Two military jets landed in Guatemala City on Friday carrying deported migrants from Tucson, Ariz., and El Paso, according to local migration authorities and the American Embassy in Guatemala.
Guatemala appears to be one of first countries to have struck an agreement with the United States to receive deported citizens transported on U.S. Air Force jets, after the Trump administration this week authorized the military through executive order to assist in securing the border.
The acting secretary of defense, Robert Salesses, said in a statement this week that, working with the State Department, the Department of Defense would provide military airplanes to support Department of Homeland Security “deportation flights of more than 5,000 illegal aliens from the San Diego, California, and El Paso, Texas, sectors detained by Customs and Border Protection.”
The U.S. Embassy in Guatemala could not confirm how many more military jets were expected to transport deportees to the country or on what timeline.