Mexico will help to regulate the flow of Central American migrants passing through its territory to the United States, but the root causes behind the phenomenon must be tackled, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Monday.
Speaking after U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday threatened to close the U.S. southern border if Mexico did not halt illegal immigration immediately, Lopez Obrador said he would not have a confrontation with the United States.
“I prefer love and peace,” Lopez Obrador told reporters at his regular morning news conference.
Most of the people caught at the frontier trying to enter the United States illegally come from three violent and impoverished countries: Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.
Lopez Obrador has tried to persuade Trump to address the problem by fostering economic development in Central America.
But on Saturday, the U.S. State Department said it was cutting off aid to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.
Detentions at the U.S. border have surged in recent months, angering Trump and putting pressure on Lopez Obrador to find a solution that will prevent a shutdown of the frontier to the market for 80 percent of Mexico’s exports.
Asked if it was time to put pressure on the Central American countries to do more to tackle the problem, Lopez Obrador said the causes of migration were “not being attended to” and that people needed to be offered more opportunities there.
“Obviously, we have to help because Central American migrants pass through our territory and we have to bring order to this migration, make sure it’s legal,” Lopez Obrador said. “That’s what we’re doing. But serenely, calmly, without a commotion and with great prudence and responsibility.”
U.S. Customs and Border Patrol projections are for over 90,000 apprehensions at the border during March, according to data provided to the Mexican government — a more than 140 percent increase from March 2018, and a seven-fold jump from 2017.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the United States was working with the Central American governments and Mexico to “solve this problem at the border,” and pointed to the numbers when asked why Trump had toughened his stance.
“Just look at the math,” Pompeo told reporters outside the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. “How many folks are coming across. This is a crisis. We need to fix it.”
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