Mexico blocks US deportation flight amid tensions, says report

Mexico reportedly refused to accept a US deportation flight Thursday. The neighbouring country denied the US military plane access to land, sources told NBC News.

Meanwhile, Reuters cited a US official and a Mexican official as saying that Mexico refused a request from President Donald Trump's administration to allow a US military aircraft to land in the country with migrants being deported by his administration.

The move temporarily frustrated the Donald Trump administration's plans to deport immigrants to the country, according to two US defence officials and a third person familiar with the situation.

As per the reports, two Guatemala-bound Air Force C-17s, carrying about 80 people each, flew deportees out of the US Thursday night, sources said. The third flight, slotted for Mexico, never took off, they added.

It was not immediately clear why Mexico blocked the flight. The Mexican Embassy and the White House did not immediately respond to Forbes’ request for comment.

Tensions between the US and Mexico escalated since newly-elected US President Donald Trump won the 2024 November election. Trump has threatened to slap 25% across-the-board tariffs on Mexico in retaliation for migrants crossing the border the countries share. But he has not yet put them in effect.

Mexico vs US

US-Mexico relations have come into sharp focus since Donald Trump started his second term as the US President on Monday with the declaration of a national emergency along the two nations' shared border. He has ordered 1,500 additional US troops there so far, and officials have said thousands more could deploy soon.

The use of US military aircraft to carry out deportation flights is part of the Pentagon's response to Trump's national emergency declaration on Monday.

Earlier on Friday, the Trump administration's Interior Department said it had officially changed the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, and the Alaskan peak Denali to Mount McKinley.

"As directed by the President, the Gulf of Mexico will now officially be known as the Gulf of America and North America's highest peak will once again bear the name Mount McKinley," the Interior Department said in a statement.

Mexico, which like the US has a long coastline circling the body of water, has said the Gulf of Mexico name is internationally recognized and has been used as a maritime navigational reference going back hundreds of years.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum earlier this month jokingly suggested North America, including the United States, be renamed "Mexican America" - an historic name used on an early map of the region.

Trump's crackdown on migrants

Trump has vowed to target an estimated 11 million people who are in the country illegally. He’s ordered a new deployment of military troops to the border to help block migrants from crossing illegally.

The Pentagon has said that the US military would provide flights to deport more than 5,000 immigrants held by US authorities in El Paso, Texas, and San Diego, California.

The Trump administration also said it was expanding its use of a fast-track deportation authority that allows the removal of migrants in the country for two years without first seeing an immigration judge.

(With inputs from agencies)