Donald Trump has vowed to proceed with the largest deportation operation in American history as soon as he takes office.
But the Mexican government and other regional allies have been unable to meet with the incoming Trump administration, according to officials in Latin America, leaving them in the dark about the president-elect’s plans to deport millions of illegal immigrants.
The new administration rejected Mexico’s requests for a formal meeting, insisting that detailed discussions would begin only after Mr. Trump will be sworn in next Monday, according to a Mexican official and two people familiar with the exchange who were not authorized to speak publicly.
The governments of Guatemala and Honduras have received similar messages, according to officials from those countries.
“This is not the way things usually work,” said Eric L. Olson, a fellow at the Wilson Center’s Latin American Program and the Mexico Institute. “By now there is usually more informal contact and some level of discussion.”
The new administration may want to limit the conflict before ramping up the pressure by signing a series of executive orders on migration, analysts say, leaving governments in the region scrambling to respond. This would likely strengthen Washington’s role in the negotiations.
“At this point we cannot talk about concrete measures because we have not had concrete discussions about immigration policies with the new authorities,” Santiago Palomo, a spokesman for Guatemala’s president, said in an interview about how his country is preparing to respond to Mr. Trump’s mass deportation plans.
Guatemala’s ambassador to the United States has been in contact with Trump’s transition team, officials said, but members of the new administration have not communicated specific plans to increase deportations or how Guatemala should prepare.
Honduran government officials also said they have not yet had significant contact with the incoming Trump administration. Earlier this month, The president of Honduras, Xiomara Castro, threatened kick the US military out of the base it built decades ago in the Central American country if Mr Trump carries out mass deportations.
Given Mr. Trump’s sharp focus on Latin America, the lack of clarity on his goals has unsettled regional governments.
The new administration said it wanted to rebuild “Stay in Mexico” a policy implemented during Trump’s first term that forces some migrants to wait in Mexico rather than the United States while their asylum applications are pending. Mr. Trump also said he intends to declare a national emergency and use the US military in some form to assist in his plans to deport million undocumented immigrants.
“President Trump will engage all federal authorities and coordinate with state authorities to launch the largest operation to deport illegal criminals, drug dealers and human traffickers in American history,” Karoline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for Trump’s transition team, wrote in an email to The New Yorker. Times. She did not respond to questions about whether the new administration had rejected requests from Mexico and other countries for meetings.
Mexico’s new president, Claudia Sheinbaum, said her administration does not approve of the mass deportation program. “Of course we disagree,” she said at a press conference on Wednesday. “But in the event of such a decision by the US government, we are ready.”
Whenever she was asked how the state would respond, her answers were evasive – although she signaled recently the country’s willingness to accept some non-Mexican deportees.
“We will ask the United States that, to the extent possible, non-Mexican migrants can be sent to their countries of origin — and if not, we can work together through different mechanisms,” she told reporters. this month.
Some analysts say members of Mr. Trump’s team may be limiting their meetings with Latin American governments because of concerns about violating the Logan Act. That law forces new administrations to limit the scope of their negotiations with foreign governments until they take office, so as not to undermine existing US presidents.
But previous incoming administrations have met with foreign governments to cautiously discuss their policy goals, without breaking the law.
In any case, the act did little to curb Mr. Trump’s appetite to meet his future counterparts. Since his election in November, Mr. Trump met separately with the leaders Italy, Canada and Argentina at his hotel in Mar-a-Lago.
Despite the lack of contact, Mr. Trump has made his foreign policy goals clear in speeches and on social media, giving Mexican and other regional governments some insight into potential U.S. policies in the pipeline.
“Trump has publicly signaled that migration is a top priority, as well as tariffs,” Olson said.
Shortly after his election victory, Mr. Trump threatened to introduce tariffs of 25 percent about Mexico if it doesn’t do more to curb migration and the flow of drugs.
“But there are no clear mechanisms for the Trump administration on how to engage in dialogue and negotiate. This will be resolved soon” after taking office, added Mr. Olson.
The new US administration is likely to try to force Latin American countries to accept asylum seekers from other countries seeking refuge in the United States, known as “agreements on safe third countries.” The first Trump administration managed to get Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador to sign those pacts, although the policy was only implemented in Guatemala, albeit briefly.
But this time, those agreements may be more difficult to forge. President Bernardo Arévalo of Guatemala told The Associated Press this week, “We are not a safe third country; no one suggested it.”
His foreign minister, Carlos Ramírez Martínez, said in an interview that he expects his government to face pressure. “I have no doubt it will come,” he said.
Officials in El Salvador did he said that he will work with the Trump administration to protect the status of Salvadorans in the United States. “We are working to make migration an option, not an obligation,” Cindy Portal, a senior foreign ministry official, said in a televised interview on Wednesday.
In the absence of clarity from the transition team, some Latin American leaders are instead plotting a unified response in anticipation of any executive orders related to immigration or deportations issued after Mr. Trump takes office.
Representatives of several regional governments gathered in Mexico City this week to discuss “the opportunities and challenges of migration in the region and to strengthen coordination and cooperation,” according to a statement from the Guatemalan government about the meeting.
On the agenda, although it was difficult for migration, Mr. Trump was not mentioned.
Jody García in Guatemala City contributed to this report; Joan Suazo of Tegucigalpa, Honduras; Gabriel Labrador from San Salvador; James Wagner, Paulina Villegas, Emiliano Rodríguez Mega and Simon Romero from Mexico City; Mary Triny Zea of Panama City; Julie Turkewitz of Bogota, Colombia; Hogla Enecia Pérez from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic; Ed Augustin of Havana; and Lucía Cholakian Herrera from Buenos Aires.
