The United States has deported 2,284 Mexican nationals to Guatemala so far in 2026, Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo said this week. Honduras has received 82 Mexicans on two flights this month, and 35 more are scheduled. The Associated Press reported both totals Thursday. Mexico's Foreign Ministry said it opposes the practice.
Whether a person may be removed to a country that is not their own is now a live question. So is what process is owed first.
Third-country removal is the part of the deportation program that runs through diplomacy rather than the border. The administration negotiated agreements with Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica and Panama to receive people from other nations. The first flight of third-country deportees landed in Guatemala in October 2025. Flights carrying Mexicans began in April. Mexico has also filed complaints with U.S. state prosecutors over deaths of its citizens in immigration custody.
- Guatemala returns the deportees to Mexico within 24 hours; one government pays.
- Honduras took 165 Mexicans between May and mid-July, before August's flights.
- Mexico counts at least 15 of its citizens dead in ICE custody since 2025.
Arévalo released the Guatemalan figure. Mexico's Foreign Ministry issued the objection. The Department of Homeland Security defended the flights. Savitri Arvey of Human Rights First and Ana María Méndez of the Washington Office on Latin America argued against them. The people carried are Mexican nationals in U.S. detention, most without counsel. Their families wait on both sides of two borders. Guatemalan and Honduran migration agencies absorb the arrivals. Consular officers lose the direct line a home-country return gives them.
Disputedwhether removing Mexican nationals through third countries is a lawful use of removal authority or a route around the right of return.
The FramingsAdministration framing presents third-country removal as one lawful tool among many, authorized by signed agreements with receiving governments, and treats removal speed as the program's measure. Mexican-government framing presents nationality as carrying an unconditional right of entry, and says routing Mexicans through Guatemala complicates consular protection. Human-rights framing (Human Rights First, WOLA) presents the flights as leaving people without counsel, money or family in a country they do not know, and reads the pattern as pressure on Mexico City. Guatemalan-government framing presents Guatemala as a transit point rather than a destination, with returns coordinated inside 24 hours and costs billed to one government or the other. Enforcement-first framing presents Mexico's objection as leverage, and argues a country unwilling to take rapid direct returns has little standing to object to indirect ones.
The RecordThe 2,284 figure is Arévalo's. The Honduran counts — 82 this month, 165 from May to mid-July, 35 scheduled — come from Honduran officials through the Associated Press. DHS confirmed the practice and cited "all lawful options" without naming the statute. Confidence in the counts: certain. Confidence in how courts will treat the practice: low.
What to watch: whether Honduras receives the 35 scheduled deportees; whether Mexico's Foreign Ministry converts its statement into a formal diplomatic note; and whether any removal is challenged in U.S. federal court before the next flight.
Sources: Associated Press, Reuters, Al Jazeera English, The Washington Post, The Washington Times