This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

The US is cutting off aid to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, the state department said on Saturday, a day after Donald Trump blasted the countries for sending migrants north.

'This is our moment': Beto O'Rourke attacks Trump and calls for unity Read more

At the same time, an anonymous administration official told the Associated Press the US will aim to more than quadruple the number of asylum seekers sent back to Mexico each day.

Regarding aid to the three Central American countries, a state department spokesperson said in a statement: “We are carrying out the president’s direction and ending FY [fiscal year] 2017 and FY 2018 foreign assistance programs for the Northern Triangle.”

The department declined to provide further details or clarify the time period involved. It said it would “engage Congress in the process”, an apparent acknowledgement it will need lawmakers’ approval.

New Jersey senator Bob Menendez, the top Democrat on the Senate foreign relations committee, lamented a “reckless announcement” and urged Democrats and Republicans alike to reject it.

“US foreign assistance is not charity; it advances our strategic interests and funds initiatives that protect American citizens,” Menendez said in a statement.

Congressional Democrats on a visit to El Salvador said the aid decision would only increase the flow of migrants.

House foreign affairs committee chair Eliot Engel and others said in a statement US aid was helping deal with the root causes of migration by families and children. Trump’s move, they said, was therefore “entirely counterproductive”.

Trump claimed on Friday in Florida that the three countries had “set up” caravans of migrants in order to export them to the US. A surge of asylum seekers from the three countries have sought to enter the US in recent days.

“We were giving them $500m,” Trump said. “We were paying them tremendous amounts of money, and we’re not paying them anymore because they haven’t done a thing for us.”

On Saturday Trump repeated his threat to close the border next week if Mexico does not stop migrants, a move that could disrupt millions of legal border crossings and billions of dollars in trade.

The effort to increase the numbers of asylum seekers sent back to Mexico has already been stepped up.

Hundreds of officers who usually screen cargo and vehicles at ports of entry have been reassigned while homeland security secretary Kirstjen Nielsen has asked for volunteers from non-immigration agencies within her department and sent a letter to Congress requesting resources and broader authority to deport families faster. She also met with Central American and Mexican officials.

The policy of returning asylum seekers to Mexico was announced on 29 January. With a backlog of more than 700,000 cases, individuals can wait years. Officials say some game the system in order to live in the US.

Currently, about 60 a day are returned to Mexico at the San Ysidro, Calexico and El Paso ports, the Trump official said. They are allowed to return for court dates.

Officials hope to have as many as 300 people returned per day by the end of the week, focusing particularly on those who come in between ports of entry, said an official on Saturday.

The plan has been marred by confusion, scheduling glitches and an inability by some attorneys to reach their clients. In San Ysidro alone, Mexico had been prepared to accept up to 120 asylum seekers per week, but for the first six weeks only 40 a week were returned.

US officials must check if asylum seekers have any felony convictions and notify Mexico at least 12 hours before they are returned. Those who cross illegally must have come as single adults, though the administration is in talks with Mexico to include families. Children are not returned.

Guatemala and Honduras have replaced Mexico as the top countries of origin for asylum seekers, a remarkable shift from only a few years ago. Migrants from Central America cannot be easily deported, unlike those crossing from Mexico.

After Trump lashed out, saying Mexico and Central American nations were “doing nothing”, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said his country would do everything it could to maintain a “very respectful relationship”.

Democratic leaders have expressed deep concern, saying the administration wants to revive “horrific” and “immoral” plans, noting its hardline border policies have created “senseless heartbreak and horror”.

“Democrats reject any effort to let the administration deport little children, and we reject all anti-immigrant and anti-family attacks from this president,” House speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement.