The transition team of President-elect Donald Trump has added another country to the list of those it has contacted as part of its plan to relocate millions of undocumented immigrants it plans to deport as of next year: El Salvador.
A new Bloomberg report details members of the transition team have contacted the country through back channels about the possibility, and that it is also renewing efforts to get Mexico to do so as well.
Trump has discussed the matter in broad terms with the countries' leaders, Claudia Sheinbaum and Nayib Bukele, but his team has been having deeper conversations with other representatives and people close to the governments, the outlet added, quoting anonymous sources. The negotiations will be formally conducted after Trump's inauguration by likely Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Christopher Landau, set to be his deputy.
The future administration's efforts to this end have seemingly not been fruitful so far. Previous reports listed Panama, Grenada, Bahamas and Turks and Caicos as potential destinations for the millions of people the incoming administration plans to deport, but all public statements regarding the issue have been rejections.
The office of Bahamas Prime Minister Philip Davis said earlier this month that the country "simply does not have the resources to accommodate such a request" and that "the prime minister's priorities remain focused on addressing the concerns of the Bahamian people."
Turks and Caicos made a similar statement, while Panama claimed it did not receive any formal or informal communication regarding the proposal but that the country has no obligation to accept such deportees.
"In response to reports published in U.S. media about the possibility of sending deportees to Panama from the U.S., we inform that we have not received any official or unofficial communication regarding said proposal. In light of international law, we have no obligation to receive deportees of other nationalities that are not Panamanian," said the country's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Panama has previously opposed becoming a "safe third country" for U.S.-bound migrants, rejecting such an agreement during Trump's first administration in 2019, as La Vanguardia reports.
Mexico, on its end, had already been floated as a possibility, but the country is seeking a deal to avoid taking deportees from third countries as well. Mexican President Sheinbaum said that her government hopes to "reach an agreement with the Trump administration so that, in case these deportations happen, they send people from other countries directly to their countries of origin." Her government is also outlining a plan to deal with potentially millions of Mexican deportees who could be sent back as of January 20.
Trump has anticipated how he will retaliate against countries that don't want to take back their nationals slated for deportation from the United States: tariffs.
"I want them out, and the countries have got to take them back, and if they don't take them back, we won't do business with those countries, and we will tariff those countries very substantially. When they send products in, they will have substantial tariffs, and it's going to make it very hard for them to do business with us," Trump told Time magazine in his lengthy interview in the issue in which he was named "Person of the Year."
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