President Trump tweeted this week that, "Mexico is doing very little, if not nothing" to stop people flowing into Mexico along its southern border. Trump this week has also been speaking critically about a caravan of hundreds of migrants from Central America that has made its way into Mexico.

Eric Olson (@Eric_Latam), deputy director of the Latin American Program at the Wilson Center, joins Here & Now's Peter O'Dowd to fact-check those remarks.

Interview Highlights

On President Trump's plan to send military to the U.S. border

"On the one hand, it's not unprecedented. I, personally, don't think it's all that necessary. Most of the problems are being handled, now, at the border, by Border Patrol agents. We have 16,000 Border Patrol agents on the U.S.-Mexico border. But, you know, other presidents, including President Obama and George W. Bush, have also sent National Guardsmen to the border and wouldn't be unusual. I mean, Obama sent them, basically, because there was a perceived crisis from drug trafficking at the time, and it was back-up to border agents at that point. And, likewise, George W. Bush sent them at a time when violence, particularly in border cities like Tijuana in Ciudad Juarez, [was] astronomical."

On what Mexico is doing along its southern border

"There seems to be this misimpression that Mexico is not only doing nothing, but almost encouraging people to come and flow into the United States. Nothing could be further from the truth. Look at, in January and February of this year, Mexico detained and deported over 15,000 Central Americans. In 2015, Mexico deported more Central Americans than the United States did. So to say that Mexico is ignoring this problem or, you know, sitting around with its arms crossed and encouraging people in the United States does not match with the facts on the ground. There is an aggressive policy in Mexico to deal with this problem."

On what the southern border looks like

"In some ways it's similar to the U.S.-Mexico border in that there are vast areas that are open with very little infrastructure, roads, very little people living there, very sparsely populated. There are official border crossing areas that are well controlled, but, there are obviously other areas where people are involved in contraband and other kinds of trafficking where they cross. That's illegal, like it happens in the United States. Mexico does not have a border patrol. The security perimeter on the border is mostly in the hands of the Mexican military and, in particular, the Mexican navy. And they have a very strong presence in that area, and there's not an open-border policy. There's not a 'looking-the-other-way.' Mexico has, you know, built infrastructure and has focused on improving that situation."