Consuelo Porras’s second term as Attorney General of Guatemala will end on May 17, 2026. This presents an opportunity for the next head of the Public Prosecutor’s Office (Ministerio Público — MP) to review institutional policies and practices that instrumentalize criminal law to evict indigenous communities from their ancestral lands for the benefit of companies and landowners who claim ownership of the lands. This article analyzes this issue based on the findings of the report “Eviction and Criminalization of Indigenous Peoples in Guatemala: the role of the Public Prosecutor’s Office”, recently published by the Due Process of Law Foundation and allied civil society organizations.
A Captured Justice System
Recent reports by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and United Nations bodies conclude that Guatemala’s justice system has been captured by political and economic networks seeking to protect their interests and ensure impunity. The Public Prosecutor’s Office’s actions during the current attorney general’s tenure are perhaps the most notable expression of the judicial kleptocracy that undermines the rule of law and democratic stability in the country. In fact, attempts to obstruct the electoral process and prevent the president-elect from taking office in 2024 have led the European Union, the United States, Canada, and dozens of other countries to impose diplomatic and economic sanctions on Consuelo Porras and other high-ranking officials of the MP and the judiciary.
The consequences of the capture of the justice system have been profound: anti-corruption prosecutors forced into exile, independent judges removed from office or criminalized, and units investigating corruption networks—such as the Special Prosecutor’s Office Against Impunity—dismantled. This institutional deterioration has had a direct impact on the protection of Indigenous peoples’ rights, leading to mass evictions and arbitrary criminal charges of trespassing and aggravated trespassing against communities and their leaders, all anchored in a legal, political, and institutional framework that hinders the protection of Indigenous peoples’ collective property rights over their territories.
Criminal Law as a tool of dispossession
Guatemala is one of the most unequal countries in Latin America in terms of land distribution. This historical inequality has disproportionately affected Indigenous peoples, whose territories have been subject to expropriation and extractive projects. During the internal armed conflict (1960–1996), territorial dispossession reached extreme levels through the scorched-earth strategy, resulting in hundreds of communities being displaced from their ancestral lands. Although the Peace Accords included commitments regarding resettlement and access to land for Indigenous and peasant communities, these remain unfulfilled.
In recent years, the co-optation of the justice system has given rise to new patterns of land dispossession in Guatemala that blend traditional authoritarian strategies with a veneer of legality. In this context, trespassing and aggravated trespassing charges have increasingly been used to criminalize communities that claim or inhabit ancestral territories. In theory, the charges for these crimes seek to protect the rights of those who hold private property titles or claim to be the legitimate owners of disputed lands. In practice, however, these charges have become a tool for judicializing complex agrarian disputes that should, by their nature, be resolved through civil or administrative channels.
During the current Attorney General’s tenure, the objectivity of the Public Prosecutor’s Office in prosecuting trespassing crimes was severely undermined, blurring the distinction between the defense of public interest and the interests of agro-industrial, extractive, and landowning companies. For example, in November 2020, the office created the Specialized Prosecutor’s Office for Crimes of Trespassing and Aggravated Trespassing, as well as a Permanent Response Unit for these crimes. According to the MP’s institutional reports, requests for eviction and trespassing charges have increased exponentially, contrasting with the small number of convictions for these crimes. This discrepancy, coupled with the practice of keeping investigations open for years and postponing hearings where a judicial authority could exonerate the accused, suggests that the MP is not seeking to clarify potential crimes but rather to intimidate communities resisting the seizure of their land.
In numerous documented cases, the MP has initiated criminal proceedings despite evidence of overlapping titles or uncertainty regarding the ownership and size of the disputed property. The MP’s failure to diligently verify the validity of the property titles underlying the trespassing allegations has led to the systematic criminalization of Indigenous communities defending territories they have historically occupied or whose ownership is proven by colonial titles and other evidence ignored by the MP.
International organizations have documented that many evictions in Guatemala are carried out without prior notice and with excessive force. These evictions often lack crucial due process guarantees. In some cases, eviction operations have included burning homes, crops, and community belongings. The widespread use of criminal proceedings to resolve agrarian conflicts is exacerbated by Guatemala’s lack of a land registry that incorporates intercultural criteria. Additionally, there is no operational mechanism for resettling forcibly displaced communities, and the main government agencies responsible for mediating and resolving land disputes have been dismantled in recent years.
This criminal policy affects several communities, generating fear and restricting mobility. It also causes the loss of livelihoods, disrupts access to education and healthcare, and results in forced displacement without guarantees of dignified resettlement. Above all, however, forced evictions are a cultural death sentence for communities that lose their roots in their ancestral territories and ways of life and their Indigenous identity.
An opportunity that must not be wasted
The end of Consuelo Porras’s term could signal a turning point in Guatemala’s use of criminal law to evict Indigenous communities. However, institutional reform must extend beyond changes in leadership. Policies on the investigation and prosecution of crimes of trespass and aggravated trespass must be reviewed. Effective controls over eviction requests must be guaranteed, and Indigenous communities must be able to fully exercise their right to a defense. This implies properly evaluating anthropological expert reports, historical records, and colonial titles as evidence of communal ownership of disputed territories, as well as rigorously verifying the validity of private property titles that underpin allegations of trespass.
Agrarian conflicts cannot be managed by criminalizing those who defend their territories and ways of life. A legitimate justice system must act independently, objectively, and respectfully of human rights. When private interest groups use criminal prosecution as the primary means of resolving agrarian conflicts, the result is often increased conflict, distrust of institutions, and the trespass of the rule of law.
Daniel Cerqueira is Program Director at DPLF.
Suggested citation: Cerqueira, Daniel. Trespassing the Rule of Law: the role of the Public Prosecutor’s Office in the evictions of Indigenous communities in Guatemala. DPLF. March 19, 2026. Available at: https://dplf.org/en/2026/03/19/trespassing-the-rule-of-law-the-role-of-the-public-prosecutors-office-in-the-evictions-of-indigenous-communities-in-guatemala/