Trump’s State Department Responds to NBC News Story About Mexico Denying Deportation Flight

TOWNHALL | Published January 26, 2025

Oh, some liberals are surely trying to take a victory lap because Mexico purportedly rejected one military flight carrying a horde of illegal aliens. And it’s NBC News again that’s guilty of spreading this odd story that essentially undercuts itself in the opening paragraphs. First, it wasn’t denied. The flight proceeded as planned, but there was an administrative hiccup that was quickly resolved. It’s all here (via NBC News):

Mexico denied a U.S. military plane access to land Thursday, at least temporarily frustrating the Trump administration’s plans to deport immigrants to the country, according to two U.S. defense officials and a third person familiar with the situation.

Two Guatemala-bound Air Force C-17s, carrying about 80 people apiece, flew deportees out of the U.S. Thursday night, the sources said. The third flight, slotted for Mexico, never took off.

It was not immediately clear why Mexico blocked the flight, but tensions between the U.S. and Mexico, neighbors and longtime allies, have risen since President Donald Trump won the November election. Trump has threatened to slap 25% across-the-board tariffs on Mexico in retaliation for migrants crossing the border the countries share. But he has not yet put them in effect.

A White House official said in a text message that “the flights thing was an administrative issue and was quickly rectified.”

After the publication of this article, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt tweeted, “Yesterday, Mexico accepted a record 4 deportation flights in 1 day!”

A White House official, however, did not clarify whether they were military, commercial or private flights.

As if that makes a difference—these people are getting the boot, and there’s nothing the liberal media can do to stop it. State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce went further, calling the NBC News story fake news:

The fake news is already lying about our successful partnership with Mexico helping to make our region safe again. The truth is, four ICE flights arrived in Mexico yesterday. Two military flights were sent to Guatemala because they were filled with Guatemalans. 2000 aliens were deported to Mexico yesterday alone by land and air, as Remain in Mexico was reimplemented. Promises made, promises kept.

But let’s obsess over a slight delay about one military flight, so say the news media.

 

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SOURCE: www.townhall.com

 


RELATED: Mexico refuses US military flight deporting migrants, sources say

A drone view shows U.S. authorities expelling migrants, mostly Venezuelans, as they are met by Mexican authorities at the Jeronimo-Santa Teresa border crossing, as seen from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, January 24, 2025. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez Purchase Licensing Rights
REUTERS | Published January 26, 2025
  • Two US military deportation flights go ahead to Guatemala
  • Use of US military aircraft for deportations unusual
  • Pentagon says its planes will deport 5,000 migrants
WASHINGTON/MEXICO CITY, Jan 24 (Reuters) – Mexico has refused a request from President Donald Trump‘s administration to allow a U.S. military aircraft deporting migrants to land in the country, a U.S. official and a Mexican official told Reuters.
U.S. military aircraft carried out two similar flights, each with about 80 migrants, to Guatemala on Friday. The government was not able to move ahead with a plan to have a C-17 transport aircraft land in Mexico, however, after the country denied permission.
A U.S. official and a Mexican official confirmed the decision, which was first reported by NBC News.
Mexico’s foreign ministry, in a statement late on Friday, said the country had a “very great relationship” with the U.S. and cooperated on issues such as immigration.
“When it comes to repatriations, we will always accept the arrival of Mexicans to our territory with open arms,” the ministry said.
The Mexican official did not give a reason for the denial of permission to land, while the foreign ministry did not mention the incident.
Trump’s administration earlier this week announced it was re-launching the program known as “Remain in Mexico,” which forced non-Mexican asylum seekers to wait in Mexico until their cases in the United States were resolved.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said on Wednesday such a move would require the country receiving the asylum-seekers to agree, and that Mexico had not done so.
The U.S. State Department and the Pentagon did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
U.S.-Mexico relations have come into sharp focus since Trump started his second term on Monday with the declaration of a national emergency along the two nations’ shared border. He has ordered 1,500 additional U.S. troops there so far, and officials have said thousands more could deploy soon.
The president has declared Mexican drug cartels terrorist organizations, renamed the Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America and threatened an across-the-board 25% duty on Mexican goods beginning in February.
Sheinbaum has sought to avoid escalating the situation and expressed openness toward accommodating Mexican nationals who are returned.
But the leftist leader has also said she does not agree with mass deportations and that Mexican immigrants are vital to the U.S. economy.
The use of U.S. military aircraft to carry out deportation flights is part of the Pentagon’s response to Trump’s national emergency declaration on Monday.
In the past, U.S. military aircraft have been used to relocate individuals from one country to another, like during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.
This was the first time in recent memory that U.S. military aircraft were used to fly migrants out of the country, one U.S. official said.
The Pentagon has said that the U.S. military would provide flights to deport more than 5,000 immigrants held by U.S. authorities in El Paso, Texas, and San Diego, California.
Guatemala also on Friday received a third flight of about 80 deported migrants on a chartered commercial aircraft, Guatemalan authorities told Reuters.

 

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SOURCE: www.reuters.com

 

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