Mexican government request U.N. intervention in immigration and asylum

Published 21 mins ago
Last Update 20 mins ago

US, Mexico agree on plan to handle migrant caravan from Central America



By Elizabeth Zwirz, John Roberts | Fox News

Mexico will request that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) establish shelters along its southern border with Central America, the official said.

Mexican Ambassador to the U.S. Geronimo Gutierrez elaborated on the request, during an interview on Fox News’ “Special Report.”

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“Just today, the Mexican government, and this is a very important step, requested the intervention of the U.N., the Office of the High Commissioner on Refugees, to help Mexico review any asylum claims from the members of the caravan,” Gutierrez said.

“That will allow us to have a process by which in our border we will make sure that of serving human rights, respecting international law, if there are legitimate claims to refugee, those can be processed in a very clear way.”

Gutierrez also retweeted a news release Thursday detailing Mexico’s request to the UNHCR.

MIGRANT CARAVAN BREAKAWAY GROUP REPORTEDLY REACHES BORDER WITH MEXICO AS SHOWDOWN LOOMS

“We welcome the government of Mexico’s statement that they will seek cooperation with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to address immigration issues in the region, including the influx of people arriving in Mexico,” Secretary of State Mike Pomper said in a statement. “The United States stands ready to assist the Government of Mexico and UNHCR in this effort.”

If an individual manages to evade the new system and travels through Mexico to eventually cross the border into the U.S., Mexico will now allow those persons to be returned to Mexico, the official told Fox News. Currently, the U.S. has had to house those people until their cases could be adjudicated before being removed to their country of origin.

At the established shelters, U.N. officials will vet the refugees to decide which ones have legitimate claims for refugee status, the official told Fox News.

If a person or persons is determined to have a legitimate claim, they will undergo a U.N. process of being placed in a host country, which could ultimately be the U.S. or any other country that has an agreement with the UNHCR, the official said.

TRUMP THREATENS TO CALL US MILITARY TO CLOSE SOUTHERN BORDER AS 4,000-STRONG MIGRANT CARAVAN PUSHES NORTH

All those discovered without a legitimate claim will be sent home, the official said. And those who don’t have correct documentation will be turned away at the Mexico border.

The plan was agreed on by members of Mexico President Enrique Pena Nieto’s government, however President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s incoming administration has vowed not to criticize the plan, the official said. After they take office, they have agreed to work together with the U.S. to attempt to make the plan endure long-term.

The caravan, which started in Honduras last week, is currently bound for the U.S. As of Thursday, a migrant shelter located on the Guatemalan side of the border with Mexico said that hundreds of the caravan’s migrants had reached the area, according to The Associated Press.

The caravan drew the ire of President Trump earlier Thursday on Twitter, who threatened military force and a closure of the U.S. southern border. He also slammed leaders in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador for “doing little to stop this large flow of people” and requested that Mexico “stop this onslaught.”

https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images...00m_normal.jpgDonald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump

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.....

4:25 AM - Oct 18, 2018

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https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images...00m_normal.jpgDonald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump

....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!..

4:35 AM - Oct 18, 2018

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https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images...00m_normal.jpgDonald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump

....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!

4:45 AM - Oct 18, 2018

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Fox News’ Greg Norman and Nicholas Kalman contributed to this report.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/us-...entral-america

Mexico deploys officers to its southern border to block migrants headed for the US

If a person or persons is determined to have a legitimate claim, they will undergo a U.N. process of being placed in a host country, which could ultimately be the U.S. or any other country that has an agreement with the UNHCR, the official said.

Now...This would make it interesting. How many would volunteer to go back or stay in Mexico if they couldn't get into the US? Not that I am really holding out great hopes, but that is how it should work.

Trump administration supports Mexico, UN plan to deal with caravan of Honduran migrants

US supports Mexico plan for Honduran migrants

Author: Sergio Bustos, USA TODAY
Published: 9:40 PM EDT October 18, 2018
Updated: 12:15 AM EDT October 19, 2018

The Trump administration on Thursday night welcomed a Mexican government plan to work with the United Nations refugee agency to deal with a controversial caravan of Honduran migrants — fleeing poverty and violence — before they can make their way to the U.S.-Mexico border.

The caravan of migrants, who number anywhere between 1,500 to 4,000 people, has angered President Donald Trump. This week, he threatened the governments in Central America and Mexico if they failed to deal with the situation.

A top Mexican official said Thursday night that his government will ask the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to help identify “legitimate” asylum claims from Hondurans who are part of the caravan making its way through his country’s southern border en route to the U.S.

Under the Mexican government’s plan, those migrants whose asylum claims get rejected would be immediately repatriated to Honduras, Gerónimo Gutiérrez, the Mexican Ambassador to the U.S., told Fox News’ “Special Report” in an interview Thursday night.

“We want to make sure that those claims are legitimate,” he said, noting a handful of migrants had already applied for asylum in Mexico.

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A caravan of more than 1,500 Honduran migrants moves north after crossing the border from Honduras into Guatemala on Oct. 15, 2018 in Esquipulas, Guatemala.
John Moore, Getty Images

“We obviously are sensitive to the humanitarian situation that we encounter,” said Gutiérrez. “But we have also made very clear that there is no legal ground on which Mexico can issue a permit by which people can just go through Mexico towards the United States.”

“Mexico is in favor of legal, safe and orderly migration,” he added.

“And the step we took today, it’s extremely important.”

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who is visiting Mexico on Friday, applauded the move by Mexican government officials.

“We welcome the Government of Mexico’s statement that they will seek cooperation with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to address immigration issues in the region, including the influx of people arriving in Mexico,” he said in a statement. “The United States stands ready to assist the Government of Mexico and UNHCR in this effort.”

Mexico’s decision to seek UN assistance came following a barrage of tweets from Trump over the past two days in which he railed against Democrats in Congress and the governments of Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, threatening to cut off U.S. aid to the Central American countries and close the southern border.

“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!” he wrote in one of his tweets.

https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images...00m_normal.jpgDonald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump

....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!

4:45 AM - Oct 18, 2018

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https://pbs.twimg.com/ext_tw_video_t...pg&name=medium

https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images...qt_normal.jpegKarlaZabs

✔@karlazabs

MIGRANT CARAVAN: Two federal police-filled planes w/anti-riot gear landed near the Mexico/Guatemala border this morn (vid source: Policia Federal de Mexico).

8:56 AM - Oct 17, 2018

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In a separate tweet, Trump later thanked Mexico for sending law enforcement officers to its southern border to intercept the Honduran migrant caravan, linking to a short video clip of dozens of Mexican federal police disembarking from a plane.

Trump tweeted his praise shortly before Thursday night’s campaign rally in Montana, where he blasted Democrats before next month’s midterm elections.

“They wanted that caravan,” Trump said of Democrats. “It’s going to be an election of the caravan.”

Trump is ramping up his rhetoric on immigration as he begins a three-day campaign swing of western states where border security has become a top issue in the upcoming election.

In his interview with Fox News, Mexico’s Gutiérrez criticized organizers of the Honduran migrant caravan.

“It’s not in the interest of anybody to have those people make that trip,” he said. “They’re frequently tricked by human smuggling organizations.”

He also said the Mexican government had “evidence that this caravan is also very much politically motivated,” but he did not elaborate.

More: Trump claims Democrats wanted caravan, ups immigration rhetoric ahead of western swing
Also: Trump: Aid will end to Central American countries allowing migrant caravan to head to US

He acknowledged, however, the need for Mexico and the U.S. to continue aiding Central American countries, while enforcing its own immigration laws.

“We need to work in development and help those countries, and we’re doing [it]. And we also need to make sure that laws are enforced, and that’s also what we’re doing.”

The Honduran migrant group started last Friday with about 160 people who banded together in the hopes that their numbers would protect them from robbers and other dangers facing them on their journey, according to The Associated Press. Organizers said they were fleeing north from a corrupt Honduran government, along with rampant poverty and violence.

According to the World Bank, 66 percent of Hondurans live in poverty and about one out of five Hondurans in rural areas live on less than $1.90 a day.

Rep. Jan Schakowsky, an Illinois Democrat, slammed the Trump administration for backing Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez’s “corrupt government” and “painting a picture of this migrant caravan as a threat to our national security instead of the desperate group of refugees that they are.”

“The migrant caravan struggling toward our border is a direct result of Juan Orlando Hernandez’s anti-democratic regime,” she said in a statement on Thursday night. “We must support these refugees and stop turning a blind eye to Hernandez’s repression and violence.”

https://www.king5.com/article/news/n...0-63e497cb0bd1

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Rep. Jan Schakowsky, an Illinois Democrat, slammed the Trump administration for backing Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez’s “corrupt government” and “painting a picture of this migrant caravan as a threat to our national security instead of the desperate group of refugees that they are.”

“The migrant caravan struggling toward our border is a direct result of Juan Orlando Hernandez’s anti-democratic regime,” she said in a statement on Thursday night. “We must support these refugees and stop turning a blind eye to Hernandez’s repression and violence.”

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How are you all doing with that repression and violence in corrupt Chicago?

Go diversify some other country.

We do not want ANY of them. Deny ALL of them at our border.

Send them to Africa, the Middle East, Russia, Japan, China, Norway, Switzerland, New Zealand, Fiji! Anywhere but here!

The UN should go into Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and give those countries a "Comprehensive Plan for Reform".

Stop dumping this problem on OUR backs!

Send in NATO troops to round up ALL gang members and put them in prisons.

That is their big "fear"...these gangs. Send in outside troops because the local law enforcement is corrupt and on the take with the Cartel.

Send ALL their illegal aliens, TPS, refugees back to go rebuild their communities.

THEY TAKE THE "DEAL" OR THEY GET NO MORE MONEY AND NO WAY TO ENTER OUR COUNTRY UNTIL THEY CLEAN UP THEIR OWN OVERBREEDING CORRUPT MESS!

NO CASH!

THE END

The devil is in the details. I don’t trust the Mexican government. They are not our friends. I think this might be a scam to make them appear to be doing the right thing, but weaseling out on technicalities.

I think it's part of the USMCA trade agreement. The OTM crap was part of NAFTA.

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Originally Posted by Judy

I think it's part of the USMCA trade agreement. The OTM crap was part of NAFTA.

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Weren't you saying a week or so ago that a passed Rep. King bill prevented Trump from including any issues related to immigration in the NAFTA 2.0 trade agreement? Seems you did, but I could be mistaken.

Trump can't tackle illegal immigration in NAFTA deal -- thanks to border security hard-liner

By S.A. Miller - The Washington Times
Sunday, April 15, 2018

Rep. Steve King, a crusader against illegal immigration, has emerged as the unlikely culprit blocking President Trump from a crackdown on Mexico’s border jumpers in the renegotiation of NAFTA.

Mr. Trump has repeatedly tied the issues together, saying he will scrap the 25-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement unless Mexico does more to stop the flow of people headed north across its territory.

But a 2015 law Mr. King helped author, intended to prevent President Obama from boosting immigration as part of trade pacts, is preventing Mr. Trump from using trade deals to reduce the immigration rate.

Mr. Trump’s prime motivation in tackling NAFTA is to correct what he calls a bad trade deal. It was a top campaign promise to stop the exodus of U.S. factories and manufacturing jobs to low-wage Mexico.

As the talks enter the final stages, Mr. Trump has increasingly mixed the immigration and trade issue, despite restrictions on executive authority to make trade deals.

“Mexico is doing very little, if not NOTHING, at stopping people from flowing into Mexico through their Southern Border, and then into the U.S. They laugh at our dumb immigration laws. They must stop the big drug and people flows, or I will stop their cash cow, NAFTA. NEED WALL!” he tweeted this month.

Any immigration agreements between the U.S. and Mexico can’t be in the trade deal, including reducing the number of guest worker visas or creating arrangements for immigration enforcement.

Mr. King, Iowa Republican, said he was glad that his provision stopped Mr. Trump from putting immigration provisions in NAFTA, even though he agrees with the president’s tough immigration policies.

“There are other ways to do immigration — not through trade,” Mr. King told The Washington Times. “The president can throw anything into the negotiation that he chooses, but when they write a treaty, they can’t be writing ‘immigrate’ into that treaty because my language prohibits it.”

He said he did so to protect Congress’ constitutionally enumerated power to write immigration law.

Mr. King warned the Trump administration when the NAFTA renegotiation talks opened last year that immigration couldn’t be part of the deal.

In a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, the congressman cited the language he tacked onto the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015, also known as the customs bill, that says trade agreements “do not require changes to the immigration laws of the United States or obligate the United States to grant access or expand access to visas.”

Mr. King stressed in the letter that he was raising the issue out of concern that the Trump administration would seek to grant more visas, specifically the “TN visas” for temporary professional workers that citizens of Canada and Mexico can get under NAFTA.

He would prefer to have the TN visas stripped from NAFTA in the rewrite.

The restriction, included in a package of legislation granting the president fast-track trade authority, was originally aimed at Mr. Obama as he prepared to negotiate the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

The deal, known as TPP, was a 12-nation agreement among the U.S. and Pacific Rim countries that proponents said would act as a counter to China.

U.S. trade negotiators have often used guest worker visas and other immigration concessions as bargaining chips in cutting trade deals.

A 2008 bilateral trade agreement between Vietnam and the United States shielded from deportation citizens of that communist country who came to the U.S. before 1995. The Trump administration is trying to cancel that arrangement to deport thousands of Vietnamese who are legal U.S. residents but not citizens and have criminal convictions, according to Reuters.

In 2015, there were fears that Mr. Obama would allow TPP to open a floodgate for high-tech workers and other professionals to come to the U.S. Mr. King’s legislation prevented it.

As it turned out, one of Mr. Trump’s first actions as president was to rip up TPP, which he said was another bad trade deal that would ship American jobs overseas.

Michael Camunez, the former U.S. ambassador to Mexico who helped implement the original NAFTA, said the immigration issue — even if not part of the deal — could blow up the negotiations.

“The president is antagonizing the negotiations with his tweeting and his bombastic rhetoric,” he said. “He is trying to threaten and bully the Mexicans in a way that I don’t think they are going to accept.”

Mr. Camunez added, “The outcome depends on one man and one man only, and that is Donald Trump.”

Any agreement for Mexico to step up immigration enforcement on its side of the border would have to be outside of NAFTA, said Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies.

“It would have to be a side agreement or an understanding. I can’t see that it is actually going to be part of NAFTA,” she said. “The TN visas could be up for renegotiation because that is a provision of NAFTA. But these other issues such as enforcement measures and how to deal with asylum seekers and things like that — those are not trade issues.”

The pressure Mr. Trump has exerted on the government of Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto has already paid off.

Mr. Pena Nieto’s government recently intervened against a caravan of about 1,000 migrants headed for the U.S. border, providing transit and humanitarian visas that helped reduce the size of the caravan.

Mexican officials insisted they were not bowing to pressure from Mr. Trump.

“There is no way the Mexican government can escape the perception that they took action on the caravan because of being prodded by Trump,” said Ms. Vaughan. “They never would have stepped in to head off the caravan without Trump drawing attention to it. It just wouldn’t have happened.”

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news...nking-nafta-i/

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1. USMCA is a new trade agreement.

2. Trump decided that his obligation to enforce US immigration law didn't bind him to not doing so.

3. If Congress doesn't like the new trade agreement because it clamps down on illegal immigration, it is free not to ratify it.

Looks good to me and thrilled to see this new change in policy with Mexico concerning the OTM's.

WE ARE DONE TALKING

PUT OUR TROOPS ON THE BORDER AND TURN THEM RIGHT BACK AROUND!

PENCE WAS JUST THERE!

THEY SPIT IN HIS FACE AND STILL DUMP THEIR PEOPLE ON US!

SEND NATO TROOPS IN TO PUT ALL GANG MEMBERS IN PRISON AND SEND THESE ILLEGAL BACK!

FAST TRACK THE PREGNANT ONES AND CHILDREN OUT OF HERE!

Trump administration supports Mexico, UN plan to deal with caravan of migrants

Mexico to Offer Visas to Caravan Migrants, but Only 100 a Day

Wall Street Journal-1 hour ago
TECUN UMAN, Guatemala—Mexican authorities have agreed to grant humanitarian and asylum visas to a caravan of 3,000 Honduran ...
(Subscription required to read article.)

Only 100 a day so they can TRICKLE over our border!

If Mexico allows them in...Mexico can keep them.

Turn them away at OUR border....we have NOT given them any papers to entry our country!

Trump told Mexico, Solve my immigration and asylum problem and I'll give you $20 Million.
We'll say the money is to deport illegal aliens.


Someone started giving money to Hondurans to caravan to the U.S.


Trump ordered Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico to stop them.


Honduras didn't stop them.


Guatemala didn't stop them.


Mexico asked the U.N. for help.


The U.N. agreed to handle immigration and asylum for the U.S.


Trump's immigration and asylum problem is now a U.N. problem.


Mexico will get $20 million.


Everyone is happy.


ALWAYS FOLLOW THE MONEY.

The United Nations is not interested in helping us with our immigration problems. If they assist Mexico it is not to benefit us.

GeorgiaPeach, you are absolutely right, but what this does is establish the UN refugee status for these people, which means they can be placed all over the world, through that program, and Trump has a cap of 30,000 Refugees from all over the world. They've been cut-off at the pass.

Here's the summary of what has happened since the Spring:

1. USMCA has eliminated the exception policy that was in NAFTA known as the OTM and now the US can bump back anyone who came in through Mexico back into Mexico, same as with Canada.

2. Reduced Refugee Cap (from all over the world) to 30,000 for FY 2019.

3. Blocked new prosperity aid funds to Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador and given notice to stop all aid to these countries if they don't stop illegal immigration into the US from their countries.

4. Secured agreement with Mexico to stop pass-through immigration through Mexico into the US including establishing UN Refugee Program at the Mexico-Guatemala Border to handle "claims" at UN expense on Mexico soils and redirects all legitimate "refugees" to the UN Refugee Resettlement Program, which due to 2. means almost none of them will come to the US.