The countries of Central America are hosting their citizens deported by the United States in the framework of the aggressive immigration policy of the government of President Donald Trump, while having a controversial bridge by accepting receiving deportees from other nationalities through processes called illegal and violations of human rights.
Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras
The promise of “mass deportations” of Republican leader Trump does not yet get in the so -called northern triangle, which make up Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras and that is the protagonist of a long history of irregular migration to the US promoted by poverty and violence.
According to official data, in the United States they live, whether legally or irregularly, around 6 million immigrants from Guatemala (about 3 million), El Salvador (more than 2 million) and Honduras (more than one million).
The authorities of the three countries have not reported so far a significant increase in the number of repatriated, although the comparison can be misleading: USA. It reached in fiscal year 2024, the last of the government of the Democrat Joe Biden, a record with 271,484 immigrants expelled, the largest figure in a decade, that is, even above those made in any year of the first year of the first administration of Trump (2017-2021).
In 2024, the number of Salvadorans deported by the US grew by 22.2 %compared to the previous year and that of Guatemalans did so by 11.5 %, while in the case of Hondurans it was reduced by 30.1 %, according to official data.
So far this year, Guatemala has received around 6,000 repatriated from mostly from the US, although also from Mexico, while the figure is around 5,000 in the case of Honduras.
Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo de León, committed himself last February with the United States Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, to receive 30 % more repatriated flights as well as lend his soil to attend migrants from other nationalities.
Controversial agreements
Until now, they have not been sent to Guatemala deported immigrants from other nationalities, a situation already lived by the Central American Nation between 2019 and 2021 due to a similar agreement between the first Trump administration and the then Guatemalan president Jimmy Morales (2016-2020).
Honduras have reached at least 2 US military flights with Venezuelan migrants who were expected at the Palmerola base – who use American military personnel – by airplanes of Venezuela to take them to their country, as part of an agreement between Washington and Tegucigalpa.
While El Salvador received more than 200 migrants among them Venezuelans accused of being supposedly members of the Transnational Criminal Band Train of Aragua, which were held at the Center for Confinement of Terrorism (CECOT).
There are complaints in both the US and in the Savior of violations of due process and the human rights of Venezuelans.
Trump’s own government requested the Supreme Court last Friday that allows him to implement the Law of Foreign Enemies of 1789 in order to deport Venezuelans without due process, as he did in the middle of the month with those sent to El Salvador.
Panama and Costa Rica
Last February, Costa Rica received from the United States about 200 migrants from Nepal, China, Russia, India, Congo, Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ghana, Iran, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Turkey, Uzbekistan and Vietnam official.
“Costa Rica should not be an accomplice of the flagrant US abuses,” said the main advisor in the rights of the child of Human Rights Watch (HRW), Michael García Bochenek, in a statement issued on March 18.
In an equal situation is Panama, where they were sent by the US 299 extracontinental migrants, of which there are 107 in the country to which a permission has been granted so that, by their own means, they look for a third nation to settle, as the Panamanian President, José Raúl Mulino, recently explained.
Panamanian Chancellor Javier Martínez-Facha, said in New York that Panama seeks with third countries a final destination for these stranded in their territory after being expelled in February by the United States.
Nicaragua and Dominican
Nicaragua, despite the anti -imperialist rhetoric of its president, Daniel Ortega, continues to receive flights from the United States with undocumented Nicaraguans, although unlike before, he does not disclose information about flights with deportees.
Meanwhile, in the Caribbean, the Dominican Republic has received a total of 729 nationals repatriated from the US since Trump assumed his second government. The authorities of the Caribbean Nation together with UNICEF are proposed to create an assistance program that allows the labor reintegration of these returned Dominicans.
