Honduran Woman to Face Deportation for a Second Time

Blanca Benitez Yanes

Thirty-two-year-old Blanca Benitez Yanes has been sent to prison for six months. Yanes appeared before Magistrate Tricia Pitts Anderson this morning on a charge of failure to produce a visitor’s permit. It is for an offence which happened on Monday of this week when an immigration officer asked to see her permit and she was unable to produce one.  Yanes was unrepresented in court today and pleaded not guilty to the charge.  She told the court she didn’t want to be deported to her home country of Honduras, but was unable to give a good reason. She told the magistrate that she had a passport, but had lost it; however she was unable to prove that. The court ordered her deportation today. She was unable to pay a one thousand-dollar fine and as result she was sent to prison for six months.   In June of last year, Yanes appeared before the court on a similar charge where she had pleaded guilty and was fined. She subsequently paid the fine and was removed from Belize, but returned a second time.