Mexican Government Humiliates Trump & Exposes Asylum Announcement As A Lie

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It isn’t a surprise to anyone that fact checks of claims made by Donald Trump turn up evidence that he’s either lied or just doesn’t know what he’s talking about, but claims that the United States government had reached a deal with the incoming government of Mexico is something he really should have been clear on before making an announcement.

Trump tweeted on Saturday that a deal had been reached with Mexico regarding a group of asylum seekers headed to the U.S. border, saying that the incoming officials agreed to host the migrants while they apply, forcing them to remain in Mexico while their cases are processed in court.

According to The Washington Post:

‘The deal was seen as a way to dissuade thousands of Central American migrants from seeking asylum in the U.S., a process that can take years. In effect, Mexican border towns are already acting as waiting rooms for migrants hoping to start new lives in the U.S. due to bottlenecks at the border.

However, although Interior Minister Olga Sanchez had told The Post earlier in the day that an agreement had been reached, she retracted that statement later after Trump’s tweets.

‘There is no agreement of any sort between the incoming Mexican government and the U.S. government.’

It’s unclear at this point whether the deal simply fell apart or if no one was clear on what it entailed, but it seems that Trump made an announcement too soon. The deal is meant to dissuade impoverished people from fleeing their home countries and the violence they experience there, although Trump has insisted that the violence to fear is from the migrants themselves.

‘Stephanie Leutert, director of the Mexico Security Initiative at the University of Texas at Austin, described the Remain in Mexico plan as a strategy to take away the ability of migrants to live and work in the U.S. while cases are processed. “The hope is that asylum seekers will not want to live in (Mexico) for months/years and won’t come,” Leutert said via Twitter.’

The group, which includes a significant number of babies and children, live in harsh conditions while waiting for the two governments to decide their fate.

‘Tijuana Mayor Juan Manuel Gastelum on Friday declared a humanitarian crisis in his border city of 1.6 million, which he says is struggling to accommodate the influx. Most of the migrants are camped inside a sports complex, where they face long wait times for food and bathrooms. Hundreds of Tijuana residents have protested their arrival, complaining that recent caravans forced their way into Mexico from Guatemala.’

According to Mexican officials, Trump’s threats to close the border is also not feasible should his plan include an opportunity for the migrants to apply for asylum at all.

‘They’re going to have to open the borders (for the migrants) to put in the request,” Vences said. “They will also give us dates, on what terms they will receive the (asylum) requests and in the case that they are not beneficiaries of this status, they will have to return here.’

Featured image via Flickr by James N. Mattis under a Creative Commons license