The Trump administration has been quietly deporting Mexican illegal aliens to Guatemala and Honduras rather than returning them directly to Mexico — and Mexico is not happy about it, according to two DHS officials who spoke to CBS News. Good. That’s the point.
Mexico’s Foreign Ministry issued a formal objection: “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.”
Translated from diplomatic language: Mexico, which does very little, by the way, to keep its own citizens from illegally crossing into the U.S., is outraged that those citizens who did are being shipped to Guatemala instead of being handed back conveniently at the border, where they could immediately attempt to cross again.
Here’s what Mexico’s Foreign Ministry carefully didn’t mention in its complaint: Mexico provides its own citizens with informational guides on how to enter the United States illegally and access American welfare and education systems. The Mexican government has spent years treating American immigration enforcement as both an enemy and a cash cow — collecting remittances sent home by illegal aliens while complaining whenever the United States attempts to enforce its own laws. Now Trump can send illegal aliens wherever he wants, thanks to federal courts.
A left-wing Washington think-tanker called the practice “almost entirely punitive.” Correct. That’s the design. That’s the point. It is punitive.
The deterrence logic is simple and long overdue. If deportation just means a quick bus ride back across the border, it is not a meaningful consequence. A Mexican national who crosses illegally and gets caught faces minimal practical risk if they can immediately try again from familiar territory. Drop them in Guatemala and Honduras, and the calculation changes significantly. The journey back to the border becomes more expensive, more dangerous, and considerably longer. The incentive to try again is reduced.
This is the same principle behind the Biden administration’s use of Title 42 — which the left called cruel and then quietly relied on — except applied with more creativity and more teeth. You want to deter people from making an illegal journey? Make the consequences of that journey materially worse than the expected reward.
Guatemala agreed early in Trump’s second term to accept not only its own nationals but illegal aliens from other countries as well. That agreement is clearly now being applied to Mexican nationals whose expected return to Mexico would render deportation nearly meaningless as a deterrent.
ICE set a new arrest record in July: 51,000. The border is functionally closed. Illegal crossings are at historic lows. Deportations are hitting numbers the previous administration never came close to. And now the administration is adding a third-country deterrence element specifically designed to make the Mexico-to-United States-to-Mexico revolving door stop revolving.
Mexico isn’t happy. Most Americans won’t be losing sleep over it. The people crossing illegally were warned. The consequences are arriving. Some of them are arriving in Guatemala.
