Border agents in Guatemala have been involved in a nationwide scheme to extort migrants passing through the Central American country, according to its new Minister of the Interior, Francisco Jiménez.
Jiménez confirmed in a press conference on February 7 that agents of the Division of Ports, Airports, and Border Posts (DIPAFRONT), a border security unit that has received training and support from the United States in recent years, have been involved in extortions. The Ministry of the Interior, which oversees internal public security, will be opening an investigation.
“This issue worries us a lot, because [migrants] are being extorted,” Jiménez said.
Just days later, on February 13, the Ministry of the Interior announced that it is officially dissolving the unit due to the accusations of extortions. In its place it will build up another unit to take on border security under the anti-narcotics vice ministry.
Police extorting migrants has long been an open secret in Guatemala.
“When migrants share their experiences, what they complain about the most are Guatemalan authorities,” Jaime Solares, who works with the Guatemalan organization Red Jesuita con Migrantes, tells The Progressive. “For them, arriving in Guatemala has been a traumatic experience due to the amount [they have to pay] and due to the systematic violation of their rights.”
The crisis has grown worse as an increasing number of migrants from Venezuela, Cuba, Ecuador, Haiti, and elsewhere pass through Guatemala seeking to reach the United States. In 2023, an estimated 500,000 migrants crossed the Darién Gap, which separates Colombia and Panama, along a particularly dangerous route North through Central America.
Migrants who cannot pay are often returned to the border with Honduras. Guatemala expelled slightly more than 22,000 between January and November 2023, according to Guatemala’s Immigration Institute. All too often, migrants lack the ability to file official complaints against police officers demanding payments in exchange for granting passage.
“For [migrants], arriving in Guatemala has been a traumatic experience due to the amount [they have to pay] and due to the systematic violation of their rights.” — Jaime Solares
“The problem is the Public Ministry is currently not interested in following up on these cases,” Solares says. “And, since the migrants are on their way [out], they are not going to wait to be given an audience.”
The amount police demand can range from $20 to $100. Besides extortion, migrants face price gouging from hotels, restaurants, and transportation, forcing many to beg on the streets of Guatemala City in order to continue their journey north.
“There are many [police] registration centers [between Guatemala’s border crossings with Honduras and Mexico], approximately every twenty kilometers, where they tell the migrants that if they want to continue their route they have to pay $20 for each person,” Solares says.
In recent years, the United States has supported the operation of the DIPAFRONT unit in their efforts to stem the flow of migration north.
DIPAFRONT officers have received training from both the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs and U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents. These trainings included sessions with the elite Border Patrol Tactical Unit on multiple occasions, including in 2018.
In addition to multiple accusations of profiteering in 2020 during the Trump Administration, DIPAFRONT was involved in the illegal operations carried out by Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents to push back migrant caravans passing through Guatemala. According to the report, DIPAFRONT agents rented vans to transport migrants back to the border.
Accusations against the border security unit reflect the broader issue of corruption within the Guatemalan National Civilian Police.
During the final years of the administration of former Guatemalan president Jimmy Morales, then-Minister of the Interior Erique Degenhart oversaw the purging of professionals from the Civilian National Police after Degenhart and Morales rejected a proposed reform to security forces. The purge affected officers who had received the specialized training abroad, contributing to a rise of corruption within the police.
The new administration of Bernardo Arévalo pledged to revive efforts for police reform.
Corruption has become so ingrained in the police because the country’s military continues to influence police structures, according to Helen Mack, an internationally recognized human rights advocate who worked on a Guatemalan police reform effort in 2018. The extortion of migrants, she says, is just another aspect of this control of funding and money.
“It is so the police can be used as a weapon of corruption,” Mack tells The Progressive.