Mexico is voicing opposition to the Trump administration’s controversial plan to send Mexicans seeking asylum in the United States to Guatemala instead.
“It’s a decision that worries us and a decision that we cannot agree with,” the Mexican ambassador to the United States, Martha Barcena, said Tuesday. “This decision was not consulted with us. It is a decision they made with Guatemala.”
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment on whether Trump administration officials consulted Mexico before issuing the directive regarding its citizens. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, when asked about the issue at his morning news conference on Tuesday, said he had “no information” on the matter.
Mexican authorities “will work to offer better options to the Mexicans who could be affected,” the statement said, without providing details. The U.S. began implementing the agreement with Guatemala in November and so far has applied it only to people from Honduras and El Salvador, according to Mena, the Guatemalan official. It has flown 97 asylum seekers to Guatemala City, including 45 on Monday and Tuesday.
Migrant advocates, academics and officials in the United States, Mexico and Guatemala, meanwhile, have denounced the policy. By law, migrants arriving at the border have a right to claim asylum in the United States.Guatemala, as well as its Central American neighbors, has negligible infrastructure to handle asylum applications — despite assurances issued by U.S.
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