Guyana Accepts First US Deportees as Guatemala Confirms 2,284 Mexicans Rerouted Through Central America

Since St. Kitts and Nevis, Belize and other Caribbean nations began accepting small groups of U.S. deportees earlier this year under President Trump's third-country removal program, the list of participating countries has grown past 30. Guyana is the newest addition.

Guyana's government confirmed Saturday it received six deportees from the United States on Friday, four days after CBS News first reported the arrangement was finalized. Guyanese Foreign Secretary Robert Persaud told the Associated Press the group included Cuban and Afghan nationals who were vetted by his administration and found to have no criminal backgrounds. He said they were removed from the U.S. primarily over immigration violations, not crimes.

Persaud said the deal took months of negotiations and runs for one year. "The U.S. has not made any further requests," he told the AP, adding the arrangement does not amount to permanent resettlement. Those relocated will await the outcome of their immigration cases in Guyana under what the government calls the Assisted Voluntary Return Program, with the U.N.'s International Organization for Migration handling implementation and Guyana bearing no housing or support costs, according to Guyanese authorities.

St. Lucia was due to accept its first group of deportees this week, officials told the AP, following similar small transfers already completed by St. Kitts and Nevis and Belize.

A Separate, Bigger Pipeline Through Central America

A parallel and much larger operation is running through Guatemala and Honduras, and it involves Mexican nationals, not third-country migrants.

Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo confirmed this week that 2,284 Mexicans deported from the U.S. have arrived in his country so far this year as part of what he called a "transit stopover." Guatemala buses them across the border into Mexico within 24 hours of arrival, coordinating directly with Mexican immigration authorities, he said at a press conference reported by the Associated Press.

Until earlier this year, deported Mexicans were sent almost exclusively straight back to Mexico by air or land. The shift to routing them through Guatemala and Honduras began primarily in April, according to Mexico's National Migration Institute, which confirmed the arrangement to the AP but declined to provide detailed figures beyond Guatemala's count.

The Mexican migration institute gave a blunt explanation for the workaround: "the United States wants to prevent them from crossing back into its territory." Arévalo said the costs are covered either by Mexico's government or, in some cases, by U.S. funding.

Asked by the AP why Mexican nationals were being sent to Central America instead of directly home, the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that the administration "is utilizing all lawful options to carry out the largest deportation operation in history, just as President Trump promised." DHS did not directly address the routing question.

Mexico's Objection, and the Fairest Case Against the Practice

Mexico's Foreign Ministry pushed back this week, saying in a statement that "every Mexican citizen has the right to enter the country" and that it opposes the practice, while noting it is coordinating with the countries involved.

The Associated Press reported that the shift comes as Mexico has separately protested the deaths of 17 Mexican nationals in U.S. immigration custody or during enforcement operations, and some civil organizations, per that reporting, view the Central American rerouting as added pressure on Mexico's government at a moment when Washington has also expanded joint security operations with allied Latin American countries against criminal groups. That is a characterization from unnamed civil organizations cited in AP's reporting, not a claim made by the U.S. or Mexican governments themselves, and neither government has confirmed a punitive motive.

Human rights activists have separately denounced the broader third-country deportation strategy, the kind used for Guyana's six arrivals, as inhumane and a violation of international law, arguing that some deportees are being sent to or through countries where they could face persecution risks tied to their country of origin. The Trump administration has defended the program's legality and argued it deters illegal immigration by making reentry harder and less predictable for deportees.

DHS has not detailed how many Mexican nationals beyond Guatemala's tally of 2,284 have been routed through Honduras, and has not said whether the Central American transit practice will expand to other countries bordering Mexico. Guyana's Persaud said his government has received no indication more deportees are coming beyond the initial six, but with over 30 countries now under signed agreements and St. Lucia's first group still pending as of this week, the program's total scale remains without an official public count from the Trump administration.