Mexico Deploys Military to Curb Migration

WATCH: President Trump announces new tariffs on Mexico

It appears that the threat of an impending tariff is legitimately lighting a fire under Mexico’s rear to help stop the unprecedented flow of illegal immigration.

With just days until the tariff deadline, Mexico has ramped up their efforts, deploying their military to stop migrants from South and Central America as they cross Mexico’s southern border.

According to Fox News:

With just days to go until the Trump administration is set to impose punishing tariffs on Mexico unless the country halts the unprecedented flow of illegal immigrants across the southern border, numerous signs that Mexico would capitulate emerged Thursday — but it remained unclear Friday morning whether their efforts would satisfy the White House.

Reports in the evening indicated that Mexico’s negotiators with Washington have offered to immediately deploy 6,000 National Guard troops to the border with Guatemala. Additionally, Mexico has reportedly agreed to a major overhaul of reasonable asylum protocols, which would require asylum applicants to seek permanent refuge in the first country they arrive in after fleeing their home countries.

This has already been a source of issues.

You may remember that many of the major caravaners were offered asylum in Mexico as they made their way north. They turned the offer down, seeking instead to try their luck in the US.

For virtually all Central American migrants, that country would not be the United States. The Trump administration has already begun requiring asylum applicants to wait in Mexico while their claims are processed, saying too many applicants were using the system fraudulently to escape into the country. Last month, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals denied a request to stop that practice temporarily.

Now, with their backs to the wall, Mexico is coming up with new ideas:

However, two administration officials tell Fox News that while talks have been going well with Mexico, and that Mexico is making some fresh proposals, there is not yet a deal that U.S. officials are sure to imminently accept.

Also on Thursday, Mexico’s financial intelligence agency announced it had frozen the bank accounts of 26 people who it claimed “have presumably participated in migrant smuggling and the organization of illegal migrant caravans.”

The agency said it had detected money transfers from central Mexico to six Mexican border cities presumably related to the caravans.

And yes – their military has been deployed:

Meanwhile, some 200 Mexican military police, immigration agents and federal police blocked the advance of about 1,000 Central American migrants who were walking north along a southern Mexico highway on Wednesday, once again showing a tougher new stance on attempts to use the country as a stepping-stone to the U.S.

The group of migrants, including many women and children, set out early from Ciudad Hidalgo at the Mexico-Guatemala border and was headed for Tapachula, the principal city in the region. State and local police accompanied the caravan.

The officials blocked the highway near the community of Metapa, about 11 miles from Tapachula.

Unarmed agents wrestled some migrants who resisted to the ground, but the vast majority complied and boarded buses or immigration agency vans. Some migrants fainted and fell to the ground. One young man who collapsed was taken for medical attention.

That afternoon, in Mexico City, police detained Irineo Mujica, the head of migrant aide group Pueblo Sin Fronteras, and Cristobal Sanchez, a migrant activist.

Meanwhile, the tariff is not off the table:

Vice President Mike Pence, monitoring the talks from his travels in Pennsylvania, said the U.S. was “encouraged” by Mexico’s latest proposals but, so far, tariffs still were set to take effect Monday.

Time will tell what happens next.