First US flight with third-country deportees arrives in Guatemala

The formation brought 3 Hondurans and 56 Guatemalan nationals, according to Guatemala’s IGM migration agency.

Guatemala has received its archetypal deportation formation from the United States carrying some Guatemalan and overseas immigrants, the country’s migration authorization confirmed, arsenic President Donald Trump’s medication pursues its hardline anti-immigration crackdown.

The formation arrived connected Friday, bringing 3 Hondurans and 56 Guatemalan nationals, according to Guatemala’s IGM migration agency. The Honduran passengers were taken to a migration centre earlier being transferred to their location country.

The Guatemalan authorities has said it remains unfastened to receiving citizens from neighbouring Central American nations deported by the US arsenic it seeks to fortify ties with the Trump administration.

Earlier this year, President Bernardo Arevalo’s authorities agreed to summation the number of deportation flights it would person pursuing a sojourn from US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Arevalo has besides indicated that Guatemala is prepared to instrumentality successful immoderate non-citizens deported from the US.

This is not the archetypal clip Guatemala has received deportation flights from the US, with Guatemalan nationals being sent backmost arsenic aboriginal arsenic January nether the latest Trump administration.

Last month, a US justice ordered the Trump medication to refrain from deporting Guatemalan unaccompanied migrant children with progressive migration cases portion a ineligible situation plays out. The children, who had arrived alone, stay successful national custody portion their asylum claims are reviewed.

Arevalo criticised the ruling, saying helium would proceed moving to repatriate the children done a aviator programme discussed with Trump.

White House migration advisor Stephen Miller condemned the judge’s decision, arsenic the Trump medication moves guardant with its broader deportation campaign.

Under the erstwhile Joe Biden administration, the Central American state handled astir 14 flights a day. According to the Reuters quality agency, astir 66,000 Guatemalans were deported from the US during fiscal twelvemonth 2024 – the highest fig recorded successful caller years.

Trump has made curbing migration a cardinal precedence of his 2nd term. His medication has pressed Central American and Caribbean nations to cooperate with US deportation efforts.

In December, Trump had approached respective Caribbean governments, including those of the Bahamas, Grenada, and the Turks and Caicos Islands, to judge migrants from 3rd countries, though the land leaders rejected the proposal.

In June, the US Supreme Court cleared the mode for Trump to resume deporting immigrants to countries different than their homeland – adjacent if they assertion they could look information there.