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Guatemala has received its first flight containing “third-country” deportees from the US. Third-country deportees are illegal immigrants originating from a third country (i.e. not the US or the country to which they are being deported).
The flight arrived in Guatemala on Friday, carrying 56 Guatemalans and three Hondurans.
The Guatemalan Institute of Migration (IGM) issued a statement confirming the arrival. The Honduran nationals were processed at a migration center in Guatemala, before being transferred to their home country.
“These actions have been coordinated by the IGM and the INM with the support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to provide a dignified welcome to Honduran Central Americans,” IGM stated.
In February, Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo and Secretary of State Marco Rubio for Guatemala to accept third-country deportees from the US.
“We have agreed to increase by 40 percent the number of flights of deportees, both of our nationality, as well as deportees from other nationalities,” Arévalo said during a news conference.
Under the agreement, Guatemala is intended to be a temporary stop for third-country deportees, on their way to their home countries.
In June, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem announced that Guatemala and Honduras had signed agreements with the US to provide refuge for people seeking asylum in the US.
“We’ve never believed that the United States should be the only option, that the guarantee for a refugee is that they go somewhere to be safe and to be protected from whatever threat they face in their country. It doesn’t necessarily have to be the United States,” Noem said.
At the beginning of last month, a federal judge blocked the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from deporting a group of unaccompanied Guatemalan children who entered the US illegally.
The DHS had identified hundreds of Guatemalan children to deport as part of an agreement negotiated with the Guatemalan government.
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