Learning to sew is what spared Guatemalan Francisca Lares the perilous migrant journey to the United States, crippling smuggler debt and likely deportation. Instead, she found the better life she was seeking right on her doorstep.The 30-year-old single mother is a beneficiary of a scholarship program of the government and the UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM) for young Guatemalans to learn a trade and make a living in their own country.More than half the Central American country’s 18 million residents live in poverty, according to official figures. The ratio is even higher in Indigenous villages such as Estanzuela in Joyabaj municipality, where Lares lives.It is a significant push factor, and some 3.2 million Guatemalans are believed to live in the United States — hundreds of thousands of them illegally.Lares had herself considered pursing the “American dream” at a time she was earning $75 a month producing handmade fabrics and barely getting by.Then she heard about a sewing course offered at the “Quedate” (Stay) training center.After completing the course she bought a sewing machine, and now makes traditional Mayan tunics known as huipiles that she sells from a small shop at her home. Lares also markets her wares on social media, and has already sent a few blouses all the way to the United States.She does not want to speak about how much she earns, but told AFP she can now easily cover her needs and those of her daughters aged five and nine.It was the training, she said, “that made me stay here and say: I can get ahead.”- ‘They are being caught’ -The project, which launched in 2021 at a municipal center in Joyabaj and has received donations from Japan, also trains young Guatemalans in hairdressing, baking, computer repair and other skills to help them find jobs or open their own businesses.Courses last from two weeks, like the one Lares took, to nine months.For many in a country where 70 percent of people work in the informal sector and almost one in six are illiterate, the only alternative is putting their lives in the hands of unscrupulous smugglers.”They are being caught,” Lares told AFP of her countrymen and women being expelled from the United States in a deportation wave under President Donald Trump. “They are returning and one starts to think: what if I had left (Guatemala), what if I was just starting to pay off my debt and had to leave (the United States) — how would I have paid my debt?” she said.Smugglers, also known as “coyotes,” charge desperate clients as much as $20,000 to get them to the United States from Joyabaj.”Some die” on the journey, pointed out Lares, speaking to AFP at the training center she credits with offering her a new lease on life.”There is suffering there (in the United States) too… Let’s spare our families the suffering.”Many among Lares’s classmates are deportees.- ‘Better to stay’ -Fellow graduate Marleny Tino, 25, also considered emigrating. In the end, only her husband went.He now lives in Florida “afraid” of being deported, she told AFP.”It is better to stay here than risk your life going there and then being deported as soon as you arrive,” said the mother of two, who also makes huipiles and runs a small business from her home.Remittances sent home by migrants amounted to some $21 billion last year, almost a fifth of GDP.Last year, the United States deported 61,680 Guatemalans, according to the government of the Central American country.Pedro Miranda, the director of the training center, said the goal was to equip more than 600 young people with new skills in 2025.So far, 814 youngsters have learnt a trade at the center and two similar ones in Huehuetenango and Solola.

Migrants who obtained temporary permission to live in the United States through the CBP One app under former president Joe Biden have received orders to self-deport “immediately,” US media reported Tuesday.A US Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told AFP that “formal termination notices” had been issued to certain “illegal aliens,” but did not provide details on how they were selected.”Formal termination notices have been issued, and affected aliens are urged to voluntarily self-deport using the CBP Home App,” the senior DHS spokesperson told AFP. “Those who refuse will be found, removed, and permanently barred from reentry.”Starting in January 2023, the CBP One app allowed migrants to schedule appointments at certain southwestern US ports of entry, and was a central part of the Biden administration’s humanitarian parole strategy. The latest orders could affect more than 930,000 migrants, National Public Radio reported.President Donald Trump canceled any further entries via the CBP One app on the first day of his second term. Doing so blocked access to a platform that allowed migrants in Mexico to make appointments with US officials at designated border crossings, where they could apply for temporary residency. Trump vowed to deport “millions” of undocumented migrants as he was sworn in for his second term, after running an election campaign that focused on illegal immigration.On the campaign trail, Trump likened migrants to “animals” and “monsters,” claiming they were responsible for violent crime across the country. “Canceling these paroles is a promise kept to the American people to secure our borders and protect national security,” the DHS spokesperson said Tuesday.Those whose parole was cancelled were informed via email that DHS was exercising its discretionary authority under US law to do so.The latest orders come after the Trump administration terminated the legal status of 532,000 Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan and Venezuelan migrants last month, giving them weeks to leave the country.

Like many Canadian border cities, Sarnia has seen a surge of patriotism in response to President Donald Trump’s aggressive behavior, but residents of the community on Lake Huron have focused on one threat in particular: local waters. Trump’s trade war has raised fears of a Canadian recession and his repeated references to annexation have sparked outrage.But in Sarnia, Ontario, Trump’s reported musings about scrapping agreements related to the Great Lakes have triggered added contempt. “Lake Huron means a lot to me. I grew up on the lake,” said Jay Casbourn, who is part of a group of Sarnia residents making red “Proud to be Canadian” signs that are increasingly being displayed across the city of some 72,000 people.  “If Mr. Trump wants to move that border, he is going to have a big fight on his hands.”The US president — and which Canadian leader can best confront him — are dominant topics in Sarnia ahead of the April 28 general election. The city has elected a conservative member of parliament in several consecutive votes, even as liberals won elections elsewhere in Ontario. But midway through this year’s campaign, some voters said partisan preferences had taken a back seat to concerns about US tensions.  “In my lifetime, at 87 years old, I have never seen anything like this,” said Marilyn Madery, another Sarnia resident selling red patriotic signs. She told AFP the Liberal Party leader, Prime Minister Mark Carney, and Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre were “both very strong candidates.”The election, she added, “is very important because of Trump being in the White House.”Stan Latewiec, who also lives on the lake, said he wants to vote for “somebody strong who will stand up for Canada.”Trump’s tariffs on Canadian imports and his questioning of Canadian sovereignty are “making me feel more patriotic,” said Latewiec, 76, speaking on the porch of his home a few dozen meters from the lake. “We do have a good country. And we want to keep it that way.”- Massive water reserves -Trump, who is known to take a keen interest in water resources, has reportedly questioned the validity of the US-Canada agreements regulating access to water.In early February, Trump reportedly challenged the border treaty in calls between the two countries, and told then prime minister Justin Trudeau, who has since resigned, that he didn’t like their shared water agreements about rivers and lakes.The New York Times also reported last month that Trump, in discussions with advisers, has specifically discussed tearing up agreements and conventions that govern management of the shared Great Lakes — Superior, Huron, Erie and Ontario.Combined with the Lake Michigan in the United States, the Great Lakes account for roughly 20 percent of the world’s surface fresh water reserves. They are a source of drinking water for tens of millions of people in Canada and the United States and have been governed by a network of treaties and arrangements since the start of the 20th Century, said Western University historian Mary Baxter, who specializes in the Great Lakes. “It has been a long-term cooperative arrangement,” Baxter told AFP. It’s an arrangement Trump appears to be breaking, she added. – ‘Just neighbors’ now -Looking out through the windows at Sarnia’s city hall, across the St. Clair River that feeds into Lake Huron, Mayor Mike Bradley can see the United States. But Bradley said that lately he’s spent more time watching the news on TV than enjoying the view.Trying to keep up with Trump’s latest comments about Canada causes “a lot of anxiety,” he told AFP. “You just cannot track what’s going to happen next,” he said.  He voiced fear the Trump administration may be serious about some of the scenarios that have circulated concerning the Great Lakes, including drilling on lake beds or diverting water to US areas facing water shortages, like California or Arizona. He’s been Sarnia’s mayor for 37 years and sits on a cross-border Great Lakes mayors group that was once unified but is now riddled with fractures. The Americans “used to be our friends,” he said. “Now they’re just our neighbors.”