Mexican authorities denied a US military plane access to its planned runway on Thursday after President Trump’s deportation crackdown began.
US officials told NBC News that a jet filled with illegal immigrants bound for Mexico never took off after authorities south of the border blocked the move.
The flight was one of three that took off on Thursday, alongside Two Guatemala-bound Air Force C-17s carrying over 150 people, as part of what Trump has described as the largest mass deportation effort in US history.
It is not clear why Mexican authorities made the move to block the flight, which came hours after an American hiker was also shot by suspected Mexican cartel members in California a few hundred yards north of the border.
Trump’s return to the White House quickly inflamed relations between the two nations, with the new president threatening imposing a 25 percent tariff on Mexican imports in retaliation for migrants crossing the southern border.
Deporting migrants to foreign countries requires permission from the incoming nation’s government, which Mexico declined on Thursday.
As he toured natural disaster sites in North Carolina and California on Friday, Trump issued a stern warning to illegal migrants with criminal records, saying ‘we’re taking them out first.’
Mexican authorities blocked a US military plane from deporting illegal migrants on Thursday amid rising tensions between the two nations.
While Mexican authorities have shown their disapproval for the deportations, Trump’s administration has praised their own efforts this week, with new Secretary of State Marco Rubio also posting a video of migrants being marched onto the military aircraft to Guatemala on Thursday.
The deportation flights were part of a nationwide crackdown on illegal immigrants ordered by Trump in the early days of his presidency.
On Thursday, it was revealed that his immigration force has arrested over 1,300 illegal migrants, with Border Czar Tom Homan pledging to continue ramping up the effort.
Homan told NewsNation on Thursday night that of the 1,300 migrants arrested so far, ‘over 1,000 of them were criminals.’
He slammed sanctuary city policies for having allowed migrants with long rap sheets remain in US cities as they declined to alert ICE of their whereabouts during the Biden-era.
‘I don’t care if Republican or Democrat, Independent, why not let law enforcement go into a county jail, taxpayer county jail, to arrest the guy that you locked in a jail cell so obviously, the public safety threat that will solve a lot of this problem,’ he said.
‘And I hope the sanctuary cities come around.’
The updated ICE statistics come after federal authorities said Tuesday that a sweep of sanctuary cities led to the arrest of over 300 illegal migrants on Trump’s first full day.
