Mexico expects relief on US tariff threat after drop in migrant flow

Mexico does not expect the US to threaten to put tariffs on its goods when it holds talks next week with US officials about its efforts to curb migration from Central America, Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said yesterday.Speaking at a regular government news conference alongside President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, Ebrard said Mexico had reduced the flow of undocumented migrants crossing the country toward the US border by 56% between May and August.At the end of May, US President Donald Trump threatened to put tariffs on all Mexican exports to the US if Mexico did not significantly curb a recent surge in illegal immigration from Central America into the US.In June, the two sides agreed to a 90-day window for Mexico to reduce the migrant flows after it agreed to deploy thousands of security forces to its borders and began taking more asylum-seekers from the US while their cases were being processed.That period ended this week, and Ebrard is due to hold talks with US officials on Tuesday to discuss Mexico’s efforts.Mexico’s position would be that the strategy has been a success, Ebrard told the news conference.“I don’t expect there to be a tariff threat on Tuesday,” Ebrard said, pointing to the reduction in migrant flows.The minister reiterated that Mexico would not accept becoming a so-called safe third country, which would oblige migrants to seek asylum in Mexico rather than the US.Trump has lauded the Mexican government for curbing flows since the June deal.By July, apprehensions at the US southern border had dropped by about a third, according to American data.Trump said this week that trend has continued.“I want to thank Mexico, the Mexican government, their great president of Mexico, for helping us,” he told reporters on Wednesday. “They’re helping us in a very big way. Far bigger than anybody thought even possible.”Ebrard said the Mexican government would keep investing in social programmes in the south of Mexico as well as in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, the three Central American countries where most migrants depart from.“This reduction of 56% in the flow of migrants is a result of diverse measures that the government has taken, in compliance with the Mexican migration law,” he said.Ebrard said that there had been only seven official complaints about human rights violations by Mexican forces.Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan said official data on crossings at the US southern border would be released next week.“We’re looking at a reduction of over 50% from May to today,” he said.The head of the asylum division at US Citizenship and Immigration Services, John Lafferty, in July expressed concerns about a new rule aiming to bar many migrants from seeking asylum at the US-Mexican border, saying in a staff e-mail that his department had been given little time to train and prepare.A department official said in a statement that Lafferty has been reassigned.In Mexico, migrant advocates blame their government for launching a migration crackdown without doing enough to protect people fleeing poverty and violence in Central America.Julio Lopez, director of the Nazareth Migrant House in Nuevo Laredo, just over the border from Texas, said officials have done “nothing” for the thousands of asylum seekers who are forced to wait out their cases in Mexico’s dangerous northern border towns.The government should recognise “the error of having used migrants as bargaining chips,” he said.