Central American countries have long taken back their own citizens deported from the United States. But now the Trump administration has called on them to take in people from other countries around the world as well.
The extraordinary measures involved in these deportations — hundreds of migrants whisked away by plane without knowing their destinations and bused to isolated shelters — have shifted attention to Panama and Costa Rica and to how Trump’s immigration crackdown is playing out far beyond U.S. borders.
So far, the number of migrants from elsewhere deported to Central America is still small, and it remains unclear if it will grow. Regional leaders largely say they are actively cooperating with the United States or have downplayed the significance of the deportations. However, analysts warn that these leaders have been backed into a corner with the threat of tariffs and that any increase in deportation flights could eventually push Central America to its limits.
“They’re powerless to do anything,” said Christopher Sabatini, a senior research fellow for Latin America at Chatham House, a research institute in London. “And we saw with President Petro of Colombia the consequences if you resist: sanctions against diplomatic personnel, loss of visa rights, as well as tariffs.”
This month, the Trump administration sent three military planes carrying roughly 300 migrants — mostly from Asia and the Middle East — to Panama. Days later, a flight carrying 135 people, nearly half of them children and including dozens of people from China, Central Asia and Eastern Europe, landed in Costa Rica.
The migrants, who the American authorities say illegally crossed the southern border, are to remain in the custody of the local authorities until they can be returned to their countries or secure asylum somewhere else.
Sending them to other countries removes many of the hurdles that Mr. Trump faced during his first term in trying to curb illegal immigration, according to analysts.
It helps alleviate overcrowding in U.S. detention facilities by removing people from countries like China, Afghanistan and Iran, where a lack of diplomatic relations with the United States makes deportations particularly challenging.
Additionally, the immediate removal of migrants allows the United States to sidestep international legal obligations to offer people who may face life-threatening conditions in their home countries the opportunity to ask for asylum.
Swift deportations also allow the administration to avoid another notably thorny obstacle that Mr. Trump ran into during his first term: Under U.S. law, authorities are not permitted to hold children in detention for more than 20 days, regardless of whether they are with their parents. Of the migrants deported to Central America so far, a large proportion have been families with children.
Publicly, leaders across Central America — clearly worried about the possibility of retribution if they defy the United States — are rejecting the idea that they are being coerced to accept these migrants.
In Panama, officials are characterizing themselves as fully engaged partners on migration. This commitment follows a surge that destabilized the region in recent years, as hundreds of thousands of people crossed into Panama through the Darién Gap, the perilous jungle corridor between Colombia and Panama.
Costa Rica, for its part, has sought to downplay its decision to take in people from distant countries. Officials say it as a one-time request from the U.S. government that involves a negligible number of people. They shrugged off the flight of deportees in a news conference last week, lumping the arrivals in with other migrants who have begun trickling south as the United States and Mexico harden the border.
Still, President Rodrigo Chaves of Costa Rica was frank about his government’s motivation in receiving the migrants: “We are helping the economically powerful brother from the north,” he told a crowd last week, “who, if he puts a tax on the free trade zones, will wreck us.”
Analysts say it is likely that more countries in the region will receive deportees from other countries. Officials in El Salvador and Guatemala have already said that they were willing.
“The biggest problem facing regional governments willing to do Trump’s deportation business is that they must walk the tightrope,” said John Feeley, a former U.S. ambassador to Panama. They have to present themselves as “humanitarian, rule-of-law societies,” he said, even as they stand to look like “cruel henchmen” of the Trump administration.
Costa Rica and Panama have said that along with food, clean water and medical care, the migrants are being given the chance to apply for asylum with the help of United Nations agencies. Local officials have been adamant that they are not sending migrants back to countries where they say they face grave danger.
Panamanian officials have also said that they are not acting under threat.
“There is no quid pro quo, no threats,” Carlos Ruiz-Hernández, Panama’s vice foreign minister, said in an interview. He added that the negotiation with the administration over the Panama Canal — which Mr. Trump has claimed to be under Chinese control — is “compartmentalized” from the agreement to take in migrants deported by the United States.
Accepting the migrant flights is an expansion of an agreement made last summer between Panama and the United States to work together to curb migration, starting at the Darién Gap, said Mr. Ruiz-Hernández.
Panamanian officials have also countered the claim by lawyers there that it is illegal under Panamanian law for the government to detain people for longer than 24 hours without a court order. In the context of immigration, the government legally has “broader powers” to detain people while their migration status is being settled, Mr. Ruiz-Hernández said.
But the government will likely face pushback.
Images like those that appeared in The New York Times, of a migrant from Iran pressed against a hotel window in Panama City, writing “HELP” on the glass, vaulted Panama into the limelight.
Days later, Costa Rica came under similar scrutiny when the country’s ombudsman’s office released a report saying that the migrants deported from the United States had arrived in a state of “visible distress.”
Many did not even know which country they were in, the report said.
Analysts say it is not clear if these Central American nations are getting much in return for their cooperation with the new U.S. deportation approach.
“The truth is, Trump’s not offering them anything,” said Mr. Sabatini, the Latin America expert. “Not development assistance, not international investment.”
Rather, the incentive for cooperation, Mr. Sabatini said, appears to be safeguarding their economies against reprisals by Mr. Trump, who has shown he is willing to mete out high tariffs, even on close allies.
In the climate of fear around Mr. Trump, appeasement and trying to maintain access seems to be Latin America’s response for the time being, Mr. Sabatini added.
S. Fitzgerald Haney, a former U.S. ambassador to Costa Rica, said the Trump administration’s strategy for dealing with leaders in the region was shaping up to be unpredictable.
“At times they’ll be sticks and at times it’ll be carrots,” he said. “But they really want to address security at our southern border.”
David Bolaños contributed reporting from San José, Costa Rica, and Julie Turkewitz from Bogotá, Colombia.
