Trump is Quietly Flying Mexican Migrants Past Their Own Country and Dumping Them in Central America

The Trump administration has found a new way to make life harder for Mexican migrants: instead of simply sending them home, it’s flying them past their own country and dumping them in Guatemala and Honduras.

Two Department of Homeland Security officials confirmed the practice to CBS News. It’s been going on for months, quietly, with no formal announcement. Hundreds of Mexican citizens have already been shipped farther south. The goal, the officials said, is straightforward deterrence by putting more distance between the deportees and the U.S. border so they think twice about trying again.

Mexico is not pleased, and the country’s Foreign Ministry issued a blunt rejection.

“The Government of Mexico accepts the return of all its nationals. It therefore rejects the deportation of Mexican nationals to third countries and has no such agreement in place,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement."Mexico consistently takes the steps necessary to ensure the safe and dignified return of all its nationals to national territory.”

Immigration experts called the move unprecedented. For years, under both parties, the U.S. has returned Mexicans deep into Mexico itself. Sending them to third countries was usually reserved for people whose home governments refused to take them back. Mexico has never been one of those countries.

Adam Isacson, a researcher at the Washington Office on Latin America, called the practice “almost entirely punitive.”

“It’s the same as the purpose of sending them to Ecuador or Africa or anywhere else: to broadcast the hardship, to make sure people know that this is a possible consequence of remaining undocumented in the United States and to encourage people to self-deport,” he added.