MEXICO CITY: Mexico’s incoming government denied a report Saturday that it plans to allow asylum-seekers to wait in the country while their claims move through US immigration courts, one of several options the Trump administration has been pursuing in negotiations for months.
The deal was seen as a way to dissuade thousands of Central American migrants from seeking asylum in the US, 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 US due to bottlenecks at the border.
“There is no agreement of any sort between the incoming Mexican government and the US government,” future Interior Minister Olga Sanchez said in a statement.
Hours earlier, The Washington Post quoted her as saying that the incoming administration of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador had agreed to allow migrants to stay in Mexico as a “short-term solution” while the US considered their applications for asylum. Lopez Obrador will take office on Dec. 1.
The statement shared with The Associated Press said the future government’s principal concern related to the migrants is their well-being while in Mexico.
The Washington Post reported Saturday that the administration of US President Donald Trump has won support from the Mexican president-elect’s team for a plan dubbed “Remain in Mexico.”
The newspaper also quoted Sanchez as saying: “For now, we have agreed to this policy of Remain in Mexico.”
Sanchez did not explain in the statement why The Washington Post had quoted her as saying there had been agreement.
White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said, “President Trump has developed a strong relationship with the incoming (Lopez) Obrador Administration, and we look forward to working with them on a wide range of issues.”
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 US 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.
US officials have said for months that they were working with Mexico to find solutions for what they have called a border crisis. One variation, called “Safe Third,” would have denied asylum claims on the grounds that asylum seekers had found haven in Mexico. President Enrique Pena Nieto offered thousands of Central Americans asylum on Oct. 26 if they agreed to remain in southern Mexico. Close to 3,000 migrants took Mexico up on the offer.
Sanchez said Saturday that the next government does not plan for Mexico to become a “Safe Third” country.
Approximately 5,000 Central American migrants have arrived in recent days to Tijuana, just south of California, after making their way through Mexico via caravan. But agents at the San Diego port of entry process fewer than 100 claims per day.
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.
Trump threatened Thursday to shut down the border crossing entirely if his administration determines that Mexico has lost “control” of the situation in Tijuana.
Julieta Vences, a congresswoman with Lopez Obrador’s Morena party who is also president of Mexico’s congressional migrant affairs commission, told the AP that incoming Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard has been discussing with US officials how to handle a deluge of asylum claims at the border.
“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,” Vences said.
She said Mexico needs to examine how to accommodate the migrants without angering locals.
“When they come back, we need to see how ... we can integrate them into an economic activity so that they can develop and not generate conflict with our own communities.”
Local churches and charities have been feeding the migrants, with assistance from state and federal agencies. They have also distributed thousands of blankets, thin mattresses and personal hygiene kits.
Meanwhile, the government of the state of Baja California has identified 7,000 jobs for which migrants could possibly earn income while they await hearings in the US
Trump took to Twitter again Saturday to reiterate that he plans to do away with the US catch-and-release system, which allows asylum seekers to work and study sometimes for years while their cases are pending.
“Migrants at the Southern Border will not be allowed into the United States until their claims are individually approved in court,” Trump wrote. “We only will allow those who come into our Country legally. Other than that our very strong policy is Catch and Detain. No ‘Releasing’ into the US..”
Incoming Mexico gov’t: No deal to host US asylum-seekers
Incoming Mexico gov’t: No deal to host US asylum-seekers
- “There is no agreement of any sort between the incoming Mexican government and the US government,” future Interior Minister Olga Sanchez said
- The Washington Post quoted her as saying that the incoming administration had agreed to allow migrants to stay in Mexico as a “short-term solution” while the US looks at their cases
Backlash as Australia kills dingoes after backpacker death
- The euthanization program has stirred debate about how to manage the local population of dingoes
- Wildlife experts said killing the animals was the wrong response and may threaten the island’s dingo population
SYDNEY: Australian authorities have sparked a backlash by killing a group of dingoes linked to the death of a young Canadian woman on an island in the country’s east.
The Queensland government said six animals were put down after 19-year-old backpacker Piper James’s body was found on January 19 at a beach on the World Heritage-listed island of K’gari.
The euthanization program has stirred debate about how to manage the local population of dingoes, a sandy-colored canine believed to have first arrived in Australia 4,000 to 5,000 years ago.
An autopsy conducted on James’ body found evidence “consistent with drowning” but also detected injuries corresponding to dingo bites.
“Pre-mortem dingo bite marks are not likely to have caused immediate death,” said a spokesperson for the Coroners Court of Queensland.
The coroner’s investigation into the cause of death was expected to take several weeks.
In response, the Queensland government said a pack of 10 dingoes involved would be euthanized after rangers had observed some “aggressive behavior.”
Six of the dingoes had already been euthanized, the state’s environment minister, Andrew Powell, told reporters Sunday.
“Obviously, the operation will continue,” he said.
The traditional owners of K’gari, the Butchulla people, said the state’s failure to consult with them before euthanizing the dingoes — or wongari in their language — was “unexpected and disappointing.”
“Once again, it feels as though economic priorities are being placed above the voices of the people and traditional owners, which is frustrating and difficult to accept,” the Butchulla Aboriginal Corporation said in a statement to Australian media this week.
‘You are food’
Wildlife experts said killing the animals was the wrong response and may threaten the island’s dingo population, estimated at just 70-200 animals.
Given their small numbers, killing a pack of 10 animals would harm the population’s genetic diversity, said Mathew Crowther, professor of quantitative conservation biology at the University of Sydney.
“There’s no moral from the dingoes’ point of view. They’re just being wild animals, doing wild things,” Crowther said.
Dingoes tend to lose their fear of people as they interact with tourists, some of whom defy advice against feeding the animals.
“That’s the worst thing you can do to a wild animal,” Crowther said.
“They just relate humans to food, and if you don’t give them food, well, you are food — that’s basically how it is.”
Dingoes are wild, predatory animals and need to be treated with respect, said Bill Bateman, associate professor in the school of molecular and life sciences at Curtin University.
The canines are more likely to attack children or people who are alone, and may be triggered when people turn their backs or run, he said.
“These are important animals, and therefore we need to change the way we deal with them, otherwise we’re just going to keep reacting to these attacks and driving the population of dingoes down,” Bateman said.
Wildlife managers, rangers, Indigenous people and tourism operators need to work together so that humans and dingoes can coexist on the island, he said.
Todd James, the father of Piper, has described on social media how his family’s hearts were “shattered” by her death.
News of the dingoes’ euthanization was “heart-wrenching,” he told Australian media, adding however that he recognized it may be necessary for safety because of the pack’s behavior.
