On Tuesday, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said he was committed to helping curb illegal immigration after criticism from U.S. President Donald Trump , but he suggested it was an issue that should be addressed mainly by th e United States and Central America .
Illegal immigration
across the U.S. border has caused persistent tensions ever since Trump was a presidential candidate, saying that Mexico was sending rapists and drugs into the United States . And today, Trump sent out a tweet early Thursday that again attacked Mexico over migration .
Once again, Trump threatened to close the U.S. southern border.
At his regular morning news conference, López Obrador was asked about Trump’s tweet and said he was focused on addressing the root causes of migration . He repeated that he wanted a cordial relationship with Trump .
“We respect president Trump’s position , and we are going to help. That is, this is a problem of the United States , or it’s a problem of the Central American countries . It’s not up to us Mexicans, no,” López Obrador told reporters.
“I just emphasize that migration flows of Mexicans to the United States are very low, a lot lower,” he said. “The Mexican is no longer seeking work in the United States . The majority are inhabitants of our fellow Central American countries .”
Trump’s latest claims came one day after the United States, Honduras, Guatemala , and El Salvador agreed to implement joint police operations in Central America to improve border security and tackle illegal immigration.
Trump’s remarks also followed calls for a new caravan of migrants to form in Honduras.
Last weekend, a group of 1,200 migrants, most of them from Central America , began moving toward the U.S. border from southern Mexico .
Meanwhile, President López Obrador said his government will help to stop the flow of Central American migrants through work visas in Mexico .
“We are proposing that work visas in Mexico are granted, we are in the position to do so, there will be 80,000 jobs in Chiapas, but we have more possibilities for there to be jobs in the south-southern part of our country, for hardworking Central American brothers and this (could) mitigate the migration phenomenon ,” he said.
Mexico's Foreign Affairs Minister, Marcelo Ebrard
said “We are working with the U.S. authorities to advance in the coexistence of our different positions about migration . Mexico will act with responsibility drawing from its own vision, expressed in the Marrakech pact for orderly and secure migration .”
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