MEXICO CITY (AP) — 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. “Now they are registered, they are protected, so that they don’t come in through the the south, so they don’t become victims of criminals.”
López Obrador denied that the U.S. government had pressured Mexico to impose the restrictions, including the ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy on asylum seekers. Formally known as the Migrant Protection Protocols, the policy sends asylum seekers from other countries back to Mexico while they await court dates on their U.S. requests.
“It was our own decision, that we made, foreign governments do not impose anything on us,” the president said.
Asked what would be the future of the program — which has left largely Central American migrants huddled in improvised camps in some Mexican border cities — López Obrador said “we will wait until Mr. Biden arrives, until he takes office.”
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U.S. President-elect Joe Biden has pledged to end many of Trump’s immigration policies, starting with the Migrant Protection Protocols.
In fact, Trump at one point threatened to slap tariffs on Mexican products unless López Obrador’s government cracked down on the flow of migrants heading to the U.S.
López Obrador’s willingness to assume ownership of the immigration policies despite evidence of U.S. pressure reflects his nationalist stance on most issues; he has made defending Mexico’s sovereignty a central issue.
But it also reflects domestic political calculations.
One of López Obrador’s greatest fears is a possible repeat of the 2010 massacre of 72 migrants by a drug cartel in the northern state of Tamaulipas. Because migrants frequently use cartel-allied immigrant smugglers or pass through cartel turf, blocking their flow through Mexico reduces the chance of another such massacre.
While there is widespread sympathy for migrants in Mexico, domestic support for them crossing Mexican territory is weak, especially during the coronavirus pandemic or if mass movements of migrants threaten to complicate legal border crossings for Mexicans.
Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
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More Oxymoronic leadership where the “migrant Protection Package” designed to protect and Keep America Great is Oxymoronically named as protecting the migrants. If Lad-Biden opens the flood gates to his foreign terrorist army of darkness, the next Flag waving demonstration of 100K patriots will be at the border. A smart President whose former leader took all the heat to solve the problem should just sit and spin and leave well enough alone. What intelligent human would kill a policy mostly already paid for and in place, and tear down the wall to welcome in more American Division? If Lad-Biden keeps acting like Bin Laden, there will be NO PEACE unless he rules to protect his own people, instead of moving to protect his party. We are soon about to see who he loves first, Party or Country? Leaders who love party, their own country, and place additional unneeded burdens upon a people already socially pressed to distraction, very seldom remain in power long. Joe, this time your self-serving, self-preservation family dynamics if followed as before, may not only save your job, but save your country. Your current “House Divided” ideology is not standing in THE HOUSE and will not stand in the nation much longer.
I spent a good chunk of last night, DAYDREAMING Smaug (from the hobbit) was real, so i could charm him and do a FLY OVER of that caravan.. AND do a massive charbroil outdoor bbq….
The Dems don’t need these immigrants any longer now that they have perfected election fraud – their votes are not needed to assure any future victories for the Commiecrats, so they can be Mexico’s problem now or fight for themselves back home in Honduras.
You forget that Progressive poverty works for them and continues the myth of American class division. Trump brought in way too much prosperity and removed too much evidence of the big lie of American class division that more POVERTY must be imported to counter act the MAGA success and keep the big lie as well as the class division alive. Their propaganda media ministers can “assume the close” of the sale of this big lie, but that nasty thing called reality keeps getting in thier way, and promoting the true resistance to their Faux illegitimate social resistance.
BUT that won’t matter. THEY WILL Still gladly accept MILLIONS more illegal alien supporters/voters.
The more Democrat voters they can add on the less they would need to stuff the ballot boxes. They keep doing that the bigger the chance of getting caught and they can’t afford that. They need the increase of actual voters.
EXACTLY what do they fear, abut ‘getting caught’? EVERY DAMN COURT in this nation, practically, has either GREENLIT doing so, OR turned a blind eye to their criminality. Nearly all the media covered for it, EVEN FOX. And effectively all social media did the same..
SO WHY exactly, would they ever fear “Getting caught”>?? Who exactly would punish them?
Welcome to the United “Latino” States of America, brought to you by open borders Joe and his Democrat communist party of America. I may need a “safe space” with a “doll”.
Here come the criminals again. If democrats are smart they’ll make sure the welcome mat is not out. Make sure they don’t enter. They don’t need them anymore. They’re a big drag on the country and cause all kinds of problems for them.
YOU EXPECT a demon-rat to be smart?!
Elections have consequences, the Republican Establishment were complicit in this and need to pay the price for their disgraceful actions. They are equally responsible for the damage that is to come.
BUT how do we make the GOP PAY, in a manner, that doesn’t “CUT OFF OUR OWN Nose to spite our face”??
We’ve been voting blindly for the GOP for decades and look where it’s gotten us.
I’d say primary them all, though ‘we’ continue to keep voting the RINOs back in. So until ‘we’ stop complaining about the RINOs and then vote them back in anyway, this will never end.
That said, I’m ready to go Scorched Earth on the GOP. I feel at this point we have very little to lose, and all to gain. And out of the ashes may rise a true conservative party.
No matter how you vote, it should be obvious that the Democrats and the Republican RINOS have joined together to sell all of us out. John/Jane Q. Citizen, no matter what party they support, are taking it in the shorts.
We need to send all those old career politicians, from both parties, into forced retirement. What this country has been caught in is a good old fashioned rut. One party makes all kinds of promises. When they get elected they go back to business as usual. The voters get mad and vote in the other party. Again we get business as usual. You can’t keep doing the same thing and expect different results.
Get them in the Primaries. You can vote against the incumbent without having to sacrifice party loyalty. This has actually happened several times to politicians everyone thought it would take a nuclear blast to get them out of their seats. Primary challengers have taken out Specter, Foley, Cantor, Crawley, Engel, King and Amash. It doesn’t happen much but it has happened. I say reelect no one. Fire them all.
LET”s hope, we get the CHANCE to primary all of these backstabbing traitors, in 2022… OR 2024.
Watch taxes go way way up. Someone has to pay for these illegal misfits to stay in America, while being on “welfare”. And if any of these criminals want to have a job, how many jobs will that take away from Real Americans??? Yep, those libturd dumbocrats finally got to be king and queens.
ALSO< if you thought our hospitals were already over-crowded cause of Covid, YOU AIN'T seen nothing yet!
Yep, just another item that is bad for America
IF its bad for america, its OK IN THE DEMS playbook.