President Trump warned Friday that unless Mexico immediately stops all illegal immigration into the United States, he will shut down the border next week.
The warning via Twitter came as yet another caravan of asylum seekers from Central America headed for the southern frontier.
Trump, urging Congress to act, said Mexico, with strong immigration laws, makes more than $100 billion a year on the United States.
Congress needs to strengthen “weak immigration laws,” he said, and Mexico “must stop illegals from entering the U.S.”
The president declared that if Mexico “doesn’t immediately stop ALL illegal immigration” coming through the southern border, he will close it, or large sections of it, next week.
‘Mother of all caravans’
Mexico, meanwhile, said it is bracing for the possible arrival of the “mother of all caravans.”
The migrants are from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, Interior Secretary Olga Sanchez Cordero said Wednesday, the Associated Press reported.
“We have information that a new caravan is forming in Honduras, that they’re calling ‘the mother of all caravans,’ and they are thinking it could have more than 20,000 people,” he said.
AP said activists are disputing the Mexican official’s claim that the caravan is massive.
Irineo Mujica of Pueblo Sin Fronteras, who has accompanied several caravans, charged the U.S. is using the information to create fear and “there has never been a caravan of the size that Sanchez Cordero mentioned.”
Nevertheless, a caravan of about 2,500 Central Americans and Cubans currently is traveling through Mexico’s southern state of Chiapas, AP reported.
The largest caravan last year had about 7,000 at its peak, although some estimated it reached 10,000.
Catch and release
U.S. Border Patrol centers processing the immigrants are so overwhelmed that officials in Arizona have begun releasing migrant families from their custody into the streets of Yuma, the Arizona Republic reported.
The move follows the decision last week by officials in the Rio Grande Valley in south Texas to release families from their custody.
“U.S. Border Patrol processing centers are not designed to house the current numbers of families and small children that we are encountering,” the Border Patrol’s Yuma sector said in a written statement.
“Due to capacity issues at our stations and the ongoing humanitarian crisis nationwide, Border Patrol has begun identifying detainees for potential release in Yuma with a notice to appear for their immigration hearings.”
If the current trends continue, the United States will add about 1.5 million illegal aliens to the American population by the end of the year, Breitbart News reported
The Department of Homeland Security, through is catch-and-release policy, is projected to release about 434,000 border crossers and illegal aliens into the country by the end of the year.
In addition, up to 500,000 illegal aliens will cross into the U.S. undetected by Border Patrol agents, according to the estimate of Princeton Policy Advisors researcher Steven Kopits.
‘Breaking point’
The U.S. immigration system hit its “breaking point” this week, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s commissioner said Wednesday in a visit to the border with Mexico.
Kevin McAleenan said “CBP is facing an unprecedented humanitarian and border security crisis all along our southwest border — and nowhere has that crisis manifested more acutely than here in El Paso.”
McAleenan said that in the previous two mornings, border officers took more than 12,000 migrants into custody along the border.
“A high number is 4,000 — 6,000 is crisis level,” he said. “Twelve thousand is unprecedented. On Monday, we saw the highest total of apprehensions and encounters in years, with over 4,000 in a single day.”
He said that at the present rate, the Border Patrol will count more than 100,000 apprehensions and encounters with migrants in March, the highest monthly total in more than a decade.
He urged Congress to craft solutions to expedite political asylum claims by migrants from Central American nations.
“The surge numbers are just overwhelming the entire system,” McAleenan said.
Earlier this month, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen warned “the situation at our Southern Border has gone from a crisis, to a national emergency, to a near systemwide meltdown.”
She said 98 percent of illegal aliens caught at the border in 2017 remain in the U.S. today.
Nielsen said a wall is part of the solution, and Congress must change the laws to speed up deportation.
“DHS has built the first border wall to go up in a decade,” she said. “We are building more, and have plans for hundreds of new miles to block illicit goods, illegal entry, and help ensure a safe and orderly migrant flow.”
Islamic terrorism is still the biggest terror threat, she said, adding that her department also is paying attention to right-wing domestic terrorism.
She said the DHS, created 16 years ago, can’t handle all of the threats, emphasizing the “whole of society” must be engaged.
“The ground beneath our feet has shifted. Our enemies and adversaries have evolved. And the arms of government are swinging too slowly to protect the American people,” she said.