Thousands of Central American parents continue to arrive at the southern border with their children, and about 40 percent of them are from Guatemala—the largest single group. Their arrival has led to threats from President Trump to close the border, to the deployment of the military and to the proclamation of a national emergency. A cycle of debt and tougher border enforcement in the United States continues to push people out in the Western Highlands of Guatemala, leaving a void in some rural schools and villages and a heavier load for those who stay behind.
U.S. President Donald Trump is threatening to criminalize migrants trying to cross into the United States, yet they keep coming.
Forty percent of the more than 720,000 unaccompanied minors who have surrendered to the U.S. Border Patrol in the last two years after crossing the southern border of the United States have been Guatemalan.
The Trump administration continues to try to stop the thousands of families arriving at the southern border, but the families keep coming. Why are immigration officials releasing so many of them?
For families in indigenous Guatemalan towns leaving for the U.S. with their children is seen as a last choice, propelled by a cycle of debt that only fuels more migration.
Journalist Perla Trevizo examines the conditions in Guatemala that lead families to migrate to the U.S.
Through Bringing Stories Home, the Pulitzer Center supports local and regional newsrooms across the country, helping them to tell the types of long-form enterprise stories that too often go unreported.
Educators met at the University of Chicago for a two-day professional development to discuss how to bring domestic and global reporting into their classrooms.