Donald Trump threatens to CLOSE border with Mexico - ‘Stop this onslaught!’
Donald Trump threatens to CLOSE border with Mexico - ‘Stop this onslaught!’
October 18, 2018
Alice Scarsi
In a series of raging tweets, the US president urged Mexico to “stop this onslaught” and prevent the would-be immigrants from entering the US.
If the country failed to do so, he would proceed to close the border with Mexico, Mr Trump claimed.
He wrote: “In addition to stopping all payments to these countries, which seem to have almost no control over their population, I must, in the strongest of terms, ask Mexico to stop this onslaught - and if unable to do so I will call up the U.S. Military and CLOSE OUR SOUTHERN BORDER!”
Mr Trump blamed the migrant crisis on the opposition party, the Democrats, branding its immigration policy “weak”.
If unable to do so I will call up the U.S. Military and CLOSE OUR SOUTHERN BORDER!
Donald Trump
But it also openly attacked the governments of the Central America’s nations most of the migrants are coming from, including Honduras and Guatemala.
Mr Trump had already threatened on Tuesday to cut off millions of dollars of aid to Honduras if the country didn’t prevent the thousands of people fleeing violence and poverty from reaching the US.
Bartolo Fuentes, a former Honduran congressman, was arrested hours after Mr Trump tweeted on Tuesday: “The United States has strongly informed the President of Honduras that if the large Caravan of people heading to the U.S. is not stopped and brought back to Honduras, no more money or aid will be given to Honduras, effective immediately!”
Last year, the US gave Honduras some £138.92million ($181m) in aid to finance security, anti-drug trafficking and poverty reduction programmes, according to the Washington Office for Latin America.
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Donald Trump threatened to close his country's southern border (Image: GETTY)
On Thursday, the US president repeated his threat, writing: “I am watching the Democrat Party led (because they want Open Borders and existing weak laws) assault on our country by Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, whose leaders are doing little to stop this large flow of people, INCLUDING MANY CRIMINALS, from entering Mexico to U.S.
“The assault on our country at our Southern Border, including the Criminal elements and DRUGS pouring in, is far more important to me, as President, than Trade or the USMCA.
“Hopefully Mexico will stop this onslaught at their Northern Border. All Democrats fault for weak laws!”
No evidence of criminal affiliations among the migrants screened or interviewed by reporters in the area has emerged so far.
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Donald Trump blamed the migrant crisis to the Democrats
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The Guatemalan government branded the caravan 'illegal'
Keilin Umana, a pregnant nurse who told the Associated Press that she had fled her home after receiving death threats from gang members, said: “We are not criminals, we are migrants.”
The caravan, of initially 1,600 people, took off last Friday and has been on the road ever since.
The Guatemalan government branded the caravan “illegal”.
In a statement, the country’s Institute of Migration (IGM) said: “Guatemala does not promote or endorse irregular migration in any forms, and therefore rejects movements organized for unlawful purposes which distort human rights, like migration, for their own end.”
Mexico has rushed to contain the situation.
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Some 4,000 migrants are travelling through Central America to reach the US
The country has deployed 500 federal officers to the border city of Tapachula, where migrants are expected to arrive next week.
But it’s not clear what they will do - if they will physically prevent them from crossing the border or just monitor the situation.
Mexico’s president, Enrique Peña Nieto, is also hosting emergency talks with the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, on Friday, to assess the situation.
And the president-elect, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has pledged to issue work visas for Central Americans in a bid to retain workers in the area rather than seeing them moving to the US.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world...migrant-crisis
