Honduras received deportees on U.S. military flights on Friday, part of President Trump’s push to show that his administration is cracking down on migration at the southern border.
After Mr. Trump authorized the military to assist in securing the border, through an executive order, the Defense Department said it would airlift more than 5,000 people in U.S. Customs and Border Protection custody.
The use of military flights to transport deportees has raised alarm among some Latin American leaders, who have questioned the imagery of deportees boarding the flights in shackles. Some have also objected to how Mr. Trump has described deportees as hardened criminals.
Honduras was among the first countries in the region to speak out about Mr. Trump’s threats to carry out mass deportations, and on New Year’s Day, President Xiomara Castro warned that she could even expel the U.S. military from the country depending on the new administration’s actions.
But on Friday, a U.S. Air Force plane carrying more than 70 deportees arrived around midday in the city of San Pedro Sula, about 100 miles northwest of Tegucigalpa, the capital. It was the first of two U.S. military flights carrying deportees scheduled to land in Honduras on Friday.
The country’s foreign minister, Enrique Reina, was there to receive the first deportees and said the migrants were neither shackled nor wearing handcuffs when they came off the plane. The deportees were served hot meals and coffee upon arrival.
In a phone interview confirming remarks he made to the news media this week, Mr. Reina said that Honduras had renewed a longstanding agreement with the United States that allowed the U.S. military to operate out of Honduran bases, most notably Soto Cano Air Case, which is also known as La Palmerola.
The government renews the agreement every year in early January, Mr. Reina said, and had done so again this year. But, he said, officials had added conditions related to the scale of Mr. Trump’s deportations and how deportees were treated, he said.
“If the conditions are not the best, we can re-evaluate,” he said, adding, “We are looking for dignified treatment.”
About half a dozen U.S. military flights carrying deportees have been completed since Mr. Trump authorized the military last week to assist in securing the border.
The first U.S. military plane to reach Honduras carried 72 deportees that officials were told had been held in detention after illegally crossing the U.S. border, Mr. Reina said.
A second military plane was scheduled to land in the evening, he added.
In addition to the military planes that landed in Honduras, two commercial charter planes carrying deportees, operated by U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement, also landed in Honduras on Friday, Mr. Reina said.
U.S. military planes have not replaced the commercial charter planes that are typically used for deportations, and so far the military planes represent a small fraction of the flights carrying out deportations under the Trump administration.
According to a spokesman for the U.S. military, only about six military flights have delivered deportees to other countries as of the end of Mr. Trump’s second week in office.
Along with Honduras, Guatemala and Ecuador have also received U.S. military flights carrying deportees.
The U.S. military planes started transporting deported migrants late last week, but much of the public first learned of their existence when President Gustavo Petro of Colombia announced on social media on Sunday that he had turned back two U.S. military planes carrying deportees, prompting a standoff with Mr. Trump.
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