By Aldgra Fredly
Guatemala received its first deportation flight from the United States carrying illegal immigrants originating from a third country, Guatemala’s immigration authorities said on Oct. 10.
The flight was carrying 56 Guatemalan and three Honduran nationals when it arrived in Guatemala on Oct. 10, according to a statement from the Guatemalan Institute of Migration (IGM).
The agency stated that the Honduran deportees were processed at a migration center before being transferred to their home country.
“These actions have been coordinated by the IGM and the INM with the support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to provide a dignified welcome to Honduran Central Americans,” IGM stated.
This follows an agreement reached in February between Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, under which Guatemala agreed to accept illegal immigrants who are being deported from the United States.
Under the “Safe Third Country” agreement, Guatemala’s acceptance would act as a step in the U.S. plan to return all deportees to their home countries, which Arévalo said would be done at the United States’ expense.
“We have agreed to increase by 40 percent the number of flights of deportees, both of our nationality, as well as deportees from other nationalities,” Arévalo said during a Feb. 5 news conference.
In June, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said that Guatemala and Honduras have signed agreements with the United States that would allow them to provide refuge to those applying for asylum in the United States.
Noem stated that the agreements are part of the Trump administration’s efforts to expand options for transferring refugees, allowing their deportation to third countries, rather than just to their own countries.
“We’ve never believed that the United States should be the only option, that the guarantee for a refugee is that they go somewhere to be safe and to be protected from whatever threat they face in their country. It doesn’t necessarily have to be the United States,” Noem said on June 26.
Guatemalan and Honduran officials have denied signing any third-country refugee agreement with the United States. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did not respond to a request for comment.
Guatemala’s presidential communications office stated that the country would only serve as a temporary stop for Central American migrants being returned by U.S. authorities to their home countries.
Last month, a federal district judge blocked the Trump administration from deporting a group of Guatemalan children who entered the United States illegally and unaccompanied.
Judge Timothy Kelly’s order covers 10 plaintiffs whom the DHS wanted to remove from the United States, as well as an unspecified number of children already in federal custody.
T.J. Muscaro and Matthew Vadum contributed to this report.
