The U.S. military has maintained a “temporary but indefinite” presence at Soto Cano Air Base near the city of Comayagua since the early 1980s, when it was designated as the headquarters for Joint Task Force 11 (now called Joint Task Force-Bravo, or JTF-Bravo), according to a 1989 U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report.
Today, the base houses more than 500 U.S. military personnel and more than 500 Honduran and U.S. civilians to counteract transnational organized crime, provide humanitarian relief, and to support other U.S. government operations.
Just last week, JTF-Bravo provided medical care to more than 1000 Hondurans near the municipality of Choluteca, after doing the same for 835 Hondurans living near Tela in December.
The American government has sent approximately $2.7 billion in aid to Honduras since the 2001 Fiscal Year, according to the State Department’s Office of Foreign Assistance.
Despite all the help, socialist President Xiomara Castro of the left-wing Liberty and Refoundation party recently said that Soto Cano Air Base “would lose all reason to exist in Honduras,” should Trump follow through with his deportation promise, Breitbart News reported.
“Faced with a hostile attitude of massive expulsion of our brothers, we would have to consider a change in our policies of cooperation with the U.S., especially in the military field in which, without paying a penny for decades, they maintain military bases in our territory, which in this case would lose all reason to exist in Honduras,” Castro said in a New Year’s Day speech.
Ogles has responded by drafting the Honduras Obstinately Neglects Defense and Risks Alienating Security (HONDURAS) Act, his office exclusively confirmed to Breitbart News on Thursday.
The text of the bill, which is being co-sponsored by Western Hemisphere (WHEM) Subcommittee Chairwoman Maria Salazar (R-FL), states the following:
Notwithstanding any other provision of law, beginning after the redeployment of United States military and civilian personnel from Soto Cano Air Base in Honduras as a result of the refusal or unwillingness of the Government of the Republic of Honduras to host such personnel, the President is authorized to suspend all assistance to the Republic of Honduras, to include any assistance extended under the May 20, 1954, bilateral military assistance agreement between the United States and Honduras and any subsequent amendments to that agreement.
Ogles, who entered office for Tennessee’s fifth congressional district in 2023, called Castro a “Marxist” in a statement to Breitbart News.
“From humanitarian aid to critical military support, the United States has consistently assisted Honduras for decades. Now, just days before President Trump’s inauguration, the country’s Marxist President said Honduras will expel the U.S. military presence at the Soto Cano Air Base if the United States begins the deportation of illegal alien Hondurans,” the representative said.
The Honduran government reports that there are over one million Hondurans living legally or undocumented in the U.S., with about 280,000 on the deportation list, according to Spanish news agency EFE.
That is a significant portion of the small Central American country’s population of about 9.5 million.
“President Castro is on notice – neither she nor anyone else in the Honduran government will be dictating terms to the United States of America,” Ogles continued. “My legislation will support any effort by President Trump to suspend assistance to Honduras if that country chooses to compromise U.S. national security.”
Money sent back to Honduras from nationals living abroad accounts for 25 percent of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) — with 90 percent of the $8.85 billion in remittances sent between January and November 2024 originating from the U.S., according to Honduran Central Bank data obtained by El Mundo.
Castro also announced in her New Year address that, as the pro tempore president of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), she will convene a meeting with other Latin leaders in Mexico on Friday to address the migration issue before Trump regains office on Monday.
Honduras, along with Guatemala and El Salvador, are “ill-prepared to handle” the remigration of their own nationals who are in the U.S. illegally, the Associated Press reported in December,
“We don’t have the capacity,” Honduras’ deputy foreign minister, Antonio García, told the outlet. “There’s very little here for deportees.”
People who return “are the last to be taken care of,” he added.
Trump has stated that he will “begin the largest deportation operation in American history” on his first day back on the job.
Breitbart News
Read the full article .
