Seeking to improve understanding, communication, and cooperation between Mexico and the United States by promoting original research, encouraging public discussion, and proposing policy options for enhancing the bilateral relationship.
6/25/19 – AP News
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador says Mexico’s tightening of immigration controls has focused “more than anything” on regulating entries at its southern border.
“We have to avoid a confrontation with the government of the United States,” López Obrador said Tuesday.
6/24/19 – New York Times
By Maya Averbuch and Kirk Semple
The Aguilar family had been preparing since February to migrate north. They borrowed $2,600, made a down payment to a smuggler and set off from their home in northern Guatemala last week.
But at Guatemala’s border with Mexico, their smuggler had some bad news: Crossing into Mexico was too risky. A June 7 deal between the Mexican authorities and the United States to reduce migration had brought extra security forces to the border.
6/23/19 – Reuters
By Lizbeth Diaz
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.
6/17/19 – Wall Street Journal
By Alejandro Lazo
The last place Honduran migrant Gustavo Edil Gutiérrez imagined himself was back in Tijuana, living in a shelter and losing hope as he awaits his U.S. asylum hearing across the border.
Mr. Gutiérrez is one of more than 11,000 migrants sent back to Mexico by the U.S. this year to wait for their cases to be heard. Many more will soon be sent by U.S. authorities to six border towns after Mexico agreed this month to take more as part of a deal to ward off President Trump’s threatened tariffs on all Mexican imports.
6/17/19 – Reuters
By Hugh Bronstein
Mexico will complete deployment of National Guard forces on its southern border with Guatemala this week as part of a new immigration control plan agreed with Washington, foreign minister Marcelo Ebrard said on Monday.
“The deployment of the National Guard ordered, with support from the Ministry of Defense and the Navy, will be completed this week,” Ebrard told a regular news conference.
6/16/19 – New York Times
By Andrew Selsky and Patrick Whittle
Undaunted by a dangerous journey over thousands of miles, people fleeing economic hardship and human rights abuses in African countries are coming to the U.S.-Mexico border in unprecedented numbers, surprising Border Patrol agents more accustomed to Spanish-speaking migrants.
Officials in Texas and even Maine are scrambling to absorb the sharp increase in African migrants. They are coming to America after flying across the Atlantic Ocean to South America and then embarking on an often harrowing overland journey.
6/16/19 – Associated Press
By Maria Verza and Rebecca Blackwell
Mexican authorities increased immigration enforcement along well-traveled routes for migrants in southern Mexico over the weekend, checking identifications, pulling migrants off public transport and intercepting four trucks packed with nearly 800 migrants.
The National Migration Institute said 1,000 immigration agents had been deployed in the north and south of Mexico. The deployment comes as Mexico faces heightened pressure from the U.S. to reduce the surge of mostly Central American migrants through its territory. Mexico plans to position 6,000 National Guard troops by Tuesday to its southern border with Guatemala.
