Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said she hopes to reach an agreement with the United States to deport non-Mexicans directly to their countries of origin without first going through her country.
President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to deport large numbers of illegal immigrants. While Sheinbaum stopped short of explicitly stating that Mexico would refuse migrants from other countries, she did say her government would look to avoid it.
“Obviously, we are in solidarity with everyone, but our main purpose is to receive Mexicans,” Sheinbaum said Thursday at a press conference. “We hope to have an agreement with the Trump administration so that, in case these deportations happen, they send people from other countries directly to their countries of origin.”
Sheinbaum noted that Mexico currently has an agreement with the outgoing Biden administration to help with the deportation of non-Mexicans by air. Mexico has also agreed to accept each month up to 30,000 people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela who tried to illegally cross the border but were turned back. Normally, those individuals would be deported to their countries of origin, but diplomatic and logistical challenges, including strained relations with the governments, make direct deportations difficult.
During Trump’s first term, Mexico played a key role in facilitating the so-called “remain in Mexico” protocol, under which non-Mexicans who illegally crossed the border to seek asylum in the United States had to wait in Mexico while their case was adjudicated.
Sheinbaum and Trump spoke by phone on Nov. 27, just days after Trump threatened to impose a 25 percent tariff on all exports entering the United States from Mexico and Canada as part of his effort to curb illegal border crossings and drug trafficking. The Mexican president said the two had “an excellent conversation.”
Sheinbaum emphasized that her government’s focus on assisting migrants before they reach the U.S. border.
Trump’s team has reportedly been exploring other countries as potential destinations for illegal immigrants whose home nations refuse to take them back.
The office of Bahamian Prime Minister Philip Davis said on Thursday that it had received a request from Trump’s transition team to “accept deportation flights of migrants from other countries.”
“Since the prime minister’s rejection of this proposal, there has been no further engagement or discussions with the Trump transition team,” the statement said.
The Trump transition team has not issued a comment about the Bahamas’ decision.
