Crackdown makes things more dangerous: Activists

Mexico says it has complied with a

90-day deadline from the US to reduce the flow of migrants through its territory, but activists say Mexico’s crackdown has only forced migrants into greater desperation and more illicit, dangerous routes.

Foreign Relations Secretary Marcelo Ebrard is to give a final report on Mexican government efforts today, three months after threats by US President Donald Trump to impose tariffs on Mexico unless it cracked down on hundreds of thousands of mainly Central American migrants arriving at the US border.

The figures appear to bear out Mexico’s position. The number of migrants detained at the U.S. border has fallen from 133,000 in May to

95,000 in June and 72,000 in July. 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.

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

Activists say this has forced migrants to hike through unpopulated areas to avoid checkpoints, exposing them to greater risk from thieves, muggers and rapists who lie in wait.

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.’’

All of that has left migrants like Jose Bento, 30, of the Congo, feeling like they have been caught in the middle, and left in limbo.

‘‘We are in a jail without walls,’’ said Bento, who has spent four months travelling though South and Central America in a bid to reach the United States. ‘‘This is a policy of lies. We are considered as animals.’’ –AP