By Sofia Menchu
GUATEMALA CITY, Aug 20 (Reuters) - Guatemalan President Bernardo Arevalo said in an interview aired late Wednesday that around 2,300 Mexicans deported from the United States have been flown to Guatemala so far in 2026 alongside returning Guatemalans, but remain in the country for less than 24 hours before being transferred to Mexico.
Arevalo said the migrants enter Guatemala only in transit, staying for less than 24 hours, and are not housed or granted refuge there. Guatemala does not serve as a so-called "safe third country," he noted.
"They are arriving in planes of Guatemalan returnees, and what we have done is process them as in transit, in coordination with the Mexican immigration authorities," Arevalo said.
CBS reported earlier this week that the Trump administration had been sending Mexicans to Guatemala and Honduras in an effort to deter illegal migration to the United States.
Neither Mexico or Honduras' foreign ministries immediately responded to Reuters' requests for comment. Mexican authorities had previously told CBS that they rejected the deportation of Mexicans to "third countries" and not made any such agreements.
U.S. President Donald Trump won reelection in 2024 vowing to clamp down on illegal border crossings and mass deport people deemed to be staying in the United States illegally. Many have been deported through agreements with third countries in the Americas.
(Reporting by Ana Isabel Martinez in Mexico City, Sofia Menchu in Guatemala City and Laura Garcia in Tegucigalpa, Editing by Daina Beth Solomon and Sarah Morland)
