The United States deports almost 2,300 Mexicans to Guatemala over Mexico’s objections | Migration news

The United States has sent around 2,300 Mexican citizens to Guatemala, despite the Mexican government’s objections, as President Donald Trump steps up deportations.

The Guatemalan president, Bernardo Arévalo, confirmed this Wednesday that his country has received some 2,284 Mexican citizens deportee from the United States this year.

“They are arriving on planes carrying returned Guatemalans,” Arévalo said at a news conference.

“In coordination with the Mexican government, what we have done is bring them in transit to be able to return them to Mexican territory within 24 hours of their arrival in the country.”

Moving is part of a growing trend of deportations to third countries under Trump, who has sent immigrants and asylum seekers from the United States to countries they may have no connection to.

The Trump administration has largely justified such deportations by saying that the immigrants in question cannot return to their home countries.

But that is not the case in Mexico, which has consistently accepted deportations from the United States.

Critics have criticized expulsions to third countries as a form of punishment, effectively leaving migrants and asylum seekers stranded far from their homes.

Speaking of Mexican citizens sent to Guatemala, Arévalo has said that those deported are quickly repatriated to their country, and the costs are covered by the Mexican or US government.

But Mexican officials expressed concern about the United States sending its citizens to third countries.

“The Mexican government has expressed its opposition to this practice to US authorities and has reiterated that every Mexican citizen has the right to enter the country,” Mexico’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said in a statement Thursday.

Following a meeting with Guatemalan officials on Tuesday, the Foreign Ministry also said the two countries are united by shared values ​​including shared security and “human mobility with dignity.”

Guatemala is not the only country that has received Mexican nationals from the United States in recent months. Reports have also emerged that some Mexicans have also been transported to Honduras.

“They didn’t tell us anything, just that we should get on the flight,” Arturo Trejo, a Mexican who was deported to Honduras, told the Telemundo channel.

Mexico’s National Migration Institute (INM) told The Associated Press news agency that the United States had justified the practice as a form of deterrence.

“The reason is that the United States wants to prevent them from crossing into its territory again,” the INM said.

Meanwhile, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) responded to questions about the practice by saying it was “using all legal options to carry out the largest deportation operation in history, just as President Trump promised.”

But many human rights experts see the deportations of Mexicans to third countries as an intimidation tactic.

“What we are seeing seems part of [a] “A broader trend towards a very harsh US immigration policy that seeks to instill terror and fear in migrants at all costs,” Ana María Méndez, Central America director at migrant rights group WOLA, told the Reuters news service.

As neighbors, the United States and Mexico have long maintained a close relationship. The two countries remain each other’s largest trading partners, with cross-border exchange of approximately $964.1 billion in 2025 alone.

But since Trump returned to the presidency last year, the Mexican government has had to strike a delicate balance.

It has sought to cooperate with the Trump administration on immigration enforcement, while defending the rights of its citizens against alleged abuses.

Critics have accused immigration agents of using excessive violence during raids, and experts have noted a increasing number of deaths while in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Since Trump returned to power, at least 15 Mexican citizens they have died in ICE custody, and three others died during law enforcement operations.

In response, the Mexican government has filed complaints with state prosecutors in the United States. He also denounced conditions in ICE detention centers as “incompatible with human rights standards” and urged Mexican consular officials to make periodic visits.