Mexico has taken a bold stance against the US, refusing to allow a packed deportation flight carrying hundreds of migrants to land on its soil. The move is likely to spark tensions with the US, particularly with former President Donald Trump, who has long advocated for stricter immigration policies. The decision underscores Mexico’s growing reluctance to cooperate with US deportation efforts, amid concerns over human rights and the treatment of migrants.

Mexican authorities blocked a US military plane from deporting illegal migrants on Thursday after Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown began.

American officials told NBC News a packed jet never took off after authorities south of the border rejected the move.

The flight was one of three that were set to take off on Thursday, alongside two Guatemala-bound Air Force C-17s carrying over 150 people, as part of what Trump has described as the largest mass deportation effort in US history. 

Deporting migrants to foreign countries requires permission from the incoming nation’s government, which Mexico declined on Thursday.

It is not clear why Mexican authorities moved to block the flight, which came hours after an American hiker was also shot by suspected Mexican cartel members in California a few hundred yards north of the border.

Trump’s return to the White House quickly inflamed relations between the two nations, with the new president threatening to impose a 25 per cent tariff on Mexican imports in retaliation for mass migration across the southern border

As he toured natural disaster sites in North Carolina and California on Friday, Trump issued a stern warning to illegal migrants with criminal records, saying, ‘We’re taking them out first.’

While Mexican authorities have shown their disapproval of the deportations, Trump’s administration has praised their own efforts this week, with new Secretary of State Marco Rubio also posting a video of migrants being marched onto the military aircraft to Guatemala on Thursday.