The measure seeks to reduce the migratory flow to US soil.
The United States reached an agreement with Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras to temporarily strengthen the presence of their security forces on their borders in order to prevent the massive arrival of migrants to the Mexico-US border.
The agreement was reached after the United States registered a record number of unaccompanied minors attempting to cross the southern border in March 2021, and the highest number of Border Patrol encounters with migrants at that border – just under 170,000 – since March 2001.
The White House Press Secretary, Jen Psaki, announced that Mexico will keep 10,000 troops on its border, while Guatemala sent 1,500 police and military to its border and Honduras dispatched 7,000 police and military personnel “in order to disperse a broad contingent of migrants ”there. In addition, Guatemala will erect 12 roadblocks on the country’s migration route.
A White House official reported that Guatemala and Honduras were temporarily deploying troops in response to a large migrant caravan organized in late March. For its part, the Mexican government announced that month the strengthening of its security measures and deployment of troops.
“The objective is to make the crossing more difficult and to make it more difficult to cross the borders,” said Psaki.
He added that the agreement was the result of “a series of bilateral talks” between the United States and the governments of the three nations. Although Vice President Kamala Harris has been appointed as the person in charge of diplomatic efforts to mitigate the rise in the number of migrants arriving at the US border, Psaki declined to give details of Harris’s participation in these efforts, stating only that they were “multi-level” consultations.
He indicated that Roberta Jacobson, who at the end of the month will leave her position as coordinator of efforts in the southwestern border, participated in the talks.
The increase in the arrival of migrants to the border is becoming a great challenge for the presidency of Joe Biden.
The number of migrants arriving began to rise in the final year of Donald Trump’s presidency, but accelerated further under Biden, who has reversed many policies of his predecessor, including one that made asylum seekers wait in Mexico the dates of its hearings in the courts of the United States.
Among the people detained by the Border Patrol, the largest number were Mexican, almost all single adults. Arrivals of people from Honduras and Guatemala ranked second and third, respectively, and more than half of the people from those countries were families or children who traveled unaccompanied by an adult.
Source: El Financiero
