Carlos Navarro was recently eating takeout outside a restaurant in Virginia when immigration officials arrested him and said there was a warrant for his removal from the country.

He has never had a run-in with the law, Navarro, 32, said, adding that he worked in poultry plants.

“Absolutely nothing.”

By last week, he had returned to Guatemala for the first time in 11 years, calling his wife in the United States from a reception center for deportees in the capital, Guatemala City.

The experience of Mr. Navarra could be a preview of the kind of swift deportations coming under President Donald J. Trump to communities across the United States, home to even 14 million unauthorized immigrants.

The administration, which has promised the largest deportations in American history, is said to begin with them already on Tuesday. In his inaugural speech on Monday, Mr. Trump promised to “begin the process of sending millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places they came from.”

Mr. Navarro’s situation provides insight into what mass deportations could mean in Latin American countries at the other end of the deportation pipeline.

Officials there are preparing to take in significant numbers of their citizens, even though many governments have said they are he failed to meet with the incoming administration about her expulsion.

Guatemala, a small, impoverished nation scarred by a brutal civil war, has a significant number of undocumented residents in the United States. About 675,000 undocumented Guatemalans lived in the country in 2022, according to the Pew Research Center.

That makes him one of the largest countries of origin for unauthorized immigrants in the United States, after Mexico, India and El Salvador, and a laboratory for how mass deportations can also change life outside the United States.

Last year, Guatemala received about seven deportation flights a week from the United States, according to migration officials, amounting to about 1,000 people. The government has told US officials that it can accommodate a maximum of 20 such flights per week, or about 2,500 people, the officials said.

At the same time, the Guatemalan government is developing a plan — which President Bernardo Arévalo it’s called “Homecoming” — to assure Guatemalans facing deportation that they can expect assistance from consulates in the United States — and, in the event of detention and removal — a “dignified reception.”

“We know they are worried,” said Carlos Ramiro Martínez, the foreign minister. “They live with tremendous fear, and as a government, we can’t just say, ‘Look, we fear for you too.’ We have to do something.”

Guatemala’s plan, which she outlined at a meeting of foreign ministers from the region in Mexico City last week, goes beyond immediate concerns shared by many governments in the region — such as how to house or feed deportees on their first night.

It also talks about how to reintegrate deported Guatemalans into society.

The plan, which focuses on connecting deportees with jobs and using their language and work skills, also aims to offer mental health support for people dealing with the trauma of deportation.

In practical terms, this means that when deportees get off the plane, government officials will interview them extensively to get a detailed picture of those returning to the country, the help they need and the type of work they might be able to do.

Experts say Guatemala’s plan appears to reflect the Trump administration’s unspoken expectation that Latin American governments not only take in their deported citizens — but also work to prevent them from returning to the United States.

Historically, many people sent back to their home countries have turned around and tried to return, “even under extreme circumstances,” said Felipe González Morales, who served as the United Nations special rapporteur on the human rights of migrants.

According to the US Department of Homeland Security, roughly 40 percent of deportations in 2020 involved people who had previously been deported and re-entered the country.

The dynamic was “basically a revolving door” for years, Mr. Martínez, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Guatemala, in an interview.

Mr. Trump wants to change that.

“When the whole world watches President Trump and his administration en masse deport illegal criminals from American communities back to their home countries,” Trump transition spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said in an email, “it will send a very strong message not to come to America unless you plan to do so immediately or you will be sent home.”

The number of illegal US border crossings has already dropped dramatically, with about 46,000 people trying to cross it in November, the lowest monthly figure during the Biden administration, according to the US government.

The Trump administration is expected to press governments in Latin America to continue supporting its fight against migration.

But Guatemala’s plan for the reintegration of deportees is not only a way for Mr. Show Trump that Guatemala is cooperating, according to Anita Isaacs, expert on Guatemala who drafted the plan.

Ms. Isaacs said of the deportees, “if you can find a way to integrate them and use their skills, then the opportunities for Guatemala are enormous.”

Until now, she said, deportees who get off the plane in Guatemala City have mostly been given some basics, such as new identification documents, sanitary supplies and transportation to a shelter or the main bus station.

Instead, she suggested, Guatemala could embrace its recently returned citizens as an economic asset, including in its tourism sector.

As an example, she pointed to the case of hundreds of Guatemalans deported after a 2008 ICE raid on an Iowa meatpacking plant, who went to become volcano guides.

However, there are major challenges in encouraging deportees to remain in their homeland.

The forces that forced them to leave are still there, said Alfredo Danilo Rivera, Guatemala’s migration director: abject poverty and lack of jobs, extreme weather conditions exacerbated by climate change, the threat of gangs and organized crime.

Then there’s the allure of the United States, where not only are there more jobs, but workers are paid in dollars.

“If we are going to talk about the reasons why people migrate, the causes, we also have to talk about the fact that they settle there and that many manage to succeed,” said Mr. Rivera.

Deportees also feel more pressure to get to the United States than first-time migrants, said priest Francisco Pellizzari, director of Casa del Migrante, Guatemala City’s main deportee shelter.

They often owe thousands of dollars to smugglers, and in rural Guatemala poor people often hand over liens on their houses or land as collateral for loans to pay smugglers, effectively leaving them homeless if they are deported.

“They can’t come back,” Father Pellizzari said.

The tighter border measures imposed by the Biden administration have also led smugglers, aware of the increased risk of deportation, to offer migrants as many as three chances to enter the United States for the price of one try, according to Father Pellizzari and others.

José Manuel Jochola, 18, who was deported to Guatemala last week after being arrested for illegally crossing the Texas border, said he has three months to make the most of his remaining chances. “I’ll try again,” he said, though he would wait to see what Mr. Trump would do.

The desire to return to the United States after deportation is particularly strong among those whose families are there.

Mr. Navarro, a man recently deported from Virginia, said he was undeterred by Mr. Trump. “I have to go back, for my son, for my wife,” he said.

A woman who was on Mr. Navarro’s deportation flight, Neida Vásquez Esquivel, 20, said it was the fourth time she had been deported while trying to reach her parents in New Jersey. A second attempt was not out of place, she said.

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But some deportees say the biggest appeal of staying in Guatemala is that, for now, the alternative doesn’t look so good.

After José Moreno, 26, was deported last week after a drunken driving accident, he decided not to try to return to Boston, where he spent a decade, because of the dangers of crossing the border and the new president’s stance on immigrants.

Instead, he said, he would use his English to offer guided tours in Petén, an area in Guatemala with a picturesque lake and Mayan ruins, where his family has a small hotel.

“My parents are here, I have everything here,” he said. “Why would I come back?”

Jody Garcia contributed reporting from Guatemala City, and Miriam Jordan from Los Angeles.