MEXICO CITY, April 24, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Mexico President Andres Manuel
Lopez Obrador told the United States on Tuesday that if it wants to stem the
flow of Central American migrants to its southern border, it needs to invest
in the region.
Slowing entries from Mexico has been a major focus of President Donald
Trump’s administration amid numerous reports of migrant caravans heading up
from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras in the hope of a better life.
The migrants say they are fleeing poverty and gang violence, but Trump has
characterized many as criminals and has ramped up pressure on Mexico to help
ease the strain on US immigration authorities.
On Monday, Mexico detained 367 mostly Honduran undocumented migrants in its
southern Chiapas state.
“We don’t want to fight with the United States government, neither do we
want to get involved in their partisan political confrontations,” said Lopez
Obrador.
“At the same time, with respect, we’re asking that the problem be tackled
with development, with the creation of employment, something that’s not been
done.”
Trump has declared the issue a national emergency and demanded US
legislators commit billions of dollars to building a border wall to keep
migrants out.
Yet the numbers of Central Americans heading to the US is increasing.
Widely known as “AMLO,” Lopez Obrador swept into office on December 1 with
a powerful mandate, having dethroned the two parties that ruled Mexico for
nine decades.
The anti-establishment leftist said a plan announced last week to restrict
migrants to Mexico’s south — keeping them away from the US border — was for
their own safety and not a means to placate Washington.
“We don’t want them to have free passage and not just for legal reasons but
also for security,” he told his morning news conference.
“Unfortunately in the north we had problems with the murder of migrants at
another time and we don’t want this. Most of the violence is in northern
states and we prefer looking after the Central American migrant population in
the south and southeast.”
In 2010, 72 migrants were kidnapped and murdered in the northeastern state
of Tamaulipas while traveling clandestinely to the US.
They were believed to be the victims of the Los Zetas drug cartel that
allegedly wanted to forcibly recruit them.