Country has cracked down on migration after Donald Trump threatened in May to slap tariffs on Mexican imports

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Mexico has announced a 56% reduction in the number of undocumented migrants crossing the country towards its northern border – a figure the government hopes will help fend off Donald Trump’s threat of crippling trade tariffs.

The US president threatened in May to slap tariffs on all Mexican imports, but the two sides agreed to a 90-day window for Mexico to crack down on migration. That period ended this week, and the foreign secretary, Marcelo Ebrard, is to meet with US officials on Tuesday.

On Friday, Ebrard said that the number of migrants apprehended at the US-Mexico border in August was 63,989, down from 144,266 in May.

Migrants brave the 'Beast' as Mexico cracks down under US pressure Read more

“We’re showing that the strategy that Mexico put forward has been successful,” Ebrard said. “I don’t expect a tariff threat Tuesday because it wouldn’t make sense.”

Mexico has reinforced security on its porous southern border and set up checkpoints on highways leading north, deploying 21,600 police and troops across the nation. Ebrard said there had been seven formal complaints of human rights violations involving the national guard.

Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the leftist president who took office on 1 December promising better treatment of migrants, has embraced the crackdown.

In recent weeks, he has seldom mentioned the US pressure and depicts the crackdown as a struggle to defend Mexican laws, claiming that migrant caravans were the work of human traffickers.

Migrant rights activists say López Obrador is simply dressing up the fact that he yielded to Trump’s pressure tactics.

“Mexico is just trying to comply with the US [demands] and cut down on migration, but it is improvising and violating the law,” said Javier Martínez, a lawyer for the Casa del Migrante shelter in the northern city of Saltillo. “We are seeing things we never saw before.”

Mexico has raided freight trains that migrants ride north, and pulled thousands off buses and out of the freight compartments of trucks. The government has warned bus and taxi drivers they could lose their permits if they transport migrants.

Mexico's migration crackdown escalates dangers for Central Americans Read more

Activists say that crackdowns by Mexican authorities force migrants to hike through unpopulated areas to avoid checkpoints, exposing them to greater risk from thieves, muggers and rapists who lie in wait.

Ebrard said on Friday that authorities had found 2,186 migrants inside 35 tractor trailers and said that nearly 40% were minors. Ebrard said 357 people had been charged in migrant-smuggling cases.

The Rev Alejandro Solalinde, who runs a migrant shelter in the southern state of Oaxaca, said Mexico essentially had no choice.

“It was the least worse choice,” Solalinde said of the government’s decision. “Given that Donald Trump is an unstable person, full of surprises, we had to make this deal.”