Claudia Sheinbaum acknowledges non-citizens deported from US to Mexico

 

The Mexican president announced more than 4,000 people were sent to her country during Donald Trump’s first week back in office.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has announced that her country has received an estimated 4,094 people deported from the United States in the week since Donald Trump took office there.

That number includes citizens from other countries, though Sheinbaum specified that the majority were Mexican.

There has been no “substantial increase” in non-citizens arriving in the country, she added.

Sheinbaum’s statement on Monday arrives at a delicate time for diplomacy in Latin America, as the region braces for changes under Trump’s second term as US president.

Trump had campaigned on the promise of leading a “mass deportation” effort, and he has also pledged to push forward an aggressive “America First” foreign policy platform.

Over the weekend, those efforts came to a head in a clash with Colombian President Gustavo Petro, after the left-wing leader initially refused to accept US deportees sent on military flights.

Colombia has long been a close ally of the US, particularly in its global “war on drugs”.

Nevertheless, Trump responded to Petro’s refusal by threatening to raise tariffs against Colombia, first by 25 percent and later by 50 percent. His administration also cancelled visa appointments at the US embassy in Bogota, Colombia’s capital.

Petro indicated he would retaliate with tariffs of his own against the US. But by Sunday evening, he had backed down, allowing the deportation flights to resume.

A return to ‘Remain in Mexico’?

News reports in the US indicate that Mexico also refused access to a US military flight bearing deportees last week, though the circumstances that grounded the plane remain unclear.

In the past, Sheinbaum and her administration have expressed disapproval over what they called “unilateral deportations” from the US.

In December, Sheinbaum also emphasised that her priority would be to receive Mexicans, not citizens from other countries.

“Our main function is to receive Mexicans,” she said. “We hope to have an agreement with the Trump administration in case deportations occur so that they also send people who come from other countries back to their countries of origin.”

But on Monday, Sheinbaum emphasised that there was precedent for Mexico accepting non-citizen deportees from the US.

She pointed to her predecessor and political mentor, former President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

Under former US President Joe Biden, Lopez Obrador agreed to accept up to 30,000 migrants and asylum seekers from Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Haiti per month.

And in 2019, during Trump’s first term, Lopez Obrador committed to a policy known as “Remain in Mexico”, which required asylum seekers to stay in the country while making asylum claims at the US border.