U.S. President-elect Donald Trump is set to take office in January with a promise of carrying out mass deportations, leaving Honduras and other Central American countries bracing for a potential influx of vulnerable migrants — a situation they are ill-prepared to handle.

Former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández took the witness stand in his defense at his New York trial, denying that he teamed up with drug dealers to protect them in return for millions of dollars in bribes.

Former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández is facing charges that he ran his impoverished Central American nation as a “narco-state."

Chinese state media say Honduras has opened an embassy in Beijing.

Former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández is expected to appear virtually in federal court in New York to face drug trafficking and weapons charges after he was arrested in Honduras and extradited to the United States.

A court in Honduras has authorized prosecutors to seize properties, bank accounts and vehicles linked to former President Juan Orlando Hernández.

A judge in Honduras has ruled that former President Juan Orlando Hernández should be extradited to the United States to face drug trafficking and weapons charges.

Several hundred migrants who had departed from the Honduran city of San Pedro Sula in hopes of reaching the United States entered Guatemalan territory where they were intercepted by authorities who began talks on returning them to their homelands.

A Honduran American family’s search for 16-year-old Dayana “Diani” Gómez who vanished on Saturday morning ended in tragedy.

“The defendant was a Honduran congressman who, along with his brother Juan Orlando Hernández, played a leadership role in a violent, state sponsored drug trafficking conspiracy,” prosecutors wrote. AdThe U.S. government wants Tony Hernández to give up $138.5 million in “blood money” from his drug trafficking and pay an additional $10 million fine. They say he also sold weapons to drug traffickers, some of which came from Honduras’ military, and controlled drug laboratories in Colombia and Honduras. They allege that among those bribes was $1 million from notorious Mexican capo Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman to Juan Orlando Hernández. In those, Fuentes admitted knowing drug traffickers but denied having paid any money to president Hernández.

The accountant said he felt fear seeing Hernández and a drug trafficker sitting at the same table. “I was seeing the candidate for the presidency meeting with a drug trafficker,” he said. That alleged drug trafficker was Geovanny Fuentes Ramírez, whose New York trial is in its second week. The accountant testified that that movement of drugs would be done with the help of the military and police. In another meeting at the company’s offices without Fuentes Ramírez present, Hernández boasted about siphoning money from Honduras’ social security system, the accountant testified.

“They plotted to send as much cocaine as possible to the United States,” Gutwillig said of the president and Fuentes Ramírez. But much of the prosecutors’ artillery appears aimed at Hernández, who they said helped Fuentes Ramírez’s drug trafficking along with other high-ranking officials. Prosecutors have previously said that Fuentes Ramírez paid Hernández $25,000 to be allowed to move drugs through the country without interference. He says that the allegations against him come from drug traffickers seeking revenge and looking to lighten their sentences. He has said Fuentes Ramírez had weapons and body guards because Honduras is a dangerous country.

FILE - In this Aug. 13, 2019 file photo, Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez speaks to the reporters as he leaves a meeting at the Organization of American States, in Washington. Newly proposed U.S. legislation introduced Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2021, targets Orlando Hernandez as allegations of ties to drug trafficking grow. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)TEGUCIGALPÁ – TEGUCIGALPÁHonduran President Juan Orlando Hernández says that antinarcotics cooperation with the United States could “collapse” if U.S. authorities believe “false testimony” accusing him of cooperating with traffickers. Earlier this month, U.S. prosecutors filed documents in an upcoming trial suggesting the president himself was under investigation. One of his numerous brothers, Juan Antonio “Tony” Hernández, was convicted in New York of a drug conspiracy in 2019.

FILE - In this Aug. 13, 2019 file photo, Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez speaks to the reporters as he leaves a meeting at the Organization of American States, in Washington. Newly proposed U.S. legislation introduced Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2021, targets Orlando Hernandez as allegations of ties to drug trafficking grow. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)TEGUCIGALPÁ – TEGUCIGALPÁHonduran President Juan Orlando Hernández warned Wednesday that antinarcotics cooperation with the United States could “collapse” if U.S. authorities believe “false testimony” in U.S. courts accusing him of cooperating with traffickers. He suggested that traffickers were trying to manipulate U.S. authorities into helping them take vengeance on the Honduran officials pursuing them. One of his numerous brothers, Juan Antonio “Tony” Hernández, was convicted in New York of a drug conspiracy in 2019.

FILE - In this Aug. 13, 2019 file photo, Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez speaks to the reporters as he leaves a meeting at the Organization of American States, in Washington. Newly proposed U.S. legislation introduced Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2021, targets Orlando Hernandez as allegations of ties to drug trafficking grow. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)MEXICO CITY – Newly proposed U.S. legislation targets Honduras President Juan Orlando Hernández as allegations of ties to drug trafficking grow. As the administration of President Joe Biden seeks to return the issues of corruption and human rights to relations with Honduras and other Central American countries, a group of Democratic senators says the U.S. government’s relationship with Honduras must change. Under the administration of President Donald Trump, immigration overshadowed everything else in the relationship.

A Honduran migrant child is helped off a Guatemalan army truck after being returned to El Florido, Guatemala, one of the border points between Guatemala and Honduras, Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2021. A once large caravan of Honduran migrants that pushed its way into Guatemala last week had dissipated by Tuesday in the face of Guatemalan security forces. (AP Photo/Oliver de Ros)EL FLORIDO – A once large caravan of Honduran migrants that pushed its way into Guatemala last week had dissipated by Tuesday in the face of Guatemalan security forces. They were passed from Guatemalan border agents to their Honduran counterparts and then boarded buses that would take them back to their hometowns. Guatemalan forces effectively dissolved multiple migrant caravans last year.

Guatemalan soldiers and police block Honduran migrants from advancing toward the US border, on the highway in Vado Hondo, Guatemala, Monday, Jan. 18, 2021. Some migrants threw rocks while authorities launched tear gas and pushed the migrants with their riot shields back down the highway. Their ranks have reduced through attrition as some migrants have agreed to be bused back to the Honduran border. In total, some 8,000 to 9,000 Honduran migrants were believed to have entered Guatemala in the year’s first caravan after departing from San Pedro Sula, Honduras early Friday. “We are proposing that they seek a dialogue with the migrants, in Honduras, Guatemala,” President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Monday.

Honduran migrants clash with Guatemalan soldiers in Vado Hondo, Guatemala, Sunday, Jan. 17, 2021. Guatemalan authorities estimated that as many as 9,000 Honduran migrants crossed into Guatemala as part of an effort to form a new caravan to reach the U.S. border. (AP Photo/Sandra Sebastian)VADO HONDO – Guatemalan police and soldiers launched tear gas and wielded batons and shields against a group of Honduran migrants that tried to push through their roadblock early Sunday. The roadblock was strategically placed at a chokepoint on the two-lane highway to Chiquimula in an area known as Vado Hondo. The security forces beat them back and deployed tear gas.

Honduran migrants hoping to reach the U.S. border rest on the side of a highway, as soldiers patrol the road in Vado Hondo, Guatemala, Saturday, Jan. 16, 2021. Guatemalan authorities estimated that as many as 9,000 Honduran migrants crossed into Guatemala as part of an effort to form a new caravan to reach the U.S. border. (AP Photo/Sandra Sebastian)GUATEMALA CITY – Guatemalan soldiers blocked part of a caravan of as many as 9,000 Honduran migrants Saturday at a point not far from where they entered the country seeking to reach the U.S. border. On Friday night, two groups of more than 3,000 Honduran migrants each pushed their way into Guatemala without registering, part of a larger migrant caravan that had left the Honduran city of San Pedro Sula before dawn. The Honduran migrants are trying to cross Guatemala to reach Mexico, driven by deepening poverty and the hope of a warmer reception if they can reach the United States border.

Mexican President Andrs Manuel Lpez Obrador on Thursday, Dec. 17, 2020 defended Mexicos restrictive immigration policy, which has prevented many Central American migrants from crossing Mexico to reach the U.S. border. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte, File)MEXICO CITY – Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador on Thursday defended Mexico’s restrictive immigration policy, which has prevented many Central American migrants from crossing Mexico to reach the U.S. border. Mexico has sent National Guard officers and immigration agents to the southern border with Guatemala to prevent migrant caravans from entering Mexico and detain those who do manage to cross. “We have protected migrants, there have been no violations of their human rights," López Obrador said. “It was our own decision, that we made, foreign governments do not impose anything on us,” the president said.

This March 27, 2018, provided by the Department of Homeland Security, then-Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen and then-Department of Homeland Security chief of staff Miles Taylor, right, meet with Honduran President Juan Hernandez, not pictured, and security ministers from the Northern Triangle countries in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Taylor, a former Trump administration official who penned a scathing anti-Trump op-ed and book under the pen name Anonymous made his identify public Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2020. (Tim Godbee/Department of Homeland Security via AP)

Early Saturday, hundreds of migrants who had entered Guatemala this week without registering were being bused back to their country's border by authorities after running into a large roadblock. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)RIO DULCE – Hundreds of U.S.-bound Honduran migrants who had entered Guatemala this week without registering were being bused back to their country's border Saturday by authorities who met them with a large roadblock. Police said that hours earlier, migrants had boarded buses and army trucks to be taken back to the border. They heard about the caravan that formed earlier this week in San Pedro Sula via WhatsApp and Facebook. I don’t know to whose benefit, but we’re not naive.”The new group was reminiscent of a migrant caravan that formed two years ago shortly before U.S. midterm elections.

A new caravan of about 2,000 migrants set out from neighboring Honduras in hopes of reaching the United States. But further ahead on the highway through northern Guatemala, about 1,000 migrants met a police and army roadblock late Friday that prevented them from advancing. On Thursday, Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei vowed to return the migrants to Honduras, citing efforts to contain the pandemic. Hundreds of migrants crossed into Mexico, were allowed to walk for several hours up a rural highway and then detained. Even if the migrants were allowed to cross Mexico without interference, the U.S. has essentially closed its border to legal immigration and entering illegally is as difficult as ever.

Honduran migrants hoping to reach the U.S. entered Guatemala on foot Thursday, testing the newly reopened frontier that had been shut due to the new coronavirus pandemic. Guatemala’s president quickly vowed to detain them and return them to Honduras, saying the migrants represented a threat to the health of Guatemalans amid efforts to contain the pandemic. In one group were four teenagers, all friends and neighbors from San Pedro Sula, from which hundreds of migrants had set out the previous night. Mexico and the United States deported hundreds of migrants back to their home countries to try to empty detention centers. Mexico has typically offered migrants the opportunity to seek asylum there, but many have their minds set on the United States.

NEW YORK - The brother of Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernndez was found guilty of trafficking cocaine Friday, according to the US Department of Justice. Juan Antonio Hernndez Alvarado, also known as "Tony Hernndez," was arrested in Miami last year on charges of trafficking cocaine, weapons offenses and making a false statement. The guilty verdict means Hernndez is facing 30 years to life in prison. "Hernndez bribed law enforcement officials to protect drug shipments, solicited large bribes from major drug traffickers, and arranged machine gun-toting security for cocaine shipments," said Manhattan US Attorney Geoffrey Berman in a news release. The allegations made in court against the Honduran president have sparked protests in the country and calls for his resignations.