Here’s Where Trump’s Deportations Are Sending Migrants

In the first few months of his second term, President Donald Trump has taken steps to carry out what he has previously said will be “the largest domestic deportation operation” in U.S. history. The administration says its moves—which include hundreds of deportation flights and Trump’s invocation of the seldom-used 1798 Alien Enemies Act—are necessary to stem unauthorized immigration to the United States. Experts say recipient countries are likely feeling economic and political pressure from the United States to accept deportees.

What’s happening?

Since Trump took office, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has deported non-U.S. citizens via charter and commercial flights, although the exact number of migrants is unclear. According to data from Witness at the Border, a U.S.-based migrant advocacy group, there have been more than 350 deportation flights [PDF] since the start of the year. Some of them were military aircraft, which defense officials stopped using to transfer migrants in early March because it was expensive and inefficient, the Wall Street Journal reported. According to ICE, the average per-hour cost of a regular charter flight is $8,577 and can be as high as nearly $27,000 for a “special high-risk” charter flight, depending on aircraft requirements.

The most notable deportations occurred on March 15, when Trump invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport to El Salvador more than two hundred alleged members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang, which the United States has designated a terrorist organization. (The U.S. government has reportedly provided little evidence of their alleged membership.) Trump frequently said during his presidential campaign that he would invoke the law—a wartime authority that gives him sweeping powers to detain, relocate, or deport noncitizens of countries considered foreign adversaries—to root out undocumented immigrants. A federal judge temporarily blocked the move, and the case eventually came before the Supreme Court, which overturned the decision, allowing the Trump administration to continue deportations.

The deportations are part of Trump’s promise to crack down on unauthorized immigration to the United States, which he says amounts to an “invasion.” Tom Homan, Trump’s “border czar” and former acting director of ICE (2017–2018), said the administration’s deportation policy prioritizes the removal of individuals with criminal records and those who are suspected national security threats. 

But the deportation figures are not as high as expected. According to federal data, while border crossings have plummeted, the Trump administration deported fewer people in February 2025 than the Joe Biden administration did in February the previous year. Biden deported approximately four million people during his presidency compared to the roughly three million deported by his predecessor, Barack Obama, who was often dubbed the “deporter-in-chief.” Experts say the high number of deportations under Biden was likely in part because there was a greater number of migrants arriving at the southern U.S. border.

Where are deportees going?

Many migrants are being sent to third countries rather than their countries of origin. Central America’s so-called Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras made up more than half of all deportations in March. Millions of people have fled the region in recent years, which has experienced worsening poverty, violence, and instability. Most other destinations were countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, including Colombia, Jamaica, and Mexico.

The Trump administration has reached agreements with several Latin American nations for them to serve as stopover locations or destinations for deported migrants. 

During February visits, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio struck deals with El Salvador and Guatemala, both of which agreed to accept deportation flights of their own citizens in addition to other nationalities. Brazil, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Honduras, India, Mexico, and Panama have also agreed to receive or have already received U.S. deportation flights. So too has Venezuela. (Caracas previously stopped accepting deportation flights after Washington announced new restrictions on the country’s oil sector, and only resumed doing so after the United States transferred Venezuelan migrants to a maximum security prison in El Salvador.)

Meanwhile, a few hundred migrants—most Venezuelan—have cycled through the U.S. naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, which the United States established to hold suspected terrorists and enemy fighters following the events of 9/11. In late March, the Trump administration sent a new group of migrants to the base to await deportation.

Some countries, including Colombia and Panama, have said they are providing migrants with food, water, and medical care, as well as the chance to apply for asylum with assistance from UN agencies. But concerns remain from human rights groups about how migrants are treated upon their arrival in other countries, such as El Salvador, where deportees have been transferred to the country’s notorious mega prison—used by President Nayib Bukele in his campaign against gangs.

The Trump administration is also reportedly seeking agreements with several other countries, including those in Africa, Asia, and Europe.

What has been the response?

Migrants often head to the United States to flee poverty, violence, political instability, and other hardships, and experts say many countries are unprepared to accept them back.

Some recipient countries have likely agreed to take U.S. deportees because they are facing economic and political pressure from the Trump administration. In late January, Colombia blocked two military aircraft carrying U.S. deportees from landing in the country but later walked back its deportation ban after Trump threatened steep retaliatory tariffs on Colombian imports.

Domestically, the Trump administration’s deportation agenda has faced pushback. Legal experts say the White House’s policies lack transparency and they have questioned the administration’s authority to deport migrants without due process, while several rights groups have filed lawsuits. In April, the Trump administration said in a legal filing that it made an “administrative error” in transferring a Maryland man to prison in his home country of El Salvador the month prior, but that it could not ensure his return given he is no longer in U.S. custody.

Will Merrow created the map for this In Brief.