January 14 – New President Alejandro Giammattei takes office after a five-hour delay due to protests. Outgoing president Morales is pelted with eggs.[1]
Arrest warrants on corruption charges are issued for eight politicians; former congresswoman Aracely Chavarria and former mayor Angel Ren of Chiche, Quiché, are arrested.[3]
January 17 – 19 – Guatemalan Soccer League championship.[4]
The government seizes two farms belonging to former Minister of Communications, Infrastructure, and Housing, Alejandro Sinibaldi.[8]
January 22 – Guatemala is seen as the fifth most corrupt country in the world.[9]
January 24 – Calm returns to the Mexico-Guatemala border after 800 Honduran immigrants were arrested on January 23.[10]
January 27 – Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei offers El Salvador an opportunity to build and operate a port in Guatemalan waters in the Atlantic.[11]
The United States deported a record 4,171 Guatemalans (3,000 men, 692 women, 479 minors), a 2.27% increase over 2019, during the month of January, according to the Instituto Guatemalteco de Migración (Guatemalan Institute of Migration, IGM).[13]
Oscar Dávila, 44, is appointed to head the investigations into government corruption.[15]
February 6 – In a visit to the Mexican Senate, President Alejandro Giammattei suggests the two countries construct Muros de Prosperidad ("Prosperity Walls") in the form of an investment bank in the Guatemalan departments of San Marcos, Quiché, and Huehuetenango and the Mexican states of Chiapas and Tabasco in order to stem migration.[16]
February 7 – The United States offers thousands of H-2B visas to temporary agricultural workers from Guatemala.[17]
February 7 – 10 – Ultramarathon Xocomil in Lake Atitlán, Sololá Department[18]
February 15 – 16 – Thousands celebrate the 59th birthday of Trompito the elephant at La Aurora zoo in Guatemala City.[19]
February 18 – A campaign to reunite families separated by kidnapping and/or irregular adoption during the Guatemalan Civil War of 1960-96 has begun.[20]
February 22 – March 8 – Campeonato Femenino Sub-20 Concacaf 2020 (Concacaf 2020 Under-20 Women's Championship) in the Dominican Republic.[21]
February 24 – Thelma Aldana, the former chief prosecutor known for fighting corruption, is granted asylum in the United States after being charged with embezzlement in Guatemala.[22]
February 28 – Patricia Marroquín de Morales, the wife of former president Jimmy Morales, is wanted for questioning for possible fraud.[23]
March 31 – A riot in a migrant detention center in Tenosique, Tabasco, Mexico, leaves a Guatemalan man dead and four people injured. The detainees were worried about a possible COVID-19 outbreak.[27]
April 3 – 2,250 people have been arrested for violating the curfew imposed since mid-March while 5,705 people have been detained for leaving their homes without justification.[28]
April 2 – Rodolfo Galdamez, the technical deputy minister of health, and Hector Marroquin, the administrative deputy minister of health, are fired amid revelations of an alleged corruption ring inside the ministry.[29]
April 23
Gilmer Barrios, a Guatemalan immigrant to the United States, was arrested on March 23 in southern California and deported to Tijuana, Mexico, on March 23. He spent 21 days in Mexico before Guatemalan Consul General was able to get him returned to his home in San Diego.[30]
The United Nations Commission on Human Rights calls on Mexican and Central American governments to halt deportations during the coronavirus pandemic. 2,500 migrants are stuck in Panama because Honduras has closed its border. Mexico has dumped migrants in Guatemala, but Guatemala has not let them in. On April 23 the organization helped 41 migrants return to El Salvador from Mexico.[31]
April 26 – Mexico′s National Institute of Migration (INM) empties the 65 migrant detention centers it has across the country by returning 3,653 people to Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras in the hope of preventing outbreaks of COVID-19.[33]
May and June
May 1 – Santa Catarina Palopó, Sololá Department, and other Maya communities spurn returned migrants, threatening some with burning their homes or lynching as fear spreads about more than 100 deportees from the United States who tested positive for the coronavirus. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has said deportees were screened for elevated temperatures and symptoms associated with COVID-19 before a plane with 89 Guatemalans, a dozen of them minors, arrived in the country on April 30.[34]
June 8 – U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announces that Gustavo Adolfo Alejos Cámbara, private secretary to former President Álvaro Colom (2008-2012) is ineligible for admission to the United States because of corruption. The ban also applies to Alejos Cámbara's family.[35]
July 13 – COVID-19 pandemic: A report by The New York Times and the Marshall Project indicates that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) worsened the spread of the pandemic by deporting sick people to their countries of origin, including Guatemala. Guautemala is the only country that protested against the practice.[36]
July 21 – The Grupo de Apoyo Mutuo (GAM) says that during the first six months of 2020, 262 minors have been murdered, 138 with firearms. Choking was the second cause of death with 66, and drowning was third with 24. There have been 1,638 confirmed cases of COVID-19 among minors.[37]
August 16 – Forty Qʼeqchiʼ families were forced to leave the Cubilgüitz coffee farm, which they had been occupying in protest for fifteen years, after an armed group set fire to several residences.[38]
August 18 – A 5.6 magnitude earthquake in Escuintla Department with no reports of damages of or injuries.[39]
August 19 – The United States deports 127 Guatemalans, all certified as having recuperated from COVID-19. 100 Guatemalans had been deported from Mexico on August 16. 4,392 Guatemalans have been deported from the two countries since April 1.[40]
August 22 – Dozens of protesters demand the resignation of President Alejandro Giammattei for mismanaging the response to the pandemic. Guatemala reports 67,856 cases of infection and 2,580 deaths.[41]
September 12 – COVID-19 pandemic: With nearly 3,000 deaths, more Guatemalans have died than in other counties in Central America. Guatemala is second in confirmed cases (81,909), behind Panama's 100,000. Overall, the public health situation seems to be improving, as La Aurora International Airport is due to open on September 18.[42]
September 18 – COVID-19 pandemic: President Alejandro Giammattei says he has tested positive for COVID-19. Guatemala reports 84,344 and 3,076 deaths.[44]
November 20 – Vice President Guillermo Castillo says he and President Giammattei should both resign in opposition to the 2021 budget that calls for large cuts in social benefits.[46]
