Trump gets results. You may not like the results or the method, but no one doubts Trump gets stuff done.
It is a breath of fresh air in the usual do nothing Washington. Look, Obama made a deal with Mexico to help when he faced a similar crisis, just as he had to separate some children for safety reasons.
But Trump is getting a much better deal, one that should not only solve this crisis but all future ones too.
From Reuters: U.S.-bound asylum seekers will be sent back to at least two additional Mexican border cities later this week to wait for their claims to be processed, officials said, with one of the cities in a region that is among Mexico’s most chaotic and violent.
The policy known as the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), or Remain in Mexico, will be implemented later this week in Nuevo Laredo in the northern state of Tamaulipas, which borders Texas, said two Mexican officials with knowledge of the matter, who declined to be identified.
Tamaulipas is home to the Gulf and Zeta cartels that include people-smuggling and kidnapping among their criminal activities.
One of the Mexican officials said the policy would also be expanded to San Luis Rio Colorado in the northern state of Sonora, which borders Arizona. Mexican newspaper Reforma reported immigration official Julio César Navarro Contreras as saying San Luis Rio Colorado was on the list.
The latest expansion follows high-stakes negotiations to fend off trade tariffs.
U.S. President Donald Trump had threatened the tariffs to push Mexico to do more to stop migrants from Central America and beyond from reaching U.S. soil, after a sharp spike in numbers this year.
As part of the deal struck earlier this month to remove the tariff threat, Mexico agreed for MPP to apply to the whole length of the border, but capacity issues on both sides have slowed implementation.
Under the deal, Mexico has also deployed a new militarized National Guard police force to detain migrants near the country’s northern and southern borders.
MPP started in January and is already functioning in Mexicali and Tijuana in Baja California, which borders California, and Ciudad Juarez in Chihuahua, which borders New Mexico and Texas.
Since the tariff deal, MPP has been applied to more nationalities, including Cubans, and the number of people being returned has been increased to 500 from 100 a day in Juarez.
A representative for Mexico’s national institute for migration said it had received no official confirmation for when and how the policy would be further expanded.
A U.S. Department of Homeland Security official said the department “was not in a position to confirm new locations.”
Rights groups have sued the Trump administration over the policy, which they argue leaves vulnerable people facing dangers in Mexican border towns similar to those they fled in their home countries.
In April, a federal judge in California ruled MPP likely violated U.S. immigration law. In May, however, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals allowed the program to continue while the legal challenge proceeds.
