US cuts aid to trio of Central American countries
Trump blasts nations for sending surge of migrants
The US has cut aid to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras after President Donald Trump blasted the Central American countries for sending migrants to the US and threatened to shutter the US-Mexico border.
A surge of asylum seekers from the three countries have sought to enter the US across the southern border in recent days. On Friday, Trump accused the nations of having “set up” migrant caravans and sending them north.
Trump said there is a “very good likelihood” he will close the border this week if Mexico does not stop immigrants from reaching the US. Frequent crossers of the border, including workers and students, are worried about the disruption to their lives the president’s threatened shutdown could cause.
At a rally on the border in El Paso, Texas, Democratic presidential hopeful Beto O’Rourke denounced Trump’s immigration policies as the politics of “fear and division”.
A state department spokesperson said it is carrying out Trump’s directive by ending aid programmes to the three Central American nations, known as the northern triangle.
The department said it would “engage Congress in the process”, an apparent acknowledgement it will need legislators’ approval to end funding that a congressional aide estimated would total about $700m.
New Jersey senator Bob Menendez, the top Democrat on the Senate foreign relations committee, called Trump’s order a “reckless announcement” and urged Democrats and Republicans alike to reject it.
Trump told reporters on Friday that the US is paying the three countries “tremendous amounts of money”, but receives nothing in return.
Mario Garcia, a 45-year-old bricklayer in El Salvador, said he is setting off for the US regardless of the president’s threat to close the frontier.
“There is no work here and we want to improve [our lives], to get ahead for our families, for our children. I don’t give a damn [what Trump says], I’m determined,” Garcia said.
HEADING NORTH
Garcia was one of a group of at least 90 people who left the capital San Salvador over the weekend on buses heading north, in what locals said was the 10th so-called caravan to depart for the US since October.
The government of El Salvador has said it has tried to stem the flow of migrants.
The Honduran foreign ministry on Saturday called the US policies “contradictory” but stressed that its relationship with the US was “solid, close and positive”.
Trump, who launched his presidential campaign in 2015 with a promise to build a border wall and crack down on illegal immigration, has repeatedly threatened to close the frontier during his two years in office but has not followed through.
This time, homeland security secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and other US officials say border patrol officers have been overwhelmed by a sharp increase in asylum seekers, many of them children and families who arrive in groups, fleeing violence and economic hardship in the northern triangle.
March is on track for 100,000 border apprehensions, homeland security officials said, which would be the highest monthly number in more than a decade. Most of those people can remain in the US while their asylum claims are processed, which can take years because of ballooning backlogs at immigration courts.
Nielsen warned Congress on Thursday that the government faces a “system-wide meltdown” as it tries to care for more than 1,200 unaccompanied children and 6,600 migrant families in its custody.
Trump has so far been unable to convince Congress to tighten asylum laws or fund his border wall. He has declared a national emergency to justify redirecting money earmarked for the military to pay for the wall. Mexico has played down the possibility of a border shutdown.
Its foreign minister, Marcelo Ebrard, said the country is a good neighbour and does not act on the basis of threats.
It was not clear how shutting down ports of entry would deter asylum seekers because they are legally able to request help as soon as they set foot on US soil.
A border shutdown would disrupt tourism and US-Mexico trade that totalled $612bn in 2018, according to the US census bureau.
A shutdown could lead to factory closures on both sides of the border, industry officials say, because the vehicle and medical sectors especially have woven international supply chains into their business models.
I WANT TO IMPROVE [OUR LIVES], TO GET AHEAD FOR OUR FAMILIES, FOR OUR CHILDREN. I DON T GIVE A DAMN [WHAT TRUMP SAYS]