Colonia Mezquital, Guatemala – After a long journey by bus from Honduras, 39-year-old Edwin Gomez was in need of a place to rest for the night. That’s how he found himself with Friar German Tax, walking through Colonia Mezquital, a community 15 km (9.3 miles) south of Guatemala City. The destination was a two-storey house, nestled along a narrow street.
Migrants and asylum seekers travelling to the US board a bus from Honduras to Guatemala in September 2022 [File: Fredy Rodriguez/Reuters]
However, the work done by faith-based groups and volunteers to shelter and care for migrants and asylum seekers is facing new threats in Guatemala. In January, the government began implementing new regulations that will require non-governmental migrant shelters to submit biometric information and other data for migrants who use their facilities daily. This includes identification details, fingerprints, biographical material and other personal information.
Leaders from the Episcopal Conference of Guatemala, a branch of the Catholic Church, have raised concerns about the new regulations. Friar Tax expressed outrage at the prospect of enforcing the new policy. “That’s not possible,” he exclaimed. “If we did that, we would be losing the trust that migrants have in us because here migrants come and speak and tell their stories.”
Under the new reforms, the label “trafficker” could be applied to anyone who facilitates a migrant’s stay and transit in Guatemala. Tax argued that they are not forcing them to migrate but simply providing them with basic necessities such as a place to rest, sleep in a bed, eat two meals and continue on their way.
The Catholic Church operates nine migrant shelters across Guatemala, which serve thousands each month, including the two-storey house in Colonia Mezquital. During a January 27 press conference in Guatemala City, the bishops of Guatemala’s Episcopal Conference warned they may close all nine shelters entirely, rather than be forced to submit data on the migrants and asylum seekers who use their humanitarian services.
The new regulations are “an excessive control”, Cardinal Alvaro Ramazzini, bishop for the department of Huehuetenango, told Al Jazeera following the press conference. “The idea [is] that those who come to the Casa del Migrante come to ask for rest.”
But the heightened measures come as Guatemala increasingly cracks down on the migrants and asylum seekers who pass through the Central American country. In January, more than 200 migrants, primarily from Ecuador, India, Haiti and Venezuela, were deported by immigration officials. Guatemala has also implemented new visa requirements for citizens of the Dominican Republic after it saw an increase in people arriving from the Caribbean country.
Stricter immigration measures have been a trend across Central America as the administration of US President Joe Biden puts pressure on the region to stem the flow of migrants and asylum seekers travelling north to its southern border with Mexico. Ursula Roldan, an immigration expert at Guatemala’s Rafael Landivar University, noted that “these policies only affect migrants and put them at risk”.
The Episcopal Conference has sought dialogue with the government of President Alejandro Giammattei to advocate against some of the reforms. According to Cardinal Ramazzini, a delegation from the Pastoral of Human Mobility — a Catholic group — will be meeting with Guatemala’s Vice President Guillermo Castillo and the National Immigration Authority in the coming weeks. Congressional representative Ligia Hernandez of the centrist Semilla party will also be holding a hearing alongside church authorities to clarify how the reforms will be implemented so they do not affect the shelters.
At the heart of the concerns is the fear that the new immigration requirements will worsen an already worrying humanitarian crisis in the region. But shelter workers like Friar Tax are determined to continue serving the migrants and asylum seekers who pass through their doors. “Our responsibility and our task is to take care of people to the extent that we can,” he said. “We are going to continue working, serving the people to the best of our ability”.