Trump will send dozens of agents to the Guatemalan border with Mexico

Donald Trump’s government will send dozens of agents to Guatemala’s northern border with Mexico to help local authorities stop the Central American migration to the United States, the Washington Post reported on Friday.

The agents, about 80, according to sources consulted by the capital’s newspaper, will advise the Guatemalan immigration and police authorities to combat human trafficking networks, in a plan agreed between the Trump and Jimmy Morales governments that is not yet public.

The acting secretary of National Security, Kevin McAleenan, was this week in Guatemala City, where according to the Post he closed the agreement with the Morales government.

The deployment will be concentrated in the department of Huehuetenango, which borders Chiapas (Mexico), where the Pan-American highway passes and where a large part of the migratory flow crosses between the two countries.

The border town of La Mesilla, in Huehuetenango, is for many the point from which they cross into Mexico.

Huehuetenango is, in fact, one of the focal points of the migratory flow and its municipalities have lost a large part of their population in recent months.

The Government’s objective is to prevent immigrants from entering Mexico so that they can not reach their own border, which has been experiencing a crisis for months due to the growing migratory flow, mostly Central American families seeking asylum.

In April were detained at the US-Mexico border 98,977 migrants and in March 92,831, figure unprecedented in the last decade that has led US border and immigration authorities to recognize that they are overflowing.

This Wednesday, without going any further, crossed the sector of El Paso,Texas, a group of 1,036 immigrants, the largest ever intercepted at the border.

According to official data, since the beginning of the fiscal year 2019 in October, the border has crossed the border more than half a million immigrants, a figure that exceeds all of all previous years since 2009 and that if this trend continues, it will reach one million people. Complete the 12 months.

Trump announced on Thursday the imposition of tariffs on all products from Mexico that will start at 5% in June and gradually increase to 25% in October as punishment precisely for the increasing migratory flow at the border.

The United States said it would only eliminate tariffs if it sees a significant reduction in the flow and urged Mexico to take action, especially on its border with Guatemala.