WASHINGTON, Oct 19, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – President Donald Trump threatened
Thursday to send the military to close the US-Mexican border against an
“onslaught” of migrants, stepping up his anti-immigrant rhetoric ahead of
congressional elections.
As several thousand Hondurans made their way through Central America toward
the US border, Trump blamed Democrats for an “assault on our country by
Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador” with a caravan “INCLUDING MANY
CRIMINALS.”
“I must, in the strongest of terms, ask Mexico to stop this onslaught – and
if unable to do so I will call up the U.S. Military and CLOSE OUR SOUTHERN
BORDER!”
Trump has made his call for a wall on the southern border a signature issue
of his two-year presidency, but Thursday’s tweet storm was especially fierce.
Trump suggested he was even prepared to put at risk the recently
renegotiated North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between Mexico, the
United States and Canada, redubbed as USMCA.
“The assault on our country at our Southern Border, including the Criminal
elements and DRUGS pouring in, is far more important to me, as President,
than Trade or the USMCA,” he said.
White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders meanwhile said that “we are
passionate about solving the issue of illegal immigration,” and that “our
administration is doing a great job on the border.”
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo embarked on a tour of the region that
took him to Panama on Thursday with a visit to Mexico set for Friday.
The Mexican stop is important for future relations because it comes just
ahead of the inauguration in December of President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez
Obrador.
Marcelo Ebrard, Mexico’s foreign minister designate, downplayed Trump’s
comments as aimed at his domestic political base.
“The position of President Trump is the one he has always raised,” Ebrard
told local radio station Radio Centro.
“It was predictable and also the election process is very close, so he is
making a political calculation,” he added.
– Controversial caravan –
The president’s message was part of a broad strategy to crack down on
unauthorized immigrants and tighten rules for legal migrants.
Barely a week goes by without Trump warning about the danger posed by
ultra-violent Central American gangs like MS-13, while chants of “build the
wall” are a staple of his pre-midterms campaign rallies.
The latest focus is on some 2,000 Hondurans who departed Saturday from the
city of San Pedro Sula in a caravan headed for the US border.
A first group of several hundred Honduran migrants arrived late Wednesday
on the Guatemalan-Mexican border, where they overflowed a shelter in the town
of Tecun Uman, leaving many to sleep in the town square or on the street, an
AFP correspondent said.
Many were traveling with a single change of clothes and little money.
Others were carrying young children in their arms.
Several migrants told AFP the group plans to wait for the rest of the
caravan to arrive, then cross the border en masse in hopes of overwhelming
the Mexican immigration authorities, who have vowed to detain anyone without
papers.
The migrants say they organized on social media for the long and difficult
journey, but Washington suspects the group has been organized as a deliberate
provocation.
“This caravan did not appear organically,” a senior Trump administration
official told journalists.
“There’s a political aspect and an organizational aspect which frankly
seeks to sow chaos and dissent and that needs to be dealt with,” the official
said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
– Border forces –
In Mexico, hundreds of riot police deployed at a bridge on the border with
Guatemala. Guatemala also sent police reinforcements.
Responding to a tweet about Mexico deploying police equipped with anti-riot
gear, Trump wrote: “Thank you Mexico, we look forward to working with you!”
Mexico’s ambassador to Guatemala, Luis Manuel Lopez Moreno, met with
migrants camped out in the border town of Tecun Uman to discourage them from
crossing illegally.
“We are offering documented entry to those who have a passport and visa,
and to those who do not, documented entry via an application for refugee
status, on humanitarian grounds. We will address every case,” he told a large
crowd of Hondurans gathered on the town’s central square.
Mexico’s foreign minister Luis Videgaray meanwhile told reporters he had
met with UN chief Antonio Guterres, who said the UNHCR would help the Mexican
government to process asylum applications for those in the caravan.
As for the US border, it remained unclear whether Trump’s threat would
result in any military deployment.
The president announced plans in April to send thousands of National Guard
troops to the border, where they could remain until his promised wall is
constructed.
But at least five US states later refused to send the troops amid an outcry
over a since-abandoned White House policy to separate migrant children from
their parents at the border.