THE WASHINGTON POST: The Trump administration has won the support of Mexico’s incoming government for a plan to remake U.S. border policy by requiring asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their claims move through U.S. courts, according to Mexican officials and senior members of President-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s transition team.
President Trump briefly described the arrangement in a pair of tweets Saturday evening. “Migrants at the Southern Border will not be allowed into the United States until their claims are individually approved in court,” Trump wrote. “No ‘Releasing’ into the U.S….All will stay in Mexico.”
The president then issued a threat. “If for any reason it becomes necessary, we will CLOSE our Southern Border. There is no way that the United States will, after decades of abuse, put up with this costly and dangerous situation anymore!” Trump wrote.
“For now, we have agreed to this policy of Remain in Mexico,” said Olga Sánchez Cordero, Mexico’s incoming interior minister, the top domestic policy official for López Obrador, who takes office Dec. 1. In an interview with The Washington Post, she called it a “short-term solution.”
“The medium- and long-term solution is that people don’t migrate,” Sánchez Cordero said. “Mexico has open arms and everything, but imagine one caravan after another after another. That would also be a problem for us.”
On Saturday, following publication of The Washington Post story and criticism of the incoming government for acceding to pressure from Trump, Sánchez Cordero and other members of the incoming government denied that an agreement had been reached and said talks with the United States were ongoing.
Click here to read the full story by reporters Joshua Partlow and Nick Miroff in The Washington Post.
Editor’s Note: The main image accompanying the above news clip shows Central American migrants gathering in an area designated for them to set up their tents in Tijuana, Mexico, Wednesday, Nov. 21, 2018. (Photo: AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
