Guatemalan couple found dead after US deportation
1-year-old found alive beside bodies in sugarcane field, deportation statistics rise as security collapses at destination
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The deaths highlight the risks and challenges faced by some immigrants after deportation from the United States (Guatemala Prosecutor’s Office (MP)/Handout via Reuters)
independent.co.uk
A Guatemalan man deported from the United States and his wife who later returned voluntarily were found dead in a sugarcane field in southwestern Guatemala, according to The Independent. Their 1-year-old daughter was found alive beside the bodies, and prosecutors said the infant and the couple’s two other children were placed with relatives. Local media reported the pair had been missing the previous week.
The Independent reports the couple were found with their hands tied behind their backs, an image that collapses immigration policy into a crime-scene detail. The man, Nixon Giovanni Perez, had been detained by immigration agents in Missouri last year while travelling to roofing jobs, and was deported. His wife, Glendy Marisol Gonzalez, later left the US to reunite the family in Guatemala, despite having an asylum court date scheduled years ahead.
The story lands as US enforcement meets the realities of the countries people are returned to. UN data cited by The Independent put deportations to Guatemala at nearly 32,000 in the first half of 2026, up sharply on the previous year, with the vast majority coming from the United States. Guatemala’s government, meanwhile, has announced a plan to strengthen security measures after a recent spike in murders it attributes to organised crime.
Back in Missouri, the couple’s lives were also embedded in the informal systems that keep low-wage labour markets running: jobs arranged day-to-day, families making long plans around court dates, and community groups filling gaps left by slow-moving legal processes. The Independent reports that Gonzalez was active in an immigrants’ rights organising committee connected to the Missouri Workers Center; the group said it would hold a vigil. Requests for comment to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and local police were not immediately answered, The Independent said.
What remains is a sequence of handoffs where responsibility is easy to deny: an arrest on the way to work, a deportation order carried out, a “voluntary” departure to keep a family together, and then a killing investigated thousands of miles away.
Prosecutors said the couple’s children are now in the care of relatives. Their parents were found in a field.