Tegucigalpa, May 8 (EFE).- The immigration authorities of Mexico, the United States, Central America and Europe have deported 20,479 Hondurans this year, including 4,265 minors, who left the country fleeing situations of violence and poverty, reported this Monday an official source.
According to data released by the National Institute of Migration (INM), Honduras received a total of 9,988 people deported from Mexico between January and May 1.
The United States deported 9,776 Honduran citizens who were detained for entering that country irregularly, according to statistics.
Another 557 Hondurans were deported from Central American countries, while 158 were repatriated from a dozen Latin American and European countries, said the same source.
Official statistics indicate that deportations from the United States alone fell by 30.6% compared to 14,082 cases in the same period of 2022.
Around a million Hondurans live in the United States, including legal and undocumented residents, according to Tegucigalpa authorities.
Returns from Mexican territory decreased by 38.6%, compared to the 16,257 records last year.
The data compiled by the INM also shows that the number of children and adolescents who were deported this year fell from 8,167 in 2022 to 4,265 in 2023.
The downward difference was 3,902 cases, which represents a reduction of 47.8%.
Every year thousands of Hondurans leave the country with the idea of reaching the United States in search of better living conditions to flee the poverty and violence that plague Honduras, according to human rights organizations and experts.
The main reasons that drive Hondurans’ desire to emigrate are persistent insecurity and the decline in the population’s purchasing power, according to experts.
Other causes are the lack of employment, the impact of the climate crisis and family reunification, mainly in the case of minors.
Those who live abroad, mainly in the US and Spain, send family remittances, which in 2022 exceeded 8.6 billion dollars, according to figures from the Central Bank of Honduras.
Since October 2018, several caravans with thousands of Central Americans, most of them Hondurans, have left with the purpose of reaching the United States.
