The United States has quietly begun deporting some Mexicans on flights that take them away from the southern border, U.S. and Mexican officials said, a move partly intended to discourage them from repeatedly trying to cross into the United States.
The first flight to Morelia, a city in central Mexico hundreds of miles from the nearest US border crossing, took off on Tuesday carrying more than 100 Mexicans, according to two US officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details.
A senior Mexican official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said flights are expected to resume on a regular basis.
Tuesday’s flight was the first of its kind in nearly two years. US authorities most frequently deport Mexicans by land near the border. But the number of Mexicans crossing into the United States has skyrocketed in recent months, prompting US authorities to find more forceful ways to discourage people from making the journey north.
The Biden administration is struggling to stem one of the largest waves of uncontrolled immigration in American history, with people fleeing poverty, political instability and violence in Central America, South America and elsewhere. Last week, President Biden sought to address a growing political liability by pleading with Congress to give him the authority to close the border.
The United States suspended deportation flights for Mexicans in 2022 as officials turned their attention to the growing number of migrants arriving from countries such as Haiti and Venezuela.
But as a wave of deadly violence grips Mexico ahead of next year’s presidential election in the country, more residents are fleeing. More than 56,000 Mexicans were apprehended by border agents in December, the largest number of Mexicans crossing the border since last spring.
“Mexicans are beginning to recognize security as a major issue for the presidential campaign,” said Andrew Rudman, director of the Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. “So I suspect a lot of it is people feeling unsafe where they are.”
Flying isn’t just about deterrence. Mexican officials have called for the flights in the past so migrants can return closer to their homes and avoid crowded border towns. The flights also connect deportees with reintegration services such as job opportunities and shelter.
But immigration experts and former immigration officials say the flights are also intended to make it harder for people to make repeat crossings.
“The value to the U.S. is that it dramatically reduces the chance that someone will return illegally,” said John Sandweg, who was a homeland security official in the Obama administration.
The flight this week came a month after top U.S. officials — including Antony J. Blinken, the secretary of state, and Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary — flew to Mexico City to hammer out a strategy to slow the increase in illegal crossings.
In December, more than 11,000 migrants crossed the border on some days, a record.
The Obama administration struck a deal with Mexico to deport Mexicans back into the country in 2012. The program, known as the Internal Repatriation Initiative, came at a time when Mexicans were the majority of migrants crossing the border and the number of crossings was significantly lower than what is observed today.
More than 46,000 Mexicans were moved to the heart of the country from late 2019 to May 2022, according to Adam Isaacson of the Washington Office on Latin America, a human rights organization.
