'So little planning': Experts mock Trump after Mexico refuses to let deportation flight land [View all]

For years, Mexico has allowed the United States' deportation flights to cross over its airspace when flying undocumented immigrants back to their home countries without incident. But that's apparently no longer the case, according to a new report.

On Friday, NBC News found that Mexico refused a U.S. military plane access to its airspace when flying migrants to Guatemala. And as American Immigration Council senior fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick noted, another Central American country appears to have also not allowed the United States to fly over its airspace, given the flight's unusually circuitous route.

"This deportation flight had to go all the way around the Yucatan first, and then it went through Costa Rica, suggesting Honduras may also have denied permission," Reichlin-Melnick posted to Bluesky. He observed that countries declining to accommodate the U.S. by granting it access to its airspace could be a result of them perceiving his use of military C-130 planes "as an insult."

As Virginia Commonwealth University associate political science professor Michael Paarlberg wrote on Bluesky, carrying out deportations requires both the country deporting migrants and the country accepting them to coordinate. And as the Washington Post reported in December, countries refusing to cooperate with Trump could throw a wrench in the gears of his mass deportation plans.

Read more: https://www.alternet.org/experts-mock-trump/

Way to waste tax dollars on a publicity stunt.