GUATEMALA CITY — Guatemala’s president said Wednesday after meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio that his country will accept migrants from other countries being deported from the United States.
Under the “safe third country” agreement announced by President Bernardo Arevalo, the deportees would then be returned to their home countries at U.S. expense.
“We have agreed to increase by 40% the number of flights of deportees both of our nationality as well as deportees from other nationalities,” Arévalo said, speaking during a news conference with Rubio.
Immigration, a Trump administration priority, has been the major focus of Rubio’s first foreign trip as America’s top diplomat, a five-country tour of Central America.
In El Salvador on Monday, he announced a similar but broader agreement.
Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele said his country would accept U.S. deportees of any nationality, including American citizens and legal residents who are imprisoned for violent crimes.
During Rubio’s trip he’s faced questions about the legality of El Salvador’s offer, as well as about the major upheaval at the U.S. Agency for International Development. Almost all the aid agency’s workers overseas are being pulled off the job and out of the field under a sudden Trump administration order.
Arévalo, a progressive and son of a president credited with establishing much of Guatemala’s social safety net, told the AP in January that his predecessor’s “safe third country” agreement with Trump was “absolutely inadequate,” and that a more regional approach must be taken for dealing with immigration.
But he notably did not rule out making a similar deal. “We are not a safe third country, nobody has proposed it,” he said at the time.
Guatemala has been cooperating in receiving deportees from the United States, accepting both civilian and military flights.
But Trump’s promised mass deportations from the United States would hit Guatemala hard, as remittances — the money Guatemalans send home — make up about one-fifth of the country’s gross domestic product.