Mexico diverted money from development to contain migration

[Judi Lynn]

MARÍA VERZA
, Associated Press
Sep. 8, 2020
Updated: Sep. 8, 2020 10:56 a.m.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Under pressure from the United States to reduce migration, the Mexican government diverted money from a fund intended to spur regional development to instead renovate immigration detention centers and bus migrants away from the U.S.-Mexico border.

According to information obtained by The Associated Press through public records requests, the administration of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador designated more than $4 million from the Mexico Fund last year to immigration containment purposes.

In late May 2019, President Donald Trump threatened devastating tariffs on all Mexican imports unless Mexico acted to contain the flow of migrants crossing its territory. Furious negotiations produced an agreement that averted the crisis. Mexico deployed its newly created National Guard to intercept migrants and agreed to expand a program that allowed the U.S. to make asylum seekers from other countries wait in Mexico while their cases were processed in U.S. courts.

Unnoticed at the time was an adjustment the Mexican government made in June 2019 to its Mexico Fund, which supported development projects in Central America and the Caribbean. In a decree, the government said the fund “required a new vision that allows for better use of resources” and that it could now also be used for the “registration, control and tracking” of immigration flows and equipping detention centers.

More:
https://www.chron.com/news/article/Mexico-diverted-money-from-development-to-contain-15549679.php