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López Obrador confirms military deployment before migrant caravan advances

Mexico City, June 8 (EFE).- Mexico’s President, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, confirmed this Wednesday that it is “normal” the deployment of Armed Forces at the border in the face of the advance of migrant caravans leaving this week from the south with about 15,000 people. “What is being done is normal, there are no special plans,” said the President during a press conference this morning from the State Palace. The president faced inquiries from the press for the deployment of nearly 30,000 Army members on the northern and southern borders on migration assignments. López Obrador replied that when Secretary of State Marcelo Ebrard, who was attending the Americas summit in the United States on his behalf, returned, he would meet with him to review immigration issues. “Basically because of the election in the United States, to speak clearly, of course people need, they want to work,” the Mexican president said. He denounced that during the five years, since President Donald Trump’s management, the Mexican government had sought support for Central America, but “there has been no response.” “There’s talk of $4,000 million and in four or five years they haven’t allocated anything,” he criticized. Instead, he stressed, “United States legislators empowered those who spoke out about human rights concerns like (Marco) Rubio and others, Ted Cruz and (Robert) Menendez, those senators, almost unanimously, I think. one missing, they authorized $40,000 million for weapons to Ukraine”, he lamented. In addition, he criticized Republican legislators for accusing him of doubling the organized crime presence in Mexico and asked Cruz and Rubio to provide evidence against him, if they had any. Civilian organizations have repeatedly denounced abuses by the authorities and the military in trying to contain the influx of migrants with raids and arrests. Surveillance has increased this week over the departure on Monday of a caravan of nearly 15,000 migrants from Chiapas, on the border with Guatemala. The region experienced record flows into the United States, where the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) office detected more than 1.7 million undocumented immigrants at the border with Mexico in the 2021 fiscal year, which ended on September 30. Mexico has intercepted more than 252,000 undocumented migrants from January to November and deported more than 100,000 in the same period, according to the country’s Interior Ministry’s Migration Policy Unit. In addition, Mexico’s Refugee Assistance Commission (Comar) received a record 131,448 refugee applications in 2021. Of these, more than 51,000 are Haitians. (c) EFE Agency