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Fact check: How do Mexico deportation figures compare by country for 2019–2024?
Executive summary
Mexico’s country-by-country deportation figures for 2019–2024 cannot be fully reconstructed from the materials provided because U.S. federal enforcement releases that cover 2024 focus on aggregate removals and returns rather than destination breakdowns, while the Mexico-facing reports supplied emphasize 2023 only. Available, verifiable data point to Guatemala, Honduras and Ecuador as the largest origins of migrants deported from Mexico in 2023, with Statista and Mexico-focused factsheets reporting Guatemala at roughly 25,100 returns in 2023 and sizable shares for Honduras and Ecuador. U.S. agencies confirm a sharp rise in overall removals and in returns of non-Mexican nationals to Mexico in recent years, but they do not provide the comprehensive 2019–2024 country-by-country series required to answer the question fully [1] [2] [3] [4].
1. What the original claims say and where they came from — pulling the key assertions apart
The source analyses advance three interlocking claims: that U.S. deportation/removal totals rose sharply through 2024, that the U.S. and Mexico have been returning or expelling growing numbers of non‑Mexican nationals into Mexican territory, and that Mexico’s own return statistics for 2023 identify Guatemala, Honduras and Ecuador as the leading countries of origin. The CBS and CBP summaries document an aggregate spike in U.S. removals to more than 271,000 individuals in fiscal 2024 and note returns to over 160 countries, but they stop short of listing recipient-country counts for 2019–2024 [1] [2]. Independent Mexico-centered factsheets and Statista provide a country breakdown for 2023, with Guatemala at the top of the list [4] [3].
2. Why official U.S. releases don’t deliver the needed country-by-country series
U.S. federal reports cited here—CBP monthly updates and ICE/CBP summaries—present aggregate enforcement volumes and the number of countries involved but omit the full origin-destination matrix needed to compute annual deportations from Mexico by country for 2019–2024. The Immigration Enforcement and Legal Processes Monthly Tables exist as a repository for enforcement metrics, but the provided text does not include a country-level deportee breakdown across the 2019–2024 span, nor does the CBP December/January messaging publish per-country tallies for prior years [5] [2] [1]. That gap explains why a complete comparative series cannot be produced from the supplied materials.
3. What Mexico’s available 2023 breakdown actually shows and why it matters
Mexico-facing compilations in mid‑2024 and Statista’s August 2024 snapshot present an explicit country breakdown for 2023: Guatemala accounted for the largest group of migrants returned through Mexico in 2023 (about 25,100 people), followed by Honduras and Ecuador, with significant additional flows from Venezuela and El Salvador in certain periods. The factsheet documenting May–September 2023 operations further highlights roughly 21,000 non-Mexican nationals returned or removed to Mexico in that window, emphasizing the predominance of men and naming Guatemala, Honduras and Venezuela among the common origins [3] [4]. These figures permit a clear statement for 2023 but do not fill earlier-year gaps.
4. How the U.S.–Mexico operational dynamic changed 2019–2024, according to the sources
The supplied materials describe an operational shift whereby the United States increasingly relied on Mexico to receive non‑Mexican nationals removed or expelled from U.S. territory, especially during 2022–2024, and that Mexico accepted returns without transparent or formalized public agreements, per multiple factsheets. This change produced notable volumes of non‑Mexican arrivals in Mexican border processing, and U.S. agency tallies show aggregate removals peaking in fiscal 2024—context that helps explain why Mexico’s 2023 and 2024 return tallies rose even as U.S. aggregate removals expanded [4] [1]. The interplay matters because origin-country shares recorded by Mexican authorities reflect both Mexican enforcement and U.S. expulsions routed through Mexico.
5. Bottom line, caveats, and what’s still missing for a full 2019–2024 comparison
The bottom line is straightforward: you can state country-level rankings for 2023 with confidence—Guatemala, Honduras and Ecuador lead—but you cannot produce a complete, year-by-year country comparison for 2019–2024 using only the provided documents. The U.S. sources document high aggregate removals in 2024 and broad returns to many countries but lack correlative country-by-country tables for the entire 2019–2024 period; Mexico-focused items fill 2023 but not earlier years [1] [2] [5] [3]. To finalize a full comparative series would require Mexico’s official migration statistics or a multi‑year consolidated dataset cross-referencing Mexican returns, U.S. removals and any bilateral operational logs—none of which are included in the materials reviewed.