While the President is overseas honoring D-Day, the cable news talking heads back home have been busy critiquing his recently announced plan to impose an increasing series of tariffs on Mexico unless that nation stops the flood of migrants passing through their country toward the United States. The plan has been described in the press with a variety of terms ranging from reckless to impossible. After all, even if Mexico was willing to consider such a deal, how could they possibly stop the human tide from flowing across their own southern border?
Well, the tariffs must have gotten their attention. I don’t know if they can shut down their border entirely, but as of this morning, they seem to be giving it the good old college try. (Reuters)
Mexican soldiers, armed police and migration officials blocked hundreds of migrants after they crossed the border from Guatemala in a caravan into southern Mexico on Wednesday, and detained dozens of them, a witness from a migrant aid group and an official said.
The Mexican response in the border town of Metapa, which included dozens of soldiers, marked a toughening of the government’s efforts to curb the flow of mainly Central American migrants, said Salva Cruz, a coordinator with Fray Matias de Cordova.
“That many sailors and military police, yes, it’s new,” Cruz said, by WhatsApp, from Metapa, in the southern border state of Chiapas, where the vast majority of migrants cross into Mexico.
To call this a “shift in policy” is something of an understatement. Federal police, members of the military and other enforcement officials are staging along some common crossing points from Guatemala turning people back unless their documentation is in order. This is a definite switch from their recent policy of attempting to process everyone seeking to make asylum claims and allowing other groups to travel north.
But that’s not all that’s going on by a long shot. An official with the National Migration Institute in Mexico City said that migrants already in the country were now being approached and being asked to show their citizenship status. Up to 400 were detained yesterday with many presumably being scheduled for deportation back to their home countries.
In a perhaps even more stunning move, yesterday afternoon saw the detention of Irineo Mujica, the director of Pueblo Sin Fronteras, a migrant rights group that has been coordinating with American groups in San Francisco to organize and assist the caravans. Another migrant rights activist named Cristobal Sanchez was also detained.
Obama simply took orders from Mexico. Trump tells them there is a real President in the White House now.
Threats would not be needed if congress would act, all they do is create soundbites that later make them look foolish. Its the only thing they can come across the aisle on.
@kitt: Funny how the more idiotic they look, the more votes they get from their constituency.
@Deplorable Me: I’ll take tariff taxes over income taxes any day. At least I can choose if I want to buy or not.
Liberal democrats want open borders so they can have more voters their in it for themselves not America
To avoid the tariffs and not admit they have no ability to control the U.S-Mexico border region controlled by drug cartels; the conniving Mexican government is pledging to send troops to their southern border.
However, President Trump isn’t in the mood for more empty promises.
The U.S. position is: do it, and let’s see the results… in the meantime, tariffs will commence.
That’s how you do it!
@Nan G: You mean you don’t give up all your leverage from the beginning, like Obama did? How curious.