A deportation flight. (The Colombian Foreign Ministry's X Account)

A deportation flight. (The Colombian Foreign Ministry's X Account)

Tracking Trump and Latin America: Migration—Homeland Security Rolls Back TPS for Haitians

By Chase Harrison and Khalea Robertson

The U.S. president is resurrecting first-term tactics and promising a more aggressive reduction in immigration. AS/COA is monitoring the regional impacts.

This piece was originally published on January 31, 2025. New content is regularly added.

With the declaration of a national emergency at the U.S. southern border and the classification of migration as “an invasion,” U.S. President Donald Trump made his focus on immigration clear on the first day of his second term, taking action on an issue that was a focal point in his 2024 presidential campaign. In that year, just about 15 percent of U.S. voters named migration as the most important issue facing their country, according to YouGov, second only to inflation.

No doubt, Trump’s migration policy over the next four years will touch upon Latin America and Latin Americans. Just over half of the U.S. foreign-born population comes from the region, according to 2023 census data(link is external)—almost 24.5 million people. According to statistics from Pew Research Center, Latin Americans also make up around 77 percent (link is external)of an estimated 11 million undocumented migrants in the United States. 

During his first term (2017-2021), Trump passed policies that pressured Latin American governments to take more responsibility to deter migration and accept deportees. This term, Trump is resurrecting—or intensifying—several of those policies. And this time, Trump is also attempting to end birthright citizenship by reinterpreting the 14th Amendment and threatening a wider set of countries with punitive measures if they don’t comply with his requests around deportation.

AS/COA Online is monitoring Trump's government approach to migration. Learn about his most recent initiatives, as well as his campaign promises and how the policies of his second presidency are different from the actions he took in his first term.

Recent Developments

February 24: Homeland Security rolls back TPS for Haitians

Through a February 24 notice(link is external), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced that a Biden-era extension of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitian immigrants until February 3, 2026 would instead expire on August 3, 2025. This means that the approximately 521,000 Haitians in the United States who either have or are eligible for TPS are set to lose permission to work and protection from deportation. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem has until June 4, 2025 to decide whether to re-extend or end this legal status. 

Among the justifications cited for the decision to shorten the time frame for these protections, DHS stated that the 2024 deployment of the U.S.-funded and Kenya-staffed Multinational Security Support mission to combat gang violence(link is external) in Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital, represented a “real possibility of an improvement(link is external) in conditions.” As such, Secretary Noem has committed to reviewing conditions in the country to determine whether it is safe to return Haitians. According to UN estimates, more than 5,600 persons(link is external) were killed in Haiti in 2024, an increase of over 1,000 from the previous year, with hundreds more wounded and kidnapped. The notice also states that there will be consideration of “whether it is contrary to the U.S. national interest to continue to permit the Haitian nationals to remain temporarily in the United States.” 

TPS was first made available to Haitian nationals in 2010 following a powerful earthquake that caused massive destruction in the capital and surrounding areas. Successive governments later extended and added new designations for TPS to protect an increasing number of Haitian immigrants in the United States. In 2018, during Trump’s first term in office, the administration’s attempt to terminate the program was successfully challenged(link is external) in court.

February 17: Rubio’s Central America trip yields deportation deals

In his first trip as secretary of state, Marco Rubio ventured to Central America and the Caribbean with migration as a priority. 

On Rubio’s first stop, Panama, President José Raúl Mulino offered the U.S. government use of a landing strip in a town near the Darién Gap as a base for deportation operations. In a press conference(link is external) on February 2, Mulino suggested that U.S. deportation flights could depart from the Nicanor Air Base(link is external) to return migrants to their respective countries of origin(link is external), including Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela, as well as further afield. This builds upon an agreement(link is external) signed in July 2024 through which the United States finances deportation flights from Panama.

The first of these flights landed near Panama City on February 13 carrying 119 migrants from various Asian countries(link is external) including Afghanistan, China, and Pakistan. President Mulino explained they would be transferred to a shelter in the Darién province and from there, returned to their home countries. Similar flights to Costa Rica(link is external) reportedly began on February 17.

Rubio’s following stop was El Salvador, where he announced on February 3 that President Nayib Bukele had offered to take in deportees of any nationality with a criminal record(link is external), including alleged gang members, to be held in El Salvador’s mega prison. Bukele later clarified on X that only “convicted criminals” would be admitted “in exchange for a fee(link is external).” Both men added that the proposal included the transfer of convicted U.S. citizens(link is external), a procedure experts noted would be legally fraught. Rubio referred to the offer as “an act of extraordinary friendship(link is external)” that would constitute “the most unprecedented and extraordinary migratory agreement anywhere in the world.” 

In Guatemala, President Bernardo Arévalo announced in a joint press conference with Secretary Rubio on February 5 that his country would accept 40 percent more(link is external) deportation flights from the United States and receive non-Guatemalan citizens. Under the Biden administration, approximately 14 flights landed in Guatemala on a weekly basis, with over 66,000 Guatemalans(link is external) being returned to their country in the 2024 fiscal year.

February 4: Laken Riley Act and Guantánamo migration detention center 

The first signed bill of Trump’s second term deals with migration. The Laken Riley Act(link is external), signed January 29, stipulates the federal detention of any migrant accused—but not yet convicted—of theft or a violent crime. It also empowers states attorneys general to sue the federal government if they feel there has been harm due to a failure of immigration enforcement.

During that signing, Trump announced that he would direct construction to expand a migrant detention center in Guantánamo Bay. This was later formalized in a memo(link is external). The president claimed that the U.S. military site, located in Cuba, could house up to 30,000 migrants(link is external), almost doubling the state’s holding capacity for persons under deportation orders. If constructed, it would be the largest U.S. migrant detention center. Flights carrying detained migrants from the mainland United States to Guantánamo(link is external) began on February 4.

Best known as the site of a detention and alleged torture facility(link is external) for suspected terrorists, Guantánamo Bay also hosts facilities that have been used intermittently in recent decades to temporarily house migrants(link is external) and asylum seekers, including under the Biden administration, to process or return persons(link is external) picked up at sea. 

January 28: Venezuelans to lose protected status 

On January 28, the Department of Homeland Security announced the cancellation(link is external) of an 18-month extension to Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Venezuelans. This reversed an order(link is external) implemented earlier in January by the previous Biden administration that offered over 600,000 Venezuelans with TPS protection from deportation and legal permission(link is external) to work until October 2026. The reversal means that protections for around 350,000 Venezuelans(link is external) registered under a 2023 TPS designation will instead expire on April 2, 2025. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has until July 12, 2025 to make a final determination(link is external) on whether to extend or end the legal status of Venezuelans registered under a 2021 TPS designation, which is due to expire on September 10, 2025. 

Back in 2017, as one of the last acts of his first term(link is external), Trump granted Venezuelan migrants protection from deportation for 18 months, using a mechanism similar to TPS.

Following a meeting between Trump’s envoy for special missions, Richard Grenell, and Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro on January 31, Trump stated that Venezuela had agreed to receive deportation flights(link is external) and offered to provide the means of transportation. Venezuela had stopped allowing(link is external) the United States to return its citizens in January 2024. The Venezuelan government has not provided details on what was discussed with Grenell, but Maduro stated that they had "taken a first step(link is external)” towards a new relationship with the United States. 

January 26: Military deportation flights raise regional ire

In his second term, Trump has introduced the use of military aircrafts(link is external) to carry out deportations, a move experts note is unprecedented(link is external) in modern history.

Military deportation flights bound for Colombia on January 26 triggered an explosive but short-lived dispute between Trump and Colombian President Gustavo Petro. Early that morning, Petro rescinded flight permissions for two planes carrying Colombian nationals. Petro objected(link is external) to the use of military vessels and what he considered a lack of “dignified treatment” of those on board. 

In response, Trump threatened(link is external) “decisive retaliatory measures” including: a 25 percent tariff on Colombian goods, to be raised to 50 percent within one week; visa and travel bans for government officials, their families, and “supporters;” and “enhanced” inspections of Colombian nationals at ports of entry.  The U.S. embassy in Bogotá also suspended(link is external) visa processing.

Petro retaliated with the announcement that Colombia would also levy a 25 percent(link is external) tariff on U.S. goods, along with a missive on X in which he suggested that Trump was plotting a coup, while insisting that he was “not scared of [a] blockade” and that Colombia would “stop looking to the North(link is external).” The United States is Colombia’s largest trading partner and purchases around a quarter of all Colombian exports. 

However, before the end of the day, both the White House(link is external) and the Colombian foreign ministry(link is external) confirmed that deportation flights would resume as normal and that there would be no extra tariffs. The White House added that the tariffs and sanctions would be “held in reserve” should Colombia violate the agreement. Deportation flights resumed on January 28 with Petro sending the Colombian Air Force to carry his citizens to Bogotá(link is external)

The diplomatic dispute came just a few hours after the Brazilian government raised similar objections to returning nationals being handcuffed and prevented from using the bathroom on a January 24 deportation flight(link is external). When the plane made a stopover in Manaus, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva sent the Brazilian Air Force to collect the returnees and complete the journey to Belo Horizonte without handcuffs. Brazil’s foreign ministry later sent a diplomatic note to the U.S. requesting clarification on the “degrading treatment(link is external)” of the migrants.

Also on January 24, Mexico blocked U.S. military planes from passing through Mexican airspace but allowed non-military deportation flights to land domestically. Neither government(link is external) provided a public explanation for the refusal. In Guatemala, military deportation flights were allowed in on January 25(link is external) without issue. 

January 20: Early executive orders show immigration priorities

Rhetoric about migration featured prominently in Trump’s inaugural address. He spoke several times about what he deemed “the disastrous invasion of our country” and mentioned specific policies—such as “Remain in Mexico” and large-scale deportation—in his address.

Hours later, Trump signed a series of executive orders that actualized many of the migration promises in his speech. That included declaring a national emergency(link is external) on the U.S. border with Mexico and categorizing immigration as “an invasion(link is external)" under the Constitution, which provides legal justification for the federal government to take expanded action on behalf of the states.

Several of Trump’s executive orders marshaled resources to the border for the construction of infrastructure and the use of technology like drones. He also authorized the Department of Defense to send troops to the border. The first wave of the military included 1,500 troops(link is external), who began to reach their new posts on January 23. 

Trump also modified several immigration policies. This included significantly reducing the geographical and time constraints on expedited removals, a mechanism that facilitates the deportation of undocumented migrants without an immigration hearing(link is external). He also resurrected the Migration Protection Protocols (MPP), better known as “Remain in Mexico(link is external).” This policy, first implemented by Trump in 2018, forces asylum seekers to wait in Mexico for their U.S. immigration hearings. He suspended the acceptance of refugees under the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program. He ended the humanitarian parole programs(link is external) for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans, leaving over 530,000 people in legal limbo. He also shut down a mobile application(link is external) that migrants in Mexico used to schedule appointments with U.S. immigration, effectively canceling scheduled proceedings.

2024 Campaign

Immigration formed a central pillar of Trump’s 2024 campaign for reelection. On his campaign website(link is external), the first two of 20 “core promises” were to “seal the border and stop the migrant invasion” and “carry out the largest deportation operation in American history.” The Trump campaign insisted that his administration would focus on non-U.S. citizens in the country without legal status. More than three-quarters of an estimated 11 million(link is external) undocumented migrants in the United States come from Latin America and the Caribbean, according to 2022 data compiled by Pew Research Center. 

In the run-up to the election, Trump and his now Vice President JD Vance amplified unverified reports(link is external) of crimes committed by migrants, including Haitians and Venezuelans(link is external), to provide grist for their plans to ramp up persecution and deportation of undocumented migrants. This aligned with another of his “core” campaign promises to “stop the migrant crime epidemic, demolish the foreign drug cartels, crush gang violence, and lock up violent offenders.”

First Term

Trump’s first term, from 2017 to 2021, was marked by a similar “zero tolerance” approach to immigration and many policies have been leveraged in both terms.

Trump’s push to marshal funds and resources to the construction of a border is a continuation of his first-term efforts. In those four years, Trump oversaw work on about 450 miles of border infrastructure(link is external), though only 80 miles of that was new construction. Trump’s strategy of declaring an emergency to bypass Congressional approval for funding of the wall was also used in his first term.

Trump is also resuming efforts from his first term to end the entry of refugees(link is external) into the United States and suspend humanitarian parole(link is external). In both cases, Trump’s first term efforts were more piecemeal and gradual.

A stricter enforcement of deportation law was also pursued in Trump’s first term. In his first few weeks in office in 2017, Trump directed Homeland Security to not exempt any classes of “removable(link is external)” migrants from enforcement. Still, despite Trump’s rhetorical focus on deportation, fewer migrants(link is external) were deported under his first presidency than during either term of his predecessor, Barack Obama.Trump protected some groups, namely Venezuelans(link is external), from deportation in the last days of his administration. 

In his first term, Trump used a combination of deals and threats, especially sanctions, to forge bilateral deals on migration. He implemented the MPP through an agreement(link is external) with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, but shortly after, threatened 5 to 25 percent sanction(link is external)s on Mexico if no further efforts were taken. Trump also used threats when pursuing “safe third country(link is external)” agreements with El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras whereby migrants seeking asylum at the U.S. border would be sent to one of these Central American countries and forced to apply for asylum there. To secure a deal with Guatemala, for example, Trump dangled the idea(link is external) of sanctions, charging remittance fees, or banning Guatemalans from entering the United States. 

Trump has yet to resurrect some migration policies he enacted during the Covid-19 pandemic. That includes the use of Title 42, a public health measure, to block the entry of migrants into the United States.  He also hasn’t resumed the blockage of green cards(link is external) he implemented in the last nine months of his presidency.

Related

Explore