Tag: Guatemala

  • Ex-NY Giants player is helping deported migrants in Guatemala, blames Biden for the problem

    Ex-NY Giants player is helping deported migrants in Guatemala, blames Biden for the problem

    EXCLUSIVE: Retired New York Giants safety Jack Brewer and his global ministry are on the ground in Guatemala City this week, helping officials receive migrant families deported from the U.S., providing food, support and prayer as they essentially start life anew.

    Brewer and his Jack Brewer Foundation have years of experience working in impoverished areas of the world like Haiti, Malawi and Central America, which Brewer said has allowed him to work closer than most and interact with the returning families.

    While it is President Donald Trump and border czar Tom Homan enforcing U.S. law and deporting illegal immigrants, Brewer said it is clear former President Joe Biden’s “broken” policies are truly to blame for the heartache and hardship. 

    “Three years ago, I started to follow the fatherlessness crisis that is happening right here in Guatemala, where a lot of men were leaving their households and coming to Joe Biden’s open borders – and just seeing it literally devastate families.”

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    Jack Brewer on the Giants’ sideline in 2004. (Getty)

    Brewer said Guatemala was losing much of its workforce and that a lot of those poor families trying to get to the U.S. actually did not know a “legal” immigration route existed, and they instead took the cartels and others at their word and paid thousands of dollars to be trafficked north.

    “They’ve been told by coyotes and different people that you can just come [to the U.S.], and if you come here, if you bring your child, they’ll just let you in,” Brewer said.

    “And so, you know, there’s a huge education gap there on the ground.”

    Brewer also met with Raul Berrios from CONAMIGUA – the National Council for Attention to Migrants of Guatemala – as well as Sergio Samuel Vela-Lopez, head of the Guatemala Penitentiary Department.

    Berrios, Lopez and others are trying to create an effective system for welcoming the migrants and processing those who are innocent families versus those who may have criminal records or other issues requiring government attention, according to Brewer.

    FORMER NFL SAFETY JACK BREWER TORCHES CA’S COSTLY REPARATIONS PUSH

    Former NFL safety Jack Brewer hands out food and supplies to deported migrants in Guatemala.

    Former NFL safety Jack Brewer hands out food and supplies to deported migrants in Guatemala. (Jack Brewer Foundation)

    Many families returning to the capital city live hundreds of miles into the countryside and have no established way of getting there. Some buses, however, have been hired to take migrants closer to home, and Brewer visited one of them and spoke to its driver.

    “It’s really a unique perspective, I think, and just some of the things that we’ve witnessed since we’ve been here,” he said, adding stories ranged from familial hardships to reports that more than a dozen people have been burnt alive by Mexican cartels for failing to pay for passage.

    “It’s just pretty tough to see and witness and watch.”

    When a U.S. military plane arrived carrying migrants, Brewer was on the tarmac.

    HEGSETH, HOMAN TOUR BORDER

    Guatemalan families and children arrive in Guatemala City.

    Guatemalan families and children arrive in Guatemala City. (Jack Brewer Foundation)

    “We were able to provide them with food and, most importantly, with Bibles, and we preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”

    Brewer said the Guatemalan Migration Authority is focusing its efforts on children ages 8 and under. Many of these children have been “lied to,” Brewer said.

    “They’re told it’s their life’s mission to migrate to the U.S. illegally,” he said, recounting stories told by some returning migrants of children on the backs of cartel coyotes and others drowning in rivers.

    Then-Vice President Kamala Harris made her own trip to Guatemala City in March 2024, seeking to understand the “root causes” of illegal migration.

    Jack Brewer visits a command center in Guatemala.

    Jack Brewer visits a command center in Guatemala. (Jack Brewer Foundation)

    “When you look at the root causes, we’re also looking at issues of corruption. Again, we’re looking at the issue of climate resiliency and then the concern about a lack of economic opportunity,” Harris said in 2021.

    Brewer rejected that Harris’ work made any difference, saying she and her then-boss’s policies “empowered human traffickers” and that half of Guatemala still lives in extreme poverty with little education.

    Jack Brewer meets deportation flights holding Guatemalan migrants

    Jack Brewer meets deportation flights holding Guatemalan migrants (Jack Brewer Foundation)

    He said the former leadership at the State Department “misguided resources” through USAID, a practice that Trump is now aggressively cutting back on.

    “We need to first put our resources into addressing the issues that are fueling a multibillion-dollar human trafficking industry. Walls, deportations and enforcement are a must, but educating indigenous populations on the truths of coyotes will deliver a devastating blow to the modern human slave trade,” Brewer said.

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    Jack Brewer meets with Raul Berrios of the National Council for Attention to Migrants of Guatemala.

    Jack Brewer meets with Raul Berrios of the National Council for Attention to Migrants of Guatemala. (Jack Brewer foundation)

    “Guatemala is not enforcing their migration issue in the country. Haitians and Venezuelans are warned of the dangers of migrating, but there is no enforcement at the time.”

    “There needs to be arrest and enforcement, but they require resources. Guatemala prisons are already overcrowded, and they don’t have immigration beds available for enforcement,” added Brewer, who said he also visited those prisons and saw conditions for himself.

  • Guatemala agrees to accept deportees from other countries, in deal with Rubio

    Guatemala agrees to accept deportees from other countries, in deal with Rubio

    Guatemalan President Bernardo Arevalo confirmed that his country is willing to accept migrants of other nationalities being deported from the U.S. under President Donald Trump’s administration.

    Arevalo made the announcement during a visit from Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday. The new agreement declares Guatemala a “safe third country” for deportation, with the U.S. paying for migrants to be eventually returned to their home countries.

    “We have agreed to increase by 40% the number of flights of deportees both of our nationality as well as deportees from other nationalities,” Arevalo said, speaking during a news conference with Rubio.

    The agreement is similar to but less expansive than the one Rubio reached with El Slavador’s president, Nayib Bukele, on Tuesday. Bukele said his country would accept U.S. deportees of any nationality, including American citizens and legal residents who are imprisoned for violent crimes.

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    Guatemalan President Bernardo Arevalo cleared the path for his nation’s status as a “safe third country.” (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

    “We have offered the United States of America the opportunity to outsource part of its prison system,” Bukele wrote on X Monday night. “We are willing to take in only convicted criminals (including convicted U.S. citizens) into our mega-prison (CECOT) in exchange for a fee. The fee would be relatively low for the U.S. but significant for us, making our entire prison system sustainable.”

    TRUMP ANNOUNCES VENEZUELA WILL TAKE CRIMINAL ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS BACK

    Rubio said the Salvadoran president “has agreed to the most unprecedented, extraordinary, extraordinary migratory agreement anywhere in the world.”

    “We can send them, and he will put them in his jails,” Rubio told reporters, referring to illegal immigrants behind bars in U.S. prisons. “And, he’s also offered to do the same for dangerous criminals currently in custody and serving their sentences in the United States, even though they’re U.S. citizens or legal residents.”

    U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio meets with El Salvador President Nayib Bukele

    U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio meets with El Salvador President Nayib Bukele at his residence at Lake Coatepeque in El Salvador on Monday, Feb. 3, 2025. (AP)

    While Bukele did extend the offer to include violent American criminals, it is highly unlikely that part of the offer would actually happen, since it is illegal to deport U.S. citizens. A U.S. official said the Trump administration has no plans to deport American citizens, but noted that Bukele’s offer was significant.

    The proposal with El Salvador, known as a “safe third country” agreement, could potentially be an option for Venezuelan gang members convicted in the U.S. if Venezuela refuses to accept them, and Rubio said Bukele offered to accept detainees of any nationality.

    Deportation flight out of U.S.

    People are seen boarding a U.S. military aircraft. The White House announced Friday that “deportation flights have begun” in the U.S. (White House)

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    Bukele also said he would take back all Salvadoran MS-13 gang members in the U.S. illegally, and promised to accept and incarcerate criminal illegal aliens from any country, especially those affiliated with Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gang.

    The Associated Press contributed to this report.