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Washington (Reuters) – Mexico has rejected a request from President Donald Trump’s administration to allow a US military aircraft to deport migrants To land in the country, an American official and a Mexican official told Reuters.
US military aircraft carried out two similar flightsEach with about 80 migrants, to Guatemala Friday. However, the government was unable to move on with a plan to get a C-17 transport aircraft to land in Mexico after the country refused permission.
An American official and a Mexican official confirmed the decision, which was first reported by NBC News.
Mexico’s Foreign Minister said in a statement late Friday that the country had a “very good relationship” with the United States and cooperated on issues such as immigration.
“When it comes to returns, we will always accept the Mexicans’ arrival in our territory with open arms,” the ministry said.
The Mexican official did not give a reason for the denial of permission to land while the Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not mention the incident.
Earlier this week, Trump’s administration announced that it re-launched the program known as “Remain in Mexico”, which forced non-Mexican asylum seekers to wait in Mexico until their case in the United States was resolved.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Wednesday that such a step would require the country to receive asylum seekers to accept and that Mexico had not done so.
The US Department of State and Pentagon did not immediately respond to requests for comments.
The US -Mexico relationship has come into sharp focus since Trump started his second period on Monday with the statement of a national emergency along the common border of the two nations. He has ordered an additional 1,500 US soldiers so far, and officials have said thousands of more people can soon be posted.
The president has declared Mexican drug cartels for terrorist organizations, renamed the Gulf of Mexico to the US Gulf and threatened with an overall 25 % duty on Mexican goods from February.
Sheinbaum has tried to avoid escalating the situation and expressed openness to accommodating Mexican citizens being returned.
But the leftist leader has also said that she does not agree in mass portions and that Mexican immigrants are crucial to the US economy.
The use of US military aircraft to perform deportation flights is part of Pentagon’s response to Trump’s national declaration of emergency Monday.
Previously, US military aircraft have been used to move people from one country to another, as during the US withdrawal from Afghanistan by 2021.
This was the first time in recent times that US military aircraft were used to fly migrants out of the country, a US official said.
The Pentagon has said the US military will provide flights to deport more than 5,000 immigrants held by US authorities in El Paso, Texas, and San Diego, California.
On Friday, Guatemala also received a third flight with about 80 deported migrants on a chartered commercial aircraft, the Guatemalan authorities told Reuters.
