Tariff deal: Migration concerns remain
MEXICO CITY— As Washington and Mexico City both took victory laps Saturday over a deal that headed off threatened tariffs on Mexican imports, it remained to be seen how effective it may be and migration experts raised concerns over what it could mean for people fleeing poverty and violence in Central America.
Other than a vague reit- eration of a joint commit- ment to promote development in Central America, the agreement focuses almost exclusively on enforcement and says little about the root causes driving the surge in migrants seen in recent months.
“My sense is overall the Mexican government got out of this better than they thought. The agree- ment though leaves a lot of big question marks,” said Andrew Selee, president of the Migration Policy Institute. “It’s good that the two sides reached an agreement which allows both of them to save face, but it’s not clear how easy it is to implement.”
The deployment of 6,000 National Guard troops appears to be the key commitment in what was described as “unprecedented steps” by Mexico to ramp up enforcement, though Interior Secretary Olga Sánchez Cordero said that had already been planned and was not a result of external pressure.
“I have said before, migration into Mexico also has to be regulated ... orderly, legal and safe,” Sánchez Cordero told The Associated Press. “So the National Guard that we were going to deploy anyway, we’re going to deploy. It’s not because they tell us to, but rather because we’re going to do it anyway.”
Mexico was already increasing enforcement such as detentions, deportations and checkpoints. In recent weeks it broke up the latest migrant caravan, snuffing out most appetite for travel- ing in large, visible groups.
If Mexico does more as promised, it’s likely to be seen in intensifications of those same efforts, experts said — raids on hotels where migrants stay or on bus com- panies transporting them north to the U.S. border. The two countries also agreed to collaborate to share information on and disrupt people-smuggling networks, a focus seen last week when Mexico arrested two migration activists and froze accounts of over two dozen people alleged to have organized caravans.
Observers said a concern is that even more aggres- sive enforcement could put migrants with legitimate asylum claims at risk of being deported from Mexico to the dangers they fled in the first place. Also, Mexican security forces are known for often being corrupt and shaking migrants down for bribes. A renewed crackdown is seen as making migration through Mexico more dangerous, but doing little to discourage Central Amer- icans desperate to escape poverty and violence.
At the Movimiento Juventud 2000 shelter in Tijuana, across from San Diego, migrants were camped out in dozens of orange tents in the warehouse-like space with corrugated metal roofs and siding. Reyna Vázquez, from Honduras, urged people to reflect on why people like her leave home, family and country.
“If they were to think about that and instead of closing the door give us an opportunity to show that we are people who want to work and all we want is a future for our children and our family,” Vázquez said.
Another key element of the deal is that the United States will expand the Migrant Protection Protocol, or MPP. According to Mexican immigration authorities, since January there have been 10,393 returns by migrants to Mexico while their cases wend their way through U.S. courts.
MPP has been plagued by glitches and so far has been introduced only in California and El Paso, Texas, and Selee said there are logistical hurdles to further expansion. Right now the MPP figure of 10,000 or so represents “a drop in the bucket” compared to overall migration, he added.
Foreign Relations Secretary Marcelo Ebrard, who led the negotiations, said the agreement does not include any quotas.