Mexico's dilemma: Detain migrants or suffer US tariffs

By Vakkas Dogantekin

ANKARA (AA) - Mexican officials have contradicted each other on the hot-button issue of migrants crossing their way to the U.S. from Mexico, with the president saying they do not detain migrants, but the defense secretary saying they do.

Mexican President Lopez Obrador said on Wednesday that nearly 15,000 federal security forces deployed to the northern border have no orders to detain migrants, in response to questioning over photos of detained migrant women and a girl in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua.

Under international law, migrants have the right to cross borders to seek asylum, and Mexico has historically avoided intervention.

Speaking to reporters, Obrador denied allegations of migrant arrests, a controversial issue that irks many Mexicans, who expect more humanitarian policies toward migrants from their government.

“No such order has been issued, and we are going to review that case, so that it doesn’t happen again, because that’s not our job,” he said, according to local Mexico News Daily.

However, Defense Secretary Luis Cresencio Sandoval Monday said that almost 15,000 troops have been deployed to the northern border and that they are detaining migrants.

-Pact and US hard line

On June 7, the U.S. and Mexico reached an agreement for Washington to hold off on imposing tariffs in return for Mexico reducing immigration flows to the border.

U.S. President Donald Trump did not offer specifics on the pact, but the State Department later released a joint declaration that includes a series of further steps the U.S. and Mexico would take to stem the flow of undocumented immigration from Central America to the U.S.

Early in May, Trump announced tariffs on imports of Mexican goods would begin to take effect on June 10 and rise 5% at the start of each successive month until they hit 25% in October "if the crisis persists."

U.S. government institutions have pursued a hardline approach to immigration since Trump took office and have particularly singled out Mexico for what they say is a lack of action to stem migrant flows from Central America, where people are fleeing destitute conditions, including rampant poverty and gang violence.

- US created its own migrant problem

According to human studies professor Carmen Monico of Elon University in North Carolina, the migration problem was created by the U.S. itself, by engineering military and covert operations and also by economic interventions in Central American nations over many past decades.

In an article posted online last week, Monico recounted how the Dwight Eisenhower administration's ousting of Guatemala’s democratically elected government in 1954 ushered in a prolonged civil war.

She also told how in the early 1980s, the Reagan administration supported brutal Guatemalan strongman Jose Efrain Rios Montt, who was later convicted of committing genocide.

Monico added that Ronald Reagan also backed El Salvador’s violent government during a civil war that killed 75,000 people and left the country vulnerable to decades of instability.

"In addition, his administration turned Honduras into a staging ground for the Nicaraguan Contra rebels. The U.S. financed and militarized the country, thus increasing levels of political violence that have never subsided," she wrote.

Monico said her research in these countries strongly suggests that creating opportunities, putting an end to violence, and providing access to decent education make up a perfect recipe to stem the tide of migration.