Xiomara Castro, president of beggar-nation Honduras, says she’ll shut down the U.S. military based in her poverty-stricken country if President-elect Donald Trump mass deports Honduran illegals back home.
Honduras, which collected almost $200 million in foreign aid in fiscal 2023, is the second Latin American nation attempting to thwart what Trump has vowed will be the “largest domestic deportation operation in American history.”
Mexico has prepared for legal war against the administration. It has created a smartphone application with which deportable illegals can notify consulates and subversive lawyers about their cases.
The Threat
Castro’s message to her countrymen, many of whom might rely on revenue generated and employment by Soto Cano Air Base, was short and bitter.
“We hope that the new U.S. administration of democratically elected President Donald Trump will be open to dialogue, constructive and friendly, and will not take unnecessary reprisals against our migrants, who normally make a great contribution to the U.S. economy,” she said in Spanish:
Faced with a hostile attitude of mass expulsion of our brothers, we would have to consider a change in our policies of cooperation with the United States, especially in the military arena, where, without paying a cent for decades, they maintain military bases in our territory, which in this case would lose all reason to exist in Honduras.
Soto Cano is home to Joint Task Force-Bravo, which comprises the 612th Air Base Squadron, Joint Staff, Army Forces Battalion, and the 1st Battalion of the 228th Aviation Regiment. It houses some 500 military personnel and 500 civilian employees.
“JTF-Bravo conducts a variety of missions in Central America, South America and the Caribbean that range from supporting U.S. Government operations, countering transnational organized crime, [and] humanitarian assistance/disaster relief missions to building partner capacities,” its website says. “The successful completion of these missions, with support from all units, allows JTF-Bravo to promote security throughout the region.”
As of August, the base employed 80 foreign nationals, many if not all Hondurans. About half have worked at the base for decades. One employee has worked there for all but three of the years since it was established in 1983.
Should Castro shut down the base, those employees would lose their jobs.
Beyond that, Honduras is a welfare case.
In fiscal 2023, it received $194 million in foreign aid from the United States, and in fiscal 2022, $204.7 million.
For previous years:
- Fiscal 2021: $222.1 million
- Fiscal 2020: $125.3 million
- Fiscal 2019: $71 million
Total since 2017: More than $1 billion.
Honduran Criminals
One reason Castro doesn’t want the return of Hondurans, almost 600,000 of whom border agents have encountered at the southwest border since fiscal 2022: A significant number are likely dangerous criminals, perhaps on the run from Honduran cops.
Unhappily enough, President Biden has released many of those illegals into the interior. One of those is 19-year-old Angel Matias Castellanos-Orellana, who, despite his high-sounding name, is not Honduran royalty.
Rather, police allege that Castellanos-Orellana waged a 25-day terror campaign in Louisiana that include raping a 14-year-old girl and stabbing a 62-year-old man.
After he was arrested, the House Judiciary Committee procured his illegal-immigration record from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS):
[O]n October 6, 2023, Angel Matias Castellanos-Orellana, a national of Honduras, was encountered by Border Patrol in Eagle Pass, Texas. Despite the fact that the alien “claim[ed] to have no fear of being returned to their native country,” Castellanos-Orellana was released with a Notice to Appear in immigration court on an “Order of Release [on] own Recognizance” due to a “lack of space,” with instructions to report to ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) in New Orleans on November 7, 2023. According to DHS’s own data, however, the agency had capacity to detain Castellanos-Orellana before he was released. His criminal A-file also indicated that he had no criminal history.
And Castellanos-Orellana isn’t the only dangerous Honduran whom Biden released into the country. Another is Yery Noel Medina Ulloa, who was convicted in 2023 for the second-degree murder of a 46-year-old man in Florida. Biden freed him to kill after he provided a false name to border authorities.
No wonder Castro doesn’t want her countrymen back. Biden undoubtedly took thousands of such criminals off her hands.
Mexico
Castro isn’t alone in opposing Trump. Mexico is also begging for a fight.
As The New American reported last week, Mexico’s Foreign Secretary Juan Ramón de la Fuente announced the creation of a smartphone application that will enable Mexican illegals slated for deportation to get attorneys.
“I have personally attended several open meetings where the key message is to tell our fellow citizens that they are not alone and will not be alone,” de la Fuente said. Axios reported:
De la Fuente said Mexico’s “Know Your Rights” program will be part of a rapid response to possible enforcement scenarios or “other intimidating actions.”
Mexico’s legal protection program includes 329 legal advisors at all 53 consulates in the U.S., along with voluntary support from consultants and law firms across the country, he said.
Still, Mexico is preparing 25 shelters to house the deportees, a sign that the nation is taking Trump’s threat of mass deportations seriously.
For his part, Trump has repeatedly said he will round up and deport the illegals in the country. And he’s promised to use local cops and the military if necessary to do it.
That has invited vows of resistance from myriad localities, including Denver, Boston, and San Diego County. Denver’s far-left mayor, Mike Johnston, said police and “50,000 Denverites” will block Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from deporting illegals.
Incoming border czar Thomas Homan has warned the officials to read the federal statute that forbids harboring illegals.
