Two U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials have revealed that the Trump administration is flying Mexican migrants to Guatemala and Honduras instead of returning them to Mexico, even though Mexico has said it would take back all of its citizens. The officials, who requested anonymity because they were not cleared to speak publicly, told CBS News the removals have been happening quietly for months and have involved hundreds of people, though they could not provide an exact figure.
Rather than handing deportees over at the border or flying them to Mexico, U.S. immigration authorities have been transporting them around Mexican airspace and landing them in Central America. The practice has never been formally announced by Washington. According to the officials, one goal is to discourage Mexicans from attempting to cross into the U.S. by dropping them off much farther from the frontier than their home country.
Mexico's Foreign Ministry pushed back in a statement, saying it does not accept the removal of its nationals to third countries and that no arrangement of that kind exists. The ministry said it accepts the return of all its citizens and works to guarantee their safe and dignified return to Mexican soil.
A DHS spokesperson defended the approach, saying the administration is using every legal tool available to carry out what President Trump has called the largest deportation effort in U.S. history.
Immigration policy analysts say this marks a first. In the past, both Republican and Democratic administrations have sent Mexican migrants caught at the southern border deep into Mexico to reduce repeat crossings, but shipping them to other nations is unprecedented, according to those analysts.
The Trump administration has expanded deportations to third countries, but those cases typically involved nations like Cuba that refuse or restrict U.S. returns, or migrants who had legal protection from being sent home. Mexico, by contrast, has long accepted all U.S. deportations of its citizens and also took in deportees from other Latin American countries.
An analyst who tracks migration at the Washington Office on Latin America described the move as largely punitive, telling CBS News that deporting Mexicans to Honduras and Guatemala serves two purposes: it makes another border attempt far more difficult and it projects a deterrent message. The analyst likened it to sending people to Ecuador or Africa — the point being to make the hardship visible, to signal that staying in the U.S. without papers could lead to this outcome, and to push people toward leaving on their own.
According to CBS News, Honduran and Guatemalan officials did not respond to requests for comment on their governments' involvement. Their positions are not reflected in the original report.