After Trump Deal, Mexico’s Detention of Migrants Tripled in June
After deal with U.S. to reduce illegal border crossings, Mexico tripled number of migrant detentions in June from a year earlier.
(Bloomberg) -- After striking a deal with the U.S. to reduce illegal border crossings, Mexico tripled the number of migrant detentions in June from a year earlier, government statistics show.
A total of 29,153 undocumented migrants were apprehended last month, up more than 200% from June 2018, and an increase of 23% from May of this year. Deportations rose 183% from a year earlier to 21,912, up 33% from the previous month, according to National Immigration Institute data.
President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador sent thousands of national guard troops to the nation’s southern and northern borders as part of a deal struck with U.S. President Donald Trump. In May, Trump had threatened generalized tariffs if Mexico didn’t stop undocumented migrants.
On Monday, Trump said tariffs against Mexico are off the table because the country is doing a “great job” stemming migrant flows from Central America to the U.S. The peso rose on the news and on Tuesday gained 0.4% to 19.0516 per dollar.
To contact the reporter on this story: Nacha Cattan in Mexico City at ncattan@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Juan Pablo Spinetto at jspinetto@bloomberg.net, Robert Jameson
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