by Daveda Gruber:
Tariffs are set to be imposed on Mexico by the Trump administration unless our southern neighbor stops the flow of illegal migrants using the country to cross into the U.S.
Mexico has gotten the message that tariffs would be used as a punishment because of the country’s ineptness at stopping migrants who walk and take buses through the terrain to cross legally and illegally into America.
Reports are claiming allegations that Mexico’s negotiators with Washington have offered to deploy 6,000 National Guard troops to the border with Guatemala without delay. Also, it is reported that they will do an overhaul of asylum protocols which would require asylum seekers to request permanent refuge in the first country they arrive in after fleeing their home countries.
It is not known yet If Mexico’s efforts will satisfy the White House.
All Central American migrants would therefore not be coming to the United States and instead stay in Mexico as permanent refugees as this would be the first country that they arrive in after fleeing their homeland.
Because so many migrants have abused the system, the Trump administration has already begun requiring asylum applicants to wait in Mexico while they are being processed.
The talks between the U.S. and Mexico have been going well but there isn’t a deal yet that is certain to be accepted by the U.S.
On Thursday Mexico’s financial intelligence agency has made an announcement that it had frozen the bank accounts of 26 people who it claimed “have presumably participated in migrant smuggling and the organization of illegal migrant caravans.”
Money transfers have been detected from central Mexico to six Mexican border cities which are presumed to be related to the caravans.
In the midst of all this President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico stated that the Mexican government does not “act against anybody to please any foreign government.”
The Mexican president may not want to please the U.S. but he still managed to deploy about 200 Mexican military police, immigration agents and federal police to block the advance of about 1,000 Central American migrants who were walking north along a southern Mexico highway.
This move is showing that they are taking a tough stance on migrants walking through the country.
This particular “caravan” of people, which includes women and children, set out from Ciudad Hidalgo at the Mexico-Guatemala border. They were headed for Tapachula which is the principal city in the region while state and local police accompanied the caravan.
Officials blocked the highway near the community of Metapa, which is about 11 miles from Tapachula. It got a little messy and unarmed agents had to wrestle some of the migrants to the ground.
Most of the migrants did comply with authorities and boarded buses or immigration agency vans. Some of these migrant fainted or fell to the ground. One man needed medical attention.
While this was going on, police in Mexico City detained Irineo Mujica, who is the head of the migrant aide group, Pueblo Sin Fronteras, and Cristobal Sanchez, who is a migrant activist.
When the tariffs were announced by President Trump last week, he promised that they would swiftly increase if no action was taken by the Mexican government.
On May 30th Trump said in two tweets, “On June 10th, the United States will impose a 5% Tariff on all goods coming into our Country from Mexico, until such time as illegal migrants coming through Mexico, and into our Country, STOP. The Tariff will gradually increase until the Illegal Immigration problem is remedied, … ..at which time the Tariffs will be removed. Details from the White House to follow.”
Trump tweeted this on May 30:
On June 10th, the United States will impose a 5% Tariff on all goods coming into our Country from Mexico, until such time as illegal migrants coming through Mexico, and into our Country, STOP. The Tariff will gradually increase until the Illegal Immigration problem is remedied,..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 30, 2019
….at which time the Tariffs will be removed. Details from the White House to follow.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 30, 2019
A statement released by the White House on Thursday read:
“If Mexico still has not taken action to dramatically reduce or eliminate the number of illegal aliens crossing its territory into the United States, Tariffs will be increased to 15 percent on August 1, 2019, to 20 percent on September 1, 2019, and to 25 percent on October 1, 2019. Tariffs will permanently remain at the 25 percent level unless and until Mexico substantially stops the illegal inflow of aliens coming through its territory.”
“Thousands of innocent lives are taken every year as a result of this lawless chaos. It must end NOW! … Mexico’s passive cooperation in allowing this mass incursion constitutes an emergency and extraordinary threat to the national security and economy of the United States.”
FOX News reported that White House Sources say that Mexico would need to step up security efforts on the border, target transnational smugglers, crack down on illicit bus lines and align with the U.S. on a workable asylum policy. Mexico could use certain so-called choke points on the southern border to curb illegal migration sharply,
Arrests and apprehensions have increased drastically in the past few months. More than 4,000 individuals have been apprehended at the border with children who are not their own but a backlog of more than 800,000 cases.
Still, asylum applicants have increasingly been staying in the U.S. even after their claims for asylum have been denied for having an insufficient or unfounded personalized fear of persecution.
Last year, the Justice Department eliminated gang violence and domestic abuse as a possible justification for seeking asylum. After all, we have those problems here in the U.S., so, no one is escaping this by coming here.
U.S. border patrol agents have been working hard in their efforts to protect our border but Mexico has to help out here.
America is full up. We can no longer afford to help our own homeless Americans.
Trump is showing strength and it seems to be working. We cannot let illegal migrants walk through our border any longer. This has to stop and the time is NOW!
