ZCZC
BFF-01
US-MEXICO-MIGRATION-DIPLOMACY
Pompeo and Mexican counterpart welcome reduced flow of migrants
MEXICO CITY, July 22, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on
Sunday thanked his Mexican counterpart for increased immigration enforcement
by the country, which he said is leading to fewer migrants entering the
United States.
Pompeo later traveled to El Salvador to meet with President Nayib Bukele,
with the two sides pledging to work together on the issue of immigration.
The top US diplomat’s meeting in Mexico confirmed that relations between
Washington and Mexico City had calmed considerably since early June, when
President Donald Trump had threatened stiff new trade tariffs against the
United States’ southern neighbor unless it acted forcefully to slow the
migrant flow.
Pompeo met Sunday in Mexico City with Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard on a
regional trip that began in Argentina and Ecuador.
“Secretary Pompeo thanked Foreign Minister Ebrard for Mexico’s increased
immigration enforcement efforts,” the State Department said.
Speaking in El Salvador, Pompeo said that Mexico has “made real progress”
on migration.
“The numbers are good… There are fewer apprehensions taking place today
along our southern border, but we’ve got a long way to go yet — there’s
still much more work to do,” he told a news conference in San Salvador.
The meeting between Ebrard and Pompeo, while focused primarily on
migration, also included talks on recovering the wealth of notorious drug
trafficker Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman — sentenced to life imprisonment in the
US — as well as the status of the not-yet-ratified North American trade
agreement, the Mexican Foreign Ministry said.
The Mexican statement said Pompeo had recognized “significant advances” by
Mexico on slowing migration since a high-stakes June 7 meeting in Washington
held amid a growing migration crisis.
That accord — reached under the shadow of Trump’s trade threats —
stipulated that failure by Mexico to rein in cross-border migration within 45
days could result in the need to negotiate a tougher arrangement.
– Visit to El Salvador –
But the Mexican statement said that “in light of these advances,” Ebrard
“does not consider it necessary to initiate” such negotiations.
At the meeting Sunday, Ebrard said Mexico’s strategy to “ensure orderly,
safe and regular migrant flows will continue for the next 45 days,” the
statement said.
The Mexican government in June deployed thousands of soldiers and police
officers, both near the southern border with Guatemala and the US border in
the north, to slow the migrant flow, which has come principally from
impoverished and crime-ridden Central American countries.
Official Mexican figures say the number of migrants coming into Mexico
from those countries fell from 144,000 in May to 100,000 in June.
Pompeo and Ebrard also discussed the fortune amassed by drug kingpin
Guzman.
The US judge who sentenced him to life in prison last week ordered Guzman
to forfeit $12.6 billion, but Mexico wants the money to stay in their
country.
The two diplomats discussed creating a binational group to study the
matter.
During his stop in El Salvador — where gang violence is a major factor
pushing people to make the trip north to the United States — Pompeo met with
Bukele, who has pledged that security measures implemented by his government
would do away with the long-running gang problem.
“Immigration is a problem that we have, but it’s a problem that ends at
the southern border of the United States, so we have to solve the immigration
problem together,” Bukele said at a news conference alongside Pompeo,
according to a State Department transcript.
“We’ve got to address the challenges that cause this migration,” the top
US diplomat said. “Gang violence and poverty are two amongst them, and we
want to be a good partner to assist you in reducing these causes for this
migration.”
“We want people to want to stay in their own countries,” Pompeo said.
BSS/AFP/MSY/0844 hrs