The federal government of Honduras mentioned it had begun the method of extraditing to the USA an undocumented immigrant who was accused of killing a younger Iowa girl in 2016, a case that President Trump made a focus in his first presidential marketing campaign.
The transfer to satisfy a U.S. request to extradite Eswin Mejia comes as Honduras and different Latin American international locations have sought to display their willingness to cooperate with the Trump administration.
Mr. Mejia was allegedly driving drunk when he crashed into Sarah Root’s car at a stoplight in Omaha in January 2016. He was detained and charged, however fled the nation after being launched on bond.
He was arrested on Thursday in a city about 125 miles northwest of the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa, the place he was taken and appeared earlier than a Supreme Courtroom decide on Friday, in accordance with Honduran officers.
Enrique Reina, Honduras’s international minister, mentioned in an interview that the Supreme Courtroom had ordered Mr. Mejia’s arrest and {that a} decide would decide whether or not to grant an extradition request by the USA.
“This has to undergo a course of,” Mr. Reina mentioned, including that the Honduran authorities had acquired greater than 50 extradition requests from the USA since President Xiomara Castro took workplace in 2022.
The White Home didn’t reply to requests for remark. The State Division referred a request for remark to the Justice Division, which didn’t reply.
The Trump administration has pressured nations within the area to ship people wished by American authorities again to the USA, in search of early wins on the problems of unlawful immigration and crime which are central to Mr. Trump’s political model.
On the identical day of Mr. Mejia’s arrest, Mexico despatched 29 prime cartel operatives wished by the American authorities. The group contains Rafael Caro Quintero, a founding member of the Sinaloa drug cartel, who was convicted in Mexico of masterminding the 1985 homicide of Enrique Camarena, an agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration. This week, the Trump administration additionally met with a high-level Mexican delegation to attempt to hammer out a brand new safety settlement.
Ricardo Zúniga, a retired State Division official who served as its particular envoy for Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, mentioned the concessions had been a part of a broader effort by Latin American international locations to showcase their efforts to focus on prison teams and unlawful immigration as Mr. Trump threatens to impose new tariffs.
“For a lot of governments within the area, having a deal the place they provide Trump what he desires and in alternate they’re left alone and nobody will get of their enterprise, they’re fairly comfy with that deal,” Mr. Zúniga mentioned. “However, they’re fairly apprehensive about tariffs.”
The case of Sarah Root, who was 21 when she was killed, turned a spotlight for Mr. Trump throughout his first marketing campaign in 2016. In that race, he repeatedly emphasised his plans to crack down on unlawful immigration and sought to highlight circumstances during which undocumented immigrants had been accused of crimes.
Not like Mexico, Honduras doesn’t face imminent tariffs. However the nation’s authorities has been keen to indicate it’s open to working with the Trump administration.
Honduras was left off Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s itinerary by way of Central America final month, on his first official journey, sending what consultants mentioned was a transparent message to President Castro.
Final yr, Ms. Castro moved to finish a longstanding extradition treaty with the USA, and on New 12 months’s Day, she threatened to expel the U.S. navy from an vital air base if Mr. Trump carried out mass deportations.
Lately, the Honduran authorities has reversed course.
Final week, the nation agreed to permit its Soto Cano air base to function a switch level for deportation flights from Guantánamo. Venezuelan deportees had been flown by American authorities from the naval base to Honduras, the place they had been transferred to a flight despatched by the Venezuelan authorities.
Mr. Reina, the international minister, mentioned then that it was an indication of Honduras’s strengthening ties with the USA.
Honduras has additionally agreed final month to proceed the extradition treaty with the USA that Ms. Castro beforehand moved to finish. Tony García, the deputy international minister, mentioned in an interview on the time that Honduras hoped that doing so would result in “hotter and extra fluid relations” with the USA, “as a result of that’s been a thorny subject.”
On Thursday, the Honduran authorities introduced Mr. Mejia’s seize in a social media publish and mentioned that the “historic arrest was made attainable due to the cooperation between the federal government of President @XiomaraCastroZ and the administration of President @realDonaldTrump.”
Honduras had been conscious that Mr. Mejia was within the nation for a while, in accordance with an individual accustomed to the scenario, who was not licensed to remark publicly and spoke on the situation of anonymity. The Castro authorities moved to arrest him shortly after an extradition request from the USA got here, the individual mentioned.
The Honduran authorities may nonetheless face home authorized challenges in sending Mr. Mejia again to the USA, the individual mentioned. Honduran legislation makes it tough to extradite people accused of homicide.
Mr. Mejia will stay in custody in Honduras till his subsequent listening to in March, authorities mentioned Friday.
His arrest comes as Mr. Trump has continued to hyperlink crime to unlawful immigration, a centerpiece of his technique to construct assist for his anti-immigration agenda. He has had some success. Polling throughout the latest marketing campaign confirmed that People supported Republicans greater than Democrats on immigration.
Considered one of his first victories of his second time period was laws named for a 22-year-old Georgia nursing scholar killed final yr by a migrant from Venezuela who had crossed into the USA illegally. The invoice requires the detention of migrants who enter the nation with out authorization and are arrested or charged with sure crimes.
Whereas crimes dedicated by immigrants have acquired nationwide consideration, Mr. Trump additionally has an extended historical past of inflating their criminality. For the previous 150 years, immigrants total have been much less doubtless to commit crimes than individuals born in the USA, a 2023 examine concluded.