
And when children lose their parents under tragic circumstances on the journey north, there are also economic implications, says Álvaro Caballeros, executive undersecretary of CONAMIGUA.
In many cases “families take on debt and enormous financial commitments,” which puts their assets in danger, including their land, home, and car, adds Caballeros, “the family’s finances deteriorate tremendously.”
An altar in César Ambrocio’s home honors Dora’s memory. Photo courtesy of César Ambrocio
The news from Mexico of murdered migrants led to a national mourning in Guatemala. Hundreds of people visited victims’ families to grieve or deliver supplies or money.
“We know our youth. They are hardworking people, humble people. Besides that, in Comitancillo there is a lot of poverty and this happens,” says Héctor López Ramírez, the town’s mayor. “We ask that justice be carried out in Mexico and that the government take action in this matter … that governments come to agreements to make peace and end poverty, that they allow migrants to travel through without going to the extreme of murdering them.”
The governments of Guatemala and Mexico have made agreements and established processes for compensating families of the victims, but the wait continues. In an announcement on its website, the Congress of Guatemala says the timeframe for families to receive economic support depends on Mexico's judicial process, since Guatemalan authorities cannot get involved.
“I understand the situation people find themselves in when someone experiences something this difficult. Even if we try to help, the community has its own sorrows, its work, so I haven’t received any support for now,” says César.
But César has little time to stop and worry about others. His children’s dreams are his priority.
“I indulge them with books and they start reading or playing and I’ve asked them what they want to be when they grow up. They tell me: ‘We’re going to study and when we grow up we’re going to become doctors.’ Because of my job (as a police officer), they tell me, especially the middle child: ‘If one day you are wounded, I’m going to heal you because I want to be a doctor.’”
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Diana Fuentes Pérez is a journalist and freelancer. She is a correspondent for Radio France Internationale (RFI) Monde in Guatemala. She lives in San Lucas Sacatepequez and is the creator of the Podcast Diana Fuentesfp.