‘Doing US’s dirty work’: Mexico cracks down at northern border with 15,000 troops, detaining migrants who try to cross
- Government is under pressure from Trump to slow surge of Central Americans entering US via Mexico
- Move marks shift as Mexican security forces did not typically stop undocumented migrants from crossing US border in the past
Mexico has deployed nearly 15,000 soldiers and National Guardsmen to its border with the United States, its army chief said on Monday – admitting they are detaining migrants who try to cross, after the policy triggered backlash.
Under pressure from US President Donald Trump to slow the surge of Central Americans crossing the border, Mexico promised earlier this month to reinforce its southern border with 6,000 National Guardsmen, but had not previously disclosed the extent of the crackdown on its northern border.
“We have a total deployment, between the National Guard and army units, of 14,000, almost 15,000 men in the north of the country,” Defence Minister Luis Cresencio Sandoval said at a press conference alongside President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
Asked whether those forces were detaining migrants to prevent them from crossing, Sandoval replied: “Yes.”
“Given that [undocumented] migration is not a crime but rather an administrative violation, we simply detain them and turn them over” to immigration authorities, he said.