Mexico Offers to Take Its Own Citizens Back — Trump Is Sending Them Somewhere Else

A left-wing Washington think-tanker called the practice “almost entirely punitive.” Correct. That’s the design. That’s the point. It is punitive.

The deterrence logic is simple and long overdue. If deportation just means a quick bus ride back across the border, it is not a meaningful consequence. A Mexican national who crosses illegally and gets caught faces minimal practical risk if they can immediately try again from familiar territory. Drop them in Guatemala and Honduras, and the calculation changes significantly. The journey back to the border becomes more expensive, more dangerous, and considerably longer. The incentive to try again is reduced.

This is the same principle behind the Biden administration’s use of Title 42 — which the left called cruel and then quietly relied on — except applied with more creativity and more teeth. You want to deter people from making an illegal journey? Make the consequences of that journey materially worse than the expected reward.

Guatemala agreed early in Trump’s second term to accept not only its own nationals but illegal aliens from other countries as well. That agreement is clearly now being applied to Mexican nationals whose expected return to Mexico would render deportation nearly meaningless as a deterrent.