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President Trump promised mass deportations. In Honduras, the threat created fear, but a massive wave of returnees has not materialized.
A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
While President Trump continues to tout his administration's immigration policy, in Honduras, the threats of mass deportation have caused some anxiety. But authorities there say an influx of returned migrants has not yet materialized. Here's Dan Girma.
DAN GIRMA, BYLINE: Carmen Paz (ph) waits outside the airport in San Pedro Sula with a bouquet of roses. She's happy, but it's complicated. She's here for her sister, who was just deported from the U.S. and separated from her family.
CARMEN PAZ: (Speaking Spanish).
GIRMA: "I'm sad because she wanted to be with her sons over there," she says, "but we're happy because she's coming back to be with us." Paz says her sister went to the U.S. legally and doesn't know why she was kicked out. But they all now have to live without the remittances she sent back to Honduras.
PAZ: (Speaking Spanish).
GIRMA: "The truth is," she says, "that's how we survive." When President Trump took office in January, Honduras braced itself for an unprecedented wave of deportations. Idalina Bordignon, who runs the Center for the Care of Returned Migrants, watched the first detainees arrive by military transport.
IDALINA BORDIGNON: (Speaking Spanish).
GIRMA: "The planes were so heavy," she says, "they couldn't park on the civilian runways." But those first flights brought only a handful of deportees.
BORDIGNON: (Speaking Spanish).
GIRMA: In fact, government statistics show that so far, in 2025, the number of deportees sent to Honduras from the United States has actually decreased from the previous year. The Department of Homeland Security didn't respond to our request for comment. Bordignon says the goal of all this is to create confusion and fear.
BORDIGNON: (Speaking Spanish).
GIRMA: "They planted this image of mass deportations and everyone was terrified, but the wave never came."
Outside the airport, the first deportees start to walk out into the stifling tropical heat. Authorities return their confiscated belongings - wallets, phones, shoelaces. Juan de Dios Cardenas (ph) puts on its belt for the first time in weeks. Cardenas lived in the U.S. illegally for 22 years. He was picked up as he arrived at his plumbing job at a federal building in Maryland.
JUAN DE DIOS CARDENAS: (Speaking Spanish).
GIRMA: "I never thought something like this would happen."
CARDENAS: (Speaking Spanish).
GIRMA: "I left my family, my two kids, my things." He doesn't understand what he did to deserve this.
CARDENAS: (Speaking Spanish).
GIRMA: "I don't have a felony."
CARDENAS: (Speaking Spanish).
GIRMA: "Not even a traffic ticket."
CARDENAS: (Speaking Spanish).
GIRMA: He wishes President Trump would have given a little more credit for 20 years well lived. More deportees walk out of the airport. Many are welcomed by their families, like Paz.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Speaking Spanish).
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Speaking Spanish).
GIRMA: Cardenas steps to the side and gathers his things. No one is waiting for him at the airport. In fact, he's thinking about having his family join him in Honduras.
CARDENAS: (Speaking Spanish).
GIRMA: But Cardenas is worried about how that would affect his daughters, who are American. Honduras is his country, not theirs.
Dan Girma, NPR News, San Pedro Sula.
(SOUNDBITE OF SAM PREKOP'S "A CLOUD TO THE BACK")
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