Emir Olivares, Néstor Jiménez and Arturo Sánchez
La Jornada newspaper
Wednesday, April 16, 2025, p. 5
With the arrival of Donald Trump to the White House, the irregular crosses of migrants to the United States collapsed 65 percent, according to official figures.
Another impacts of the antimigracy policy of the tycoon is the decrease in the deportations of Guatemalan and Hondurans undocumented people who were in Mexico.
Data from the Office of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reveal that while in January 2025 81 thousand 499 meetings were recorded with migrants trying to enter without documents to US territory, in February the figure fell to 28 thousand 635 and in March there were 29 thousand 65.
In recent days, the CBP attributed the descents to the migratory matters undertaken by the Trump administration.
One of the Republican’s flags has been to maintain an antimigration line where not only has the revenue possibilities to his country – including the regular roads -, but also threatened with the expulsion of up to one million people per year, for which operations have been deployed in various parts of the US geography.
Although in the last months of the government of Joe Biden the numbers in irregular crosses by the southern border of the United States went down, in the first two -month period of the Trump administration the decline has been exponential.
Compared to the first quarter of 2025 with the same period last year, the fall in the number of meetings with migrants to the northern neighbor – both at the borders as in the interior of the country – was 81.5 percent lower: between January and March 2024, 754 thousand 106 were recorded and in the same period of this year only 139 thousand 199 add up.
Per month, the decrease in the number of income at the United States is as follows: in January last year 242 thousand 530 migrants were reported in that situation, against 81 thousand 499 in that month of 2025; In February the figures were 256 thousand 71 and 28 thousand 635, respectively, and in March 246 thousand 505 in 2024 against 29 thousand 65 last month.
Deportations from Central Americans
As for deportations from Mexico to Nations of Central America, data from the Guatemalan Institute of Migration indicate that in the first quarter of this year they represent less than a third of what was reported last year.
While in 2025, 2 thousand 115 deportations have been counted from Mexico, in 2024 they were 6,657.
Of the total repatriated to Guatemala, 20 percent were returned from Mexico and the rest from the United States.
Half of the Guatemalans were deported by the Mexican immigration authorities through 10 flights, all from Villahermosa, Tabasco; The other half in 76 buses that have left Tapachula – the majority–, Tuxtla Gutiérrez and Arriaga, Chiapas; from Villahermosa, Tabasco, and Acayucan, Veracruz.
Regarding the returns to Honduras from Mexico, there is a reduction of 25 percent, from 2,479 in the first quarter of last year, to 1,859 in the same period of the current one.
At the start of the year, 1,260 returns have been by air and 599 through bus, this according to the statistics of the National Institute of Migration of Honduras.
By 2025, the National Migration Institute launched a tender for the air transportation of migrants in charter flights destined in part to the deportation of foreigners, in which it projects to pay between 162 and up to 405 million pesos. In addition, in another contract, it outlined to pay between 255.9 and up to 639.8 million pesos for the transport of undocumented people through trucks, either within Mexico to migratory stations or different countries of Central America.
