Hundreds of protesters broke into Guatemala’s Congress and burned part of the building Saturday amid growing demonstrations against President Alejandro Giammattei and the legislature for approving a controversial budget that cut educational and health spending.

Forty-four Guatemalans deported on one flight from the United States this week have tested positive for COVID-19, a Guatemalan government official with knowledge of the situation said, amid rising rejection of deportees due to virus fears.

Hundreds of Central American migrants stranded in Guatemala on Wednesday were weighing limited options as to how to make it into Mexico, guarded by troops with riot shields and immigration agents.

The U.S. government says it will deport a Honduran mother and her two sick children, both of whom are currently hospitalized, to Guatemala as soon as it can get them medically cleared to travel, according to court documents and the family's advocates.

Guatemalan police accompanied by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents swept up the majority of a group of some 300 migrants Thursday, loaded them on buses and took them back to the Honduran border, effectively dashing their plans to travel together in a "caravan" with hopes of reaching the United States.

Guatemala swore in Alejandro Giammattei, a conservative physician opposed to gay marriage and abortion, as its new president Tuesday while the country's outgoing leader exited amid swirling corruption accusations.

With dances and fireworks, indigenous residents of a town in the Guatemalan highlands on Saturday came to the end of a festival celebrating their patron saint, Thomas the apostle.

A trailer truck collided with a passenger bus in eastern Guatemala early Saturday, killing at least 20 people and leaving a dozen wounded, according to the national disaster agency. It said nine of the dead were minors.

The U.S. Treasury said Thursday that it has blacklisted a Guatemalan mayor and a drug trafficking organization related to him.

Guatemala City, Aug 12 (AP/UNB) — Conservative Alejandro Giammattei has blazed a long, strange path to Guatemala's presidency, which he won on his fourth try.