Guatemala agrees to extend variety of US deportation flights it accepts
In 2024, roughly 66,000 individuals had been deported from the US to Guatemala. Below Trump, that quantity is predicted to rise.
The Central American nation of Guatemala has agreed to ramp up the variety of deportation flights it receives from america, after a go to from Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
At a information convention on Wednesday, Guatemalan President Bernardo Arevalo additionally introduced that his nation would settle for non-citizens despatched from the US.
“We have now agreed to extend by 40 p.c the variety of flights of deportees each of our nationality in addition to deportees from different nationalities,” stated Arevalo, who appeared collectively with Rubio.
This isn’t the primary time Guatemala has accepted deportation flights from the US: It did so beneath the earlier administration of US President Joe Biden as effectively.
However Trump, the present president, has campaigned closely on stamping out irregular migration to the US, and since taking workplace on January 20, he has pressured international locations across the area to hitch his efforts.
A Guatemalan official, talking beneath situation of anonymity, instructed the information company Reuters that, beneath Biden, the Central American nation obtained about 14 deportation flights per day.
It’s unclear how a lot that may enhance beneath Trump.
However Reuters famous that the almost 66,000 Guatemalans deported from the US in fiscal 12 months 2024 was greater than any single 12 months throughout Trump’s first time period, from 2017 to 2021.
Rubio visited Guatemala as a part of his first journey because the US’s high diplomat.
He has been travelling the area to curry assist for Trump’s anti-immigration push, passing by Panama, El Salvador and Costa Rica earlier than reaching Guatemala. He’s set to journey to the Dominican Republic subsequent.
However whereas in Guatemala, he praised Arevalo for accepting non-citizens into Guatemala’s borders.
Previous to taking workplace, the Trump transition group had grappled with the place to position non-citizens detained as a part of immigration raids. Sure international locations, like Venezuela and Cuba, have refused to take part in US deportation flights.
In December, as an example, information reviews emerged that Trump deliberate to strategy Caribbean international locations, together with the Bahamas, Grenada and Turks and Caicos, to simply accept migrants from different international locations.
However the management of the island nations refused. “The Bahamas merely doesn’t have the sources to accommodate such a request,” Bahamian Prime Minister Philip Davis stated on the time.
On Wednesday, Rubio indicated the US would supply monetary assist to Guatemala so it might return non-citizens to their house international locations.
He additionally praised Arevalo, saying the deportation-flight deal was “crucial for us by way of the migratory scenario we’re dealing with”.
“His willingness to simply accept not simply nationals however these from different nationalities as they search to in the end return to their very own homelands can be vital, and we’ve pledged our assist with these efforts,” Rubio stated.
President Arevalo, for his half, indicated that the query of accepting migrants with legal information was not mentioned.
A day earlier than, the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, provided to jail any violent offenders the US sends his means — whether or not they be migrants or US residents.
Nevertheless, even officers within the Trump administration have expressed scepticism concerning the legality of that supply.
Rubio publicly thanked Bukele for his supply however acknowledged the authorized limitations. “We have now a Structure,” he stated of the US.
However, the US on Tuesday started sending undocumented immigrants to its army base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the location of a detention centre criticised for alleged human rights abuses.
An estimated 11 million undocumented individuals stay within the US as of 2022, many serving important roles of their communities.
