Jennifer Sanguano began noticing an increase in non-criminal undocumented immigrants from Mexico being deported in February and March. By May, something else was happening. Immigrants from Ecuador, who had stays of removal, were having their extensions denied.



“They had 90 people (in the region) in one month,” said Sanguano, of Wallingford. “All these people gathered and were put onto a plane.”



Here are some things to know about Ecuadorian immigration and deportation.



Local issues



In recent months, five known undocumented immigrants living in Meriden have come forward after extensions of their stays of removal were denied under a policy enacted by the Trump administration in May. All of them were from Ecuador, a country straddling the equator on South America’s west coast.



Sanguano, who works as a representative for the tri-state Ecuadorian embassy, said she isn’t sure why the Ecuadorian population is being impacted most in Meriden. The Consulate General of Ecuador in New Haven could not be reached for comment.



“Meriden has the highest Hispanic population in the area,” said Maria Campos-Harlow, executive director of the Spanish Community of Wallingford. “I don’t think (deportation) has anything to do with nationality, it depends on the area they came from.”



A spokesman for the office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement said “ICE doesn’t discriminate and will apply U.S. immigration laws evenly and fairly to everyone they work with, regardless of where they originated.”



“In my experience, people from the same cultural background tend to stick together geographically,” said Shawn Neudauer, an ICE spokesman. “In Minneapolis, there is a large Somali population, in St. Paul there are a lot of people from Southeast Asia – folks tend to settle near people they know or in areas where they are familiar with the culture. In New Hampshire, there happen to be a lot of people from Indonesia. I really can’t speculate as to why there are a lot of people from Ecuador in Connecticut.”



Sanguano, 24, is a legal resident and has lived in Wallingford since age 18. As Connecticut’s representative to the embassy, she has gone to the Ecuadorian Embassy in New York to advocate for undocumented residents and gain information. She has worked with the consulate’s office to help secure pro bono legal services for immigrants facing deportation and advocated for basic human needs, such as getting medication for detainees.



She recalls one detainee with diabetes whose ankles were bleeding because her chains were too tight. The Ecuadorian consulate intervened on the woman’s behalf.



Sanguano’s father left Ecuador in 2000. After being undocumented for a couple years, he was given paperwork for a work visa from his Hamden employer that gave him permanent residency. He obtained legal status for his wife and two daughters, who followed several years later.



Why emigrate?



The country borders the Pacific ocean on the west, Colombia to the north and Peru to the east and south. The Andes Mountains that span Ecuador’s spine offer visitors breathtaking views of the country. The low cost of living has enticed some U.S. citizens to retire in its safer cities and towns. So why leave?



“There was a crisis in Ecuador in the 1990s,” Sanguano said. “There was a recession during those years. The bank closed and people who had savings lost money. A lot of Ecuadorians went to Spain and the U.S.”



In recent years, Ecuador has accepted refugees from Colombia and political refugees from Venezuela. Syrians have also found a home within its borders.



Of immigrants from South America to the U.S., Ecuadorians are the most likely to be in poverty, reports the Migration Policy Institute. According to a 2016 report from the U.S. State Department, Ecuador’s “corrupt government” fosters distrust in trade agreements and cripples its own economy.



The U.S. State Department’s report on Ecuador advises U.S. travelers to avoid Ecuador’s Columbian border. The report label’s Ecuador’s capital, Quito, and largest city, Guayaquil, as critical threat locations.



“Crime continues to present a severe problem. Crimes against U.S. citizens in 2016 have ranged from petty theft to violent offenses, including armed robbery, express kidnapping, sexual assault, and homicide. Very low rates of apprehension and conviction of criminals – due to limited police and judicial resources – contribute to Ecuador’s high crime rate,” the report notes.



The report adds that crime is increasing and government corruption has hurt Ecuador’s ability to trade with other countries.



Since 2003, the office of the United States Trade Representative has listed Ecuador as a watch list country in its annual report on intellectual property.



“Foreign direct investment rates are very low in comparison with other countries in Latin America and the overall investment climate is uncertain. Systemic weakness in the judicial system and its susceptibility to political or economic pressures are issues for U.S. companies investing in or trading with Ecuador,” the report states.



From 2011 to 2015, 431,000 people from Ecuador came to the U.S., according to the Migration Policy Institute. This includes natural citizens, unlawful permanent residents, certain legal non-immigrants, persons on student or work visas, those admitted under refugee or asylum status, and persons illegally residing in the U.S., the institute notes.



In the four year time frame, about 73,900 Ecuadorian immigrants settled in Queens, New York, with a total of 177,000 Ecuadorians in the entire state of New York, according to the institute. A total of 19,000 Ecuadorians moved to Fairfield County between 2011 and 2015, while others went to Los Angeles, Cook County, Illinois, and Miami-Dade, Florida.



Fear a common factor



A Wallingford woman from Ecuador, who asked not to be identified on the advice of her lawyer, said her uncle is a legal resident and resided in Greenwich, but her family moved north.



“There are more opportunities and good education for our children,” she said.



Her husband is a lawyer who spent six years in law school in Ecuador, but could not find a job there because he was not connected with the government, she said. The couple have been in the country for 12 years, have filed for citizenship papers, but were advised by their lawyer not to identify themselves.



“It is very difficult to find any job (in Ecudaor), never mind a law practice,” said the husband.



Marco Reyes, a Meriden resident who was set to be deported to Ecuador last month before taking sanctuary in a New Haven church, fears for his safety if he returns to the country. His brother-in-law was murdered in Ecuador, and the man convicted in the killing was recently released. The family and his attorney have said they fear Reyes would become a target.



Rosa Chabla, who worked at the Four Points by Sheraton hotel in Meriden, was forced to leave her husband, daughter and 10-year-old son behind and return to Ecuador last month after receiving orders from ICE. Her son, Edwin Quilligana, 18, a Maloney High School graduate, was returned on the same flight as his mother. His father, Cesar Quilligana, previously told the Record-Journal his son doesn’t leave his home in Ecuador out of fear of gang violence.



“My son cannot travel now,” he said. “You can’t walk in or outside anywhere. There are dangerous people.”



Serious cultural adjustment



The children of migrants raised abroad face serious cultural adjustment issues upon return to Ecuador, the State Department reported in 2016. The country continues to combat sex trafficking and other forms of exploitation.



“Ecuador is a source, transit and destination country for men, women and children subjected to sex trafficking and forced labor,” the report states. “Men, women and children are exploited in sex trafficking and forced labor within the country, including in domestic servitude, forced begging, on banana and palm plantations, in floriculture, shrimp farming, sweatshops, street vending, mining and in other areas of the informational economy.”



The report also criticized the country’s police department as corrupt, insufficiently trained, poorly supervised and lacking in resources.



The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and non-government groups from the region have reported the forced recruitment of adolescents on the northern border of Ecuador, particularly by organized criminal gangs that also operate in Colombia.



Education in Ecuador is obligatory through 9th grade and free through 12th grade.



But high costs for uniforms and books, as well as a lack of space in public schools, continue to prevent many adolescents from attending school.



In some provinces school buses are not made available, the State Department reported last year.



A 2013 study by Plan International found that 69 percent of children between the ages of 10 and 15 were victims of violence.



Not just a U.S. issue



The thousands of recent refugees in Ecuador from Colombia, Venezuela and now Syria in the past several years have further strained the small country’s resources and have placed more barriers on employment, said Sanguano.



“We need to regulate immigration (in Ecuador),” Sanguano said.



When asked if she could understand why people in the U.S. might share the same sentiment, Sanguano said the situations are different and that current U.S. policy is unjust.



“This is an immigration issue that is happening now,” she said about Ecuador. “In the U.S. it’s been going on for 50 years. The U.S. should have done something before. Now that they (immigrants) are here, it’s a little cruel to do it now. These people are helping the economy.”





