Mexico rejected a request from President Donald Trump’s administration to allow a U.S. military plane meant to deport migrants to land in the country, they told Reuters one American official and one Mexican.
American military aircraft They made two similar flights on Fridayeach with about 80 migrants, to Guatemala. However, the government was unable to move forward with a plan for a C-17 transport plane to land in Mexico after the country denied permission.
A U.S. official and a Mexican official confirmed the decision, which was first reported by NBCNews. The Mexican official did not provide a reason for the denial.
The US State Department and the Pentagon did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Mexico issued a brief statement on Friday night in which it assured that it had a “very good relationship” with the United States government and that it cooperated on immigration issues “with respect for our sovereignties.”
“When it comes to repatriations, we will always accept the arrival of Mexican men and women to our territory with open arms,” added the Mexican Foreign Ministry.
Relations between the United States and Mexico have been in the spotlight since Trump began his second term on Monday with the declaration of a national emergency along the two nations’ shared border.
Since then, the president has ordered the mobilization of 1,500 additional uniformed personnel to the borderand its officials have said thousands more could be deployed soon. The Republican leader has declared Mexican drug cartels terrorist organizations, renamed the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America and threatened a 25% blanket tariff on Mexican products starting in February.
The Mexican president, Claudia Sheinbaum, has tried to prevent the situation from worsening and has even expressed her openness to welcoming Mexican citizens who are returned.
But the president has said that she does not agree with mass deportations and that Mexican immigrants are vital to the US economy.
The use of US military aircraft to conduct deportation flights is part of the Pentagon’s response to Trump’s national emergency declaration on Monday.
In the past, US military aircraft have been used to relocate people from one country to another, such as during the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.
This was the first time in recent memory that U.S. military aircraft were used to remove migrants from the United States, a U.S. official said.
The Pentagon has said the US military will facilitate flights to deport more than 5,000 immigrants detained by US authorities in El Paso, Texas, and San Diego, California.
Guatemala also received a third flight on Friday with about 80 deported migrants on a chartered commercial plane, they told Reuters Guatemalan authorities.
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