The incoming Donald Trump administration is pressuring Mexico to receive deportees from third countries once it begins to implement its "largest deportation operation in American history" next year, and is willing to use the threat of tariffs to get its way.
While the Claudia Sheinbaum administration is already taking migrants turned back at its shared border with the U.S., officials from the future administration also want the country to accept deportation flights of non-Mexicans further inside the country, according to an NBC News report.
The push is part of a broader initiative seeking to deport migrants to a series of third countries if theirs won't take them. Turks and Caicos, the Bahamas, Panama and Grenada are also part of the list. Three of these four countries disclosed are insular ones, which would make it much harder for those deported to leave if they don't wish to stay.
The plan seeks to address a salient sticking point in Trump's immigration crackdown: countries that won't accept to take back deportees. Venezuela, Cuba, and China are among the countries fitting the definition and the U.S. would likely have to negotiate concessions in exchange for them taking back large amounts of nationals. U.S. authorities are prevented by federal courts from detaining such nationals indefinitely, meaning many end up being released in the country even if a judge ordered their deportation.
It would not be the first time the Trump administration tries such an attempt. Migrants were sent to Guatemala in 2019 as part of an agreement aimed at accepting people from third countries seeking asylum in the U.S.
Under the policy, some migrants who requested asylum in the U.S. were put on a plane not knowing where they were going. The practice continued in early 2020 but on a comparatively small scale and stopped after the Covid-19 pandemic began.
Mexican authorities are already preparing an interagency plan in response to potential measures, Secretary of Foreign Affairs Juan Ramón de la Fuente said this week. However, he put the focus on the Mexican nationals who could be forced to return if Trump follows through with his plans.
"We are working to consider all possible scenarios, and there is an interagency plan that the president will announce at the appropriate time. The responsibility and obligation of the Mexican state is, obviously, to the Mexican people. Therefore, they represent the priority"
While details of the plan remain undisclosed, other attendees at the meeting included authorities from the ministries of Defense, Welfare, and Urban Development, as well as the National Migration Institute.
Republican Senator Rand Paul has also pushed for the return of the "Remain in Mexico" policy, officially known as the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), which has been described as a "red line" by Mexico in the past. The policy forced non-Mexican asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico for months or years while their claims for asylum were processed in U.S. immigration courts.
Paul announced plans to reinstate the "Remain in Mexico" policy as the incoming chair of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. The Kentucky Representative stated his intent to prioritize the controversial immigration policy as part of broader efforts to reassert congressional authority and oversight.
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