In turning back migrant caravans, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador embraces a drastic change in immigration policy.
One year ago, Mexico’s often chaotic southern border appeared relatively orderly: Mexican authorities processed thousands of U.S.-bound migrants for humanitarian visas, allowing them to travel north legally.
During 2019, the Mexican government’s initial welcome mat for migrants quickly shifted into an enforcement-first policy of detention, deportation and sending National Guard forces to block migrants’ passage from southern Mexico. Succumbing to U.S. pressure to stop the migrant flow has become a signature policy of the leftist president who regularly vows to respect the human rights of migrants.
“The most important [point] is that human rights are respected, and to be sure that there are no injuries,” the president told reporters. “We don’t want them to arrive in the north [where] they can be … victims of crime,” López Obrador told reporters earlier this week. Last year, the Mexican government replaced its immigration chief, who was widely regarded as a defender of migrants, with a new director, Francisco Garduño Yáñez, who has proclaimed a more hard-line take on the migrant crisis.
“Migrants are very important, but the priority is Mexico,” Father Solalinde told El Faro, the El Salvador-based online news outlet.
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