Tag Archives: southern U.S. border

Trump threatens tariffs if Mexico does not help with immigration, drugs

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during the "White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council" meeting in the Cabinet room at the White House in Washington, U.S., April 4, 2019. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump threatened on Thursday to put tariffs on cars coming from Mexico into the United States if Mexico does not continue to help Washington deal with the immigration and drug situation along the southern U.S. border.

Trump told reporters at the White House he would put tariffs on cars or close the border, but he said he may start with the tariffs. He also said he would give Mexico a year to try to stop the flow of drugs before putting tariffs in place.

“A lot of good things are happening with Mexico. Mexico understands that we’re going to close the border, or I’m going to tariff the cars,” Trump told reporters at the White House.

Trump said he would “probably start off with the tariffs – that will be a very powerful incentive.”

Trump warned last Friday that he would close the U.S. border with Mexico this week unless Mexico took action to help stop the flow of illegal migrants across the frontier.

Trump said on Thursday that media coverage in recent days has prompted Mexico to take action to curb the flow of immigrants to the United States and take other action to ease the pressure on U.S. ports of entry.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason; Writing by David Alexander; Editing by David Gregorio)

Some 50 members of migrant caravan reach Mexico, U.S. border

Central American migrants, moving in a caravan through Mexico, climb up on a wagon of a freight train before embarking on a new leg of their travels, in Tlaquepaque, in Jalisco state, Mexico April 19, 2018. REUTERS/Edgard Garrido

By Lizbeth Diaz

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – A group of 50 Central American migrants who set out from southern Mexico in late March have reached the U.S. border, having endured the long journey despite threats by President Donald Trump to secure the border with National Guard personnel.

Since peaking at around 1,500 people, the so-called migrant “caravan” has dwindled under pressure from Trump and Mexican migration authorities, who vowed to separate those migrants with a right to stay in Mexico from those who did not.

Some of those migrants began arriving in the Mexican border city of Tijuana on Wednesday and have requested asylum in the United States.

“Since yesterday, some began to cross into the United States to turn themselves in from Tijuana and request asylum. We understand more of (the migrants) will do the same,” said Jose Maria Garcia, director of Juventud 2000, an organization dedicated to assisting migrants.

He said more migrants, many of whom are stranded in Mexico’s central states, are expected to arrive in the coming days.

“We will continue to receive them and it will be up to them if they stay in the country or leave,” Garcia said.

Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala are among the most violent and impoverished countries in the Americas, prompting many people to leave in search of a better life.

Every year, thousands of migrants -especially Central Americans- venture to cross Mexico and reach the United States, often risking their lives along the way.

(Reporting by Lizbeth Diaz; Writing by Anthony Esposito; Editing by Darren Schuettler)

Trump administration approves tougher visa vetting, including social media checks

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection arm patch and badge

By Yeganeh Torbati

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Trump administration has rolled out a new questionnaire for U.S. visa applicants worldwide that asks for social media handles for the last five years and biographical information going back 15 years.

The new questions, part of an effort to tighten vetting of would-be visitors to the United States, was approved on May 23 by the Office of Management and Budget despite criticism from a range of education officials and academic groups during a public comment period.

Critics argued that the new questions would be overly burdensome, lead to long delays in processing and discourage international students and scientists from coming to the United States.

Under the new procedures, consular officials can request all prior passport numbers, five years’ worth of social media handles, email addresses and phone numbers and 15 years of biographical information including addresses, employment and travel history.

Officials will request the additional information when they determine “that such information is required to confirm identity or conduct more rigorous national security vetting,” a State Department official said on Wednesday.

The State Department said earlier the tighter vetting would apply to visa applicants “who have been determined to warrant additional scrutiny in connection with terrorism or other national security-related visa ineligibilities.”

President Donald Trump has vowed to increase national security and border protections, proposing to give more money to the military and make Mexico pay to build a wall along the southern U.S. border.

He has tried to implement a temporary travel ban on people from six Muslim-majority nations that a U.S. appeals court refused to reinstate, calling it discriminatory and setting the stage for a showdown in the Supreme Court.

The Office of Management and Budget granted emergency approval for the new questions for six months, rather than the usual three years.

While the new questions are voluntary, the form says failure to provide the information may delay or prevent the processing of an individual visa application.

Immigration lawyers and advocates say the request for 15 years of detailed biographical information, as well as the expectation that applicants remember all their social media handles, is likely to catch applicants who make innocent mistakes or do not remember all the information requested.

The new questions grant “arbitrary power” to consular officials to determine who gets a visa with no effective check on their decisions, said Babak Yousefzadeh, a San Francisco-based attorney and president of the Iranian American Bar Association.

“The United States has one of the most stringent visa application processes in the world,” Yousefzadeh said. “The need for tightening the application process further is really unknown and unclear.”

(Editing by Sue Horton and Lisa Shumaker)