Great trek to US a national emergency – Trump
PRESIDENT Donald Trump yesterday said he had alerted the military and federal border authorities that a US-bound migrant caravan from Central America was a national emergency, and that the US would begin curtailing aid to Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.
Trump, in a series of posts on Twitter, gave no other details about his administration’s actions.
Representatives for the White House, the US Border Patrol and the Pentagon did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
“Sadly, it looks like Mexico’s Police and Military are unable to stop the Caravan heading to the Southern Border of the United States,” Trump wrote in a tweet, adding: “I have alerted Border Patrol and Military that this is a National Emergency. Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador were not able to do the job of stopping people from leaving their country and coming illegally to the US. We will now begin cutting off, or substantially reducing, the massive foreign aid routinely given to them,” Trump wrote.
Thousands of mostly Honduran migrants crowded into the Mexican border city of Tapachula after trekking on foot from the Guatemalan border, defying threats by Trump that he would close the US-Mexico border if they advanced.
Mexican police in riot gear shadowed the caravan’s arrival along a southern highway but did not impede the migrants’ journey.