During his election campaign, Donald Trump, then a candidate for a second term as President of the United States, raised the mass deportations of migrants as one of his main banners and it didn't take long for him to begin fulfilling his promise, using, among other methods, sending those who were expelled from US territory to third countries.
To achieve this, he used various legal instruments, including some used during his first term in 2019, such as the Asylum Cooperation Agreements (ACA), signed with some Central American nations such as Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, even employing coercive tactics to force their rulers to accept them, such as threats to increase tariffs on their products.
However, the practice of signing agreements with other nations, including some African and Latin American countries, to deport citizens of other nationalities who could not be sent to their places of origin, multiplied from the beginning of his second administration, invoking, among others, the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 for expedited expulsions under the argument that foreign criminal groups or organizations, such as the Tren de Aragua, were carrying out a “predatory invasion or incursion” into US territory, in order to apply a rule designed for times of war and justify the expulsion of migrants.
This is what happened in the case of the more than 230 Venezuelans sent to a terrifying prison in El Salvador, the Cecot, even disregarding the order of District Judge James Boasberg, who ordered a halt to deportations made with that justification.
Other destinations
That was the first of many cases that have been recorded in these almost two years of the Trump administration, who has sent dozens of migrants to numerous countries claiming that they are not received in their countries of origin, as part of a kind of ordeal without having any idea of what may await them in unknown territories.
For example, in exchange for the $5 million payment approved by the State Department, Liberia pledged to accept up to 1.200 migrants in 12 months, receiving the first twenty of them a week ago.
Among them was Venezuelan Carlos Téllez, 35, who lived in Texas and was sent to that African country after spending seven months in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Of the plane that landed in Monrovia, only 15 disembarked; the remaining five refused to leave the aircraft, so they were sent to Equatorial Guinea, another country with which the US has an agreement of this type, signed in October of last year, in exchange for 7,5 million dollars.
In this last country, the five—three Cubans, one Brazilian, and one Cameroonian—were forced to disembark, now forming part of a total of 40 who are being held in the facilities of an abandoned hotel in Malabo, Bioko Island, in that country.
There, according to Ahmed Soliman, an Egyptian immigrant who has been there for four months, the conditions are deplorable, with poor medical care, serious psychological care, and the persistent refusal to provide them with legal assistance.
Another destination nation has been Eswatini, in southern Africa, which for $5,1 million since last year began receiving people from other countries from the United States, including 11 who arrived last month.
However, in this case, the interim government spokesperson, Thabile Mdluli, clarified that they would only remain in the territory temporarily, respecting their fundamental rights and that "they will be protected in accordance with the laws of the Kingdom of Eswatini."
More than 230 Venezuelans were sent to El Salvador
In March of last year, dusting off a law dating back to 1798, the Foreign Enemies Act, and arguing that they supposedly belonged to the Tren de Aragua gang, although without presenting any kind of evidence, as is often the case in the administration of US President Donald Trump, more than 230 Venezuelan migrants were sent to El Salvador to be held in the sinister Center for Terrorism Confinement (Cecot), built by the country's president, Nayib Bukele, to imprison alleged members of criminal gangs.
The transfer of the compatriots, with whom this model of deportations began in the second term of the current occupant of the White House, took place with an agreement in which the US committed to paying more than six million dollars to receive them.
Immediately, reports began of human rights violations against people who, moreover, had not been proven to have committed any crime in US territory.
Finally, on July 18, after intense negotiations between the government of President Nicolás Maduro and that of Trump, they were sent to Venezuela, being received in Maiquetía by Delcy and Jorge Rodríguez and Diosdado Cabello.
Mexico rejected the transfer of its citizens to Guatemala
Amid all the controversies that have marked relations between the governments of Donald Trump and his Mexican counterpart, Claudia Sheinbaum, a little over a week ago another reason arose when the head of state of Guatemala, Bernardo Arévalo, revealed that more than 2.300 people born in Mexico had been deported to his country so far this year.
Immediately, the Mexican Executive, through its Secretary of the Interior, Rosa Icela Rodríguez, expressed its rejection of such actions.
“We want to make it clear that we respect the decisions other countries make regarding immigration policy, but we do not agree that our citizens should be transferred to a third country before arriving in Mexico, since we are receiving them directly and with an agreement we have with them,” she told the media during one of the usual press conferences of the mayor, Sheinbaum.
He stressed that he told the US ambassador, Ronald Johnson, "that if there is an agreement, let's stick to that agreement, that we don't need them to be sent to third countries," emphasizing that he expressed this "respectfully, but firmly, to show that we do not agree with that decision."
