But wait hold on to your horses: according to The New York Times, there wasn't a "deal" - the "deal" had already been made months ago; apparently there was plenty of previous knuckling under to the Orange Madman:
- From The New York Times:
Mexico Agreed To Take Border Actions Months Before Trump Announced Tariff Deal
by, Michael D. Shear and Maggie Haberman - 06/08/19
"WASHINGTON
— The deal to avert tariffs that President Trump announced with great
fanfare on Friday night consists largely of actions that Mexico had
already promised to take in prior discussions with the United States
over the past several months, according to officials from both countries
who are familiar with the negotiations.
Friday’s
joint declaration says Mexico agreed to the “deployment of its National
Guard throughout Mexico, giving priority to its southern border.” But
the Mexican government had already pledged to do that in March during
secret talks in Miami between Kirstjen Nielsen, then the secretary of
homeland security, and Olga Sanchez, the Mexican secretary of the
interior, the officials said.
The
centerpiece of Mr. Trump’s deal was an expansion of a program to allow
asylum-seekers to remain in Mexico while their legal cases proceed. But
that arrangement was reached in December in a pair of painstakingly
negotiated diplomatic notes that the two countries exchanged. Ms.
Nielsen announced the Migrant Protection Protocols during a hearing of
the House Judiciary Committee five days before Christmas.
And
over the past week, negotiators failed to persuade Mexico to accept a
“safe third country” treaty that would have given the United States the
legal ability to reject asylum seekers if they had not sought refuge in
Mexico first.
Mr. Trump hailed the agreement anyway on Saturday, writing on Twitter: “Everyone very excited about the new deal with Mexico!” He thanked the president of Mexico for “working so long and hard” on a plan to reduce the surge of migration into the United States.
It
was unclear whether Mr. Trump believed that the agreement truly
represented new and broader concessions, or whether the president
understood the limits of the deal but accepted it as a face-saving way
to escape from the political and economic consequences of imposing tariffs on Mexico, which he began threatening less than two weeks ago.
Having
threatened Mexico with an escalating series of tariffs — starting at 5
percent and growing to 25 percent — the president faced enormous
criticism from global leaders, business executives, Republican and
Democratic lawmakers, and members of his own staff that he risked
disrupting a critical marketplace.
After nine days of uncertainty, Mr. Trump backed down and accepted Mexico’s promises.
Officials
involved with talks said they began in earnest last Sunday, when Kevin
K. McAleenan, the acting secretary of homeland security, met over dinner
with Mexico’s foreign minister. One senior government official, who was
not authorized to speak publicly about the closed-door negotiations
that took place over several days, insisted that the Mexicans agreed to
move faster and more aggressively to deter migrants than they ever have
before.
Their promise to deploy up to 6,000 national guard troops was larger than their previous pledge. And the Mexican agreement to accelerate the Migrant Protection Protocols could help reduce what Mr. Trump calls “catch and release” of migrants in the United States by giving the country a greater ability to make asylum-seekers wait in Mexico.
But there remains deep skepticism among some American officials — and even Mr. Trump himself — about whether the Mexicans have agreed to do enough, whether they will follow through on their promises, and whether, even if they do, that will reduce the flow of migrants at the southwestern border.
In addition, the Migrant Protection Protocols already face legal challenges by immigrant rights groups who say they violate the migrants’ right to lawyers. A federal judge blocked the Trump administration from implementing the plan, but an appeals court later said it could move forward while the legal challenge proceeds.
During a phone call Friday evening when he was briefed on the agreement, Mr. Trump quizzed his lawyers, diplomats and immigration officials about whether they thought the deal would work. His aides said yes, but admitted that they were also realistic that the surge of immigration might continue.
“We’ll see if it works,” the president told them, approving the deal before sending out his tweet announcing it.
On Saturday, Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, said the government looked forward to reducing illegal immigration and making the border “strong and secure” by working with Mexico to fulfill the agreement.
Mr. Trump’s decision to use trade as a bludgeon against Mexico was driven in part by his obsession with stopping what he falsely calls an invasion of the country and in part by a desire to satisfy his core supporters, many of who have grown angry at his inability to build his promised border wall.
Many of his top advisers, including those who oversee his political and economic agendas, were opposed to the tariff threat. But the president’s ire is regularly stoked by the daily reports he receives on how many migrants have crossed the border in the previous 24 hours.
Mr. Trump’s top immigration officials had repeatedly warned the president that results from their work to curb the flow of migrants might not be evident until July, and urged patience.
But that effort became more difficult in May, when the numbers spiked to the highest levels of his presidency. During the week of May 24, 5,800 migrants — the highest ever for one day — crossed on a single day. That was quickly followed by a group of 1,036 migrants who were caught on surveillance cameras crossing the border en masse.
Mr. Trump later tweeted out the video, and the tariff threat soon followed.
Throughout the week’s negotiations, officials on both sides worried about what Mr. Trump would be willing to accept in exchange for pulling back on his tariff threat. That question hung over the talks, which were led one day by Vice President Mike Pence and included Mr. Pompeo and Mr. McAleenan.
Mexican
officials opened the negotiations with the offer to deploy their new
national guard troops against migrants, using a PowerPoint presentation
to show their American counterparts that doing so would be a
breakthrough in their ability to stop migrants from flowing north
through Mexico, often in buses.
In fact, Mexican officials had already made the same promise months earlier when Ms Nielsen met in Miami with Ms. Sanchez and aides to Marcelo Ebrard, the Mexican foreign minister. The purpose of the meeting, according to people familiar with it, was to press the Mexicans to act faster.
In fact, Mexican officials had already made the same promise months earlier when Ms Nielsen met in Miami with Ms. Sanchez and aides to Marcelo Ebrard, the Mexican foreign minister. The purpose of the meeting, according to people familiar with it, was to press the Mexicans to act faster.
Ms. Sanchez also told Ms. Nielsen that the Mexican government’s new
national guard, which had been created just a month earlier to combat
drugs and crime, would be redirected to the border with Guatemala, the
entry point for most of the Central American migrants.
At the time, Ms. Nielsen and the other American negotiators referred to
the Mexican promise as the “third border” plan because the Mexicans
proposed creating a line of troops around the southern part of their
country to keep migrants from moving north.
Mexicans had begun to follow the plan, but not quickly enough for the
Trump administration, which said that only about 1,000 Mexican national
guard troops were in place by May.
Friday’s agreement with Mexico states that the two countries “will
immediately expand” the Migrant Protection Protocols across the entire
southern border. To date, migrants have been returned at only three of
the busiest ports of entry.
But officials familiar with the program said Saturday that the
arrangement struck by the two countries last December always envisioned
that it would expand along the entire border. What kept that from
happening, they said, was the commitment of resources by both countries.
In the United States, migrants must see immigration judges before they
can be sent to wait in Mexico, and a shortage of judges slowed the
process. The Mexican government also dragged its feet on providing the
shelter, health care, job benefits and basic care that would allow the
United States to send the migrants over.
The new deal reiterates that Mexico will provide the “jobs, health care and education” needed to allow the program to expand. But the speed with which the United States can send more migrants to wait in Mexico will still depend on how quickly the government follows through on that promise.
Perhaps the clearest indication that both sides recognize that the deal might prove insufficient is contained in a section of Friday’s agreement titled “Further Action.”
The new deal reiterates that Mexico will provide the “jobs, health care and education” needed to allow the program to expand. But the speed with which the United States can send more migrants to wait in Mexico will still depend on how quickly the government follows through on that promise.
Perhaps the clearest indication that both sides recognize that the deal might prove insufficient is contained in a section of Friday’s agreement titled “Further Action.”
One official familiar with the negotiations said the section was
intended to be a serious warning to the Mexican government that Mr.
Trump would be paying close attention to the daily reports he received
about the number of migrants crossing the border. The official said that
if the numbers failed to change — quickly — the president’s anger would
bring the parties back to the negotiating table.
“The tariff threat is not gone,” the official said. “It’s suspended.”
~~~~~
Thank You, New York Times. Since that report, Trump has blasted the NYTimes as "fake news"....but wait, there's even more...check it out:
- From The New York Times:
by, Peter Baker - 06/09/19
"WASHINGTON — President Trump asserted on Sunday that there were secret, undisclosed elements to his new immigration agreement with Mexico as he sought to deflect criticism that he achieved less than he had claimed with his threat to impose punitive tariffs.
Mr. Trump insisted that Mexico had agreed to take significant actions to
stem the flow of migrants at the border with the United States that it
had not previously taken and that some of them had yet to be revealed.
But he vowed to revive his plan to place tariffs on imports if Mexico
does not follow through.
“We have been trying to get some of these Border Actions for a long
time, as have other administrations, but were not able to get them, or
get them in full, until our signed agreement with Mexico,” the president
wrote on Twitter.
“Importantly, some things not mentioned in yesterday press release, one
in particular, were agreed upon. That will be announced at the
appropriate time.”
Mr. Trump’s tweets came as he assailed The New York Times over a report
that the deal that he announced with such fanfare on Friday night
consisted largely of actions that Mexico had previously agreed to take in prior discussions. “Another false report in the Failing @nytimes,” Mr. Trump wrote.
The Times issued a statement standing by its article. “We are confident
in our reporting, and as with so many other occasions, our stories stand
up over time and the president’s denials of them do not,” the statement said.
The idea that the agreement included secret provisions could once again
roil relations between the two countries, which have been fraught since
Mr. Trump took office. Angry that the number of apprehensions at the
border has soared to the highest level in 13 years, Mr. Trump threatened
at the end of May to impose tariffs on all Mexican imports starting on
Monday and escalating up to 25 percent. He called off the tariffs on Friday night after securing the agreement by Mexico to do more to stop the flow.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico was already under
pressure at home not to cave in to what critics called the bullying
tactics of a bombastic American leader. As it was, some critics were
accusing him of building Mr. Trump’s border wall but on Mexico’s own
southern border with its own troops. The suggestion that Mr. López
Obrador made additional concessions that have not been disclosed could
increase domestic pressure on his government.
Mr. Trump did not elaborate on what secret provisions he was referring
to, and the White House did not respond to requests for clarification on
Sunday. He may have been hinting at a “safe third country” treaty that
the administration has long sought but failed to secure with Mexico.
Under such a treaty, migrants entering Mexico would have to apply for
asylum there. The United States would then have the legal ability to
reject asylum seekers who tried to enter the country if they had not
sought refuge in Mexico first.
But officials from both countries said the two sides reached no
commitment on such a treaty, and they said the provisions that were
included in the deal were essentially reaffirmations of actions Mexico
had already agreed to in previous discussions. American officials argued
privately that the value of the agreement may be greater dedication by
Mexico to actually follow through on such commitments to avoid another
threat of tariffs by Mr. Trump.
Kevin K.
McAleenan, the acting secretary of homeland security, said the agreement
did advance Mexico’s commitment to fighting border crossings beyond
previous discussions, citing in particular a promise to deploy a newly
formed national guard to its own southern border as well as elsewhere in
the country.
“All of it is new,” Mr.
McAleenan said on “Fox News Sunday.” “I mean, we’ve heard commitments
before from Mexico to do more on their southern border. The last time
they deployed down there is about four or five hundred officers. This is
more than a tenfold commitment to increase their security in Chiapas.
That’s where people are entering from Guatemala and southern Mexico.”
Mr.
McAleenan did not explain Mr. Trump’s tweets except to say that the two
countries would continue to talk about what they could do to combat
illegal immigration. “There are going to be further actions, further
dialogue with Mexico in immigration, on how to manage the asylum flow in
the region,” he said.
While critics
questioned the value of the deal after Mr. Trump called off the new
tariffs, Mr. McAleenan said the threat made a difference. “People can
disagree with the tactics,” he said. “Mexico came to the table with real
proposals.”
But the two sides
offered divergent descriptions of what would count as success. Mr.
McAleenan said Mexico’s actions had to result in “a vast reduction in
those numbers” of people crossing the border, which reached a 13-year high
in May. But Mexico’s ambassador said the goal was to have the numbers
“go down like to previous levels that we had maybe last year or in
2018.”
Ambassador Martha Bárcena
Coqui said Mexico had already been deploying its national guard but
would increase it starting on Monday. She described the agreement as
less concrete and more of a start to a more precise accord.
“It’s a joint declaration of principles, which is the base that gives us the base for the road map that we have to follow in the incoming months on immigration and cooperation on asylum issues and development in Central America,” she said on “Face the Nation” on CBS.
“It’s a joint declaration of principles, which is the base that gives us the base for the road map that we have to follow in the incoming months on immigration and cooperation on asylum issues and development in Central America,” she said on “Face the Nation” on CBS.
She
suggested there could be elements that had yet to be publicly
disclosed. “I think there are a lot of the details that we discussed
during the negotiations and during the conversations that we didn’t put
in the declaration because this is different — different paths that we
are to follow,” she said.
The
president’s opposition said Mr. Trump had little credibility in claiming
a great victory. “In February, @realDonaldTrump declared a bogus
emergency to build a wall he said will ‘solve’ immigration,” Senator
Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, wrote on Twitter.
“Then he made a bogus tariff threat even GOP in Congress rejected Now
he claims a bogus ‘deal’ Mexico volunteered to do months ago Common
thread? All bogus.”
In his own tweets
on Sunday, Mr. Trump threatened to turn to tariffs again if Mexico did
not live up to the agreement and reduce the flow of migrants at the
border. He also attacked The Times and CNN for their reporting on the
agreement. “The Failing @nytimes, & ratings challenged @CNN, will do
anything possible to see our Country fail!” he wrote. “They are truly The Enemy of the People!”
In its statement, The Times responded that “calling the press the enemy is undemocratic and dangerous.”
Undaunted, Mr. Trump repeated his claim
in another tweet on Sunday evening: “The Failing @nytimes story on
Mexico and Illegal Immigration through our Southern Border has now been
proven shockingly false and untrue, bad reporting, and the paper is
embarrassed by it. The only problem is that they knew it was Fake News
before it went out. Corrupt Media!”
Mr. Trump has repeatedly denied stories in The Times that were later confirmed as true. Just last week, he assailed The Times and CNN for reporting that he called Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, “nasty” despite a recording where he was clearly heard using the word.
Last year, he posted on Twitter a distorted version of a meeting he had with A.G. Sulzberger, the publisher of The Times.
Most notably, he tried to get his White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, to draft a memo falsely denying a Times report that the president had told him to fire Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, according to the report by Mr. Mueller.
~~~~~~~~
Thank You uno mas tiempo New York Times. So, last night I asked Mike, "Who do you believe, Trump or the New York Times? " He answered: "Anyone who believes Trump is a fucking idiot." It is fair to say and being the nasty woman that I am, we're going with the Times. (;
- Update/Edit 06/11: More Trump Lies - so what's new? Oh, guess what no secret Immigration Deal Exists ! No special BS Agriculture deal exists !!
- From MSN/The New York Times
No Secret Immigration Deal Exists With U.S., Mexico's Foreign Minister Says
by, Micheal D. Shear and Maggie Haberman
" WASHINGTON — The Mexican foreign minister said Monday that no secret immigration deal existed between his country and the United States, directly contradicting President Trump’s claim on Twitter that a “fully signed and documented” agreement would soon be revealed.
Marcelo Ebrard, Mexico’s top diplomat, said at a news conference in Mexico City that there was an understanding that both sides would evaluate the flow of migrants in the coming months. If the number of migrants crossing the United States border is not significantly reduced, he said, both sides have agreed to renew discussions about more aggressive changes to regional asylum rules that could have a bigger effect.
“Let’s have a deadline to see if what we have works, and if not, then we will sit down and look at the measures you propose and those that we propose,” Mr. Ebrard said, describing the understanding reached by negotiators last week.
The public statement served as an official response to several days of tweeting by Mr. Trump, who has reacted angrily to the suggestion that he withdrew his threat of tariffs on all Mexican goods in exchange for a weak deal on immigration.
Mr. Trump has insisted that the agreement reached with Mexico on Friday evening is a strong one, rejecting criticism that it largely called upon the Mexicans to take actions to reduce the flow of immigration that they had already agreed to months earlier.
In a Twitter post on Monday morning, he said, “We have fully signed and documented another very important part of the Immigration and Security deal with Mexico, one that the U.S. has been asking about getting for many years. It will be revealed in the not too distant future and will need a vote by Mexico’s Legislative body!”
American officials said Monday that what Mr. Trump appeared to be referring to was the agreement in principle to revisit the migration situation, and they said it gave the United States strong leverage over Mexico to live up to its promises. The numbers will be reviewed in 45 days and again in 90 days, officials said.
The “U.S.-Mexico Joint Declaration” that Mr. Trump announced with fanfare on Friday did include a mention of possible “further action.” It said the two countries agreed to “continue their discussions on the terms of additional understandings to address irregular migrant flows and asylum issues, to be completed and announced within 90 days, if necessary.”
One idea that Washington has proposed for years is a “safe third country” arrangement in which migrants who flee persecution in Central American countries would first have to apply for asylum in Mexico. Those who do not could be turned away if they seek refuge in the United States. Mexico has long opposed the idea.
But there appeared to be a significant disagreement on Monday between the Mexican government and American officials about what the negotiators actually agreed to regarding further action and the possibility of implementing a “safe third country” arrangement.
Administration officials characterized the Mexicans as having all but agreed to asylum changes that would effectively mimic the benefits of “safe third country” as long as it was done regionally, including countries like Guatemala.
Mr. Trump did not specifically mention the idea, but said Monday that “we have an agreement on something they will announce very soon. It’s all done.”
But that was not the understanding described by Mr. Ebrard at his Monday news conference. He told reporters only that Mexican officials would discuss changing asylum rules if the flow of migrants was not substantially reduced in the next several months.
“They will propose safe third country,” Mr. Ebrard said, describing what he expects would be the United States position in any future discussions. “We said it will have to be with the U.N.H.C.R., it will have to be regional,” he said, referring to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Mr. Ebrard said Mexico preferred a regional asylum agreement that would review the flow of migrants across Mexico and Central America, with a number of countries, including Panama and Brazil.
But Mr. Ebrard said any agreement on the asylum changes would have to be negotiated and then approved by the Mexican Senate before it could go into effect. He said the agreement announced Friday effectively delayed that discussion, giving Mexico time to prove to Mr. Trump that it would help reduce the flow of immigration that has so infuriated him since the beginning of his presidency.
Mr. Ebrard also denied that there was an agreement reached on Mexico purchasing additional agricultural goods from the United States, rejecting a claim Mr. Trump made twice on Twitter.
The deal Mr. Trump announced on Friday included two main provisions that he said would slash the number of immigrants flowing into the United States.
One of those was a promise by the Mexicans to deploy their newly constituted national guard to the border with Guatemala. Mexico had agreed to do that in March, but officials said the Mexican government agreed to send more troops more quickly last week.
The other provision in Friday’s agreement was an expansion of a plan to allow the United States to force asylum seekers to remain in Mexico while their legal case proceeds. The declaration said that “this means that those crossing the U.S. southern border to seek asylum will be rapidly returned to Mexico, where they may await the adjudication of their asylum claims.”
A person close to Mr. Trump said Monday that the new agreement was broader than a deal called the Migrant Protection Protocols, which the United States reached with Mexico in December, arguing that the older deal was merely a pilot program at three ports of entry.
But that is not the way Kirstjen Nielsen, the homeland security secretary at the time, described that deal when she announced it at a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Dec. 20.
“Today, I am announcing historic measures to bring the situation under control,” Ms. Nielsen said, telling lawmakers that under the agreement, the United States had the authority to send asylum seekers to Mexico to wait while their cases are processed.
“I cannot overstate the significance of these developments. We are taking lawful, unilateral action to stop illegal entry now,” Ms. Nielsen said at the hearing. “Our two countries have committed to a major regional plan to solve this crisis.”
In a four-page “ACTION” memo to her top deputies on Jan. 25, Ms. Nielsen directed the Border Patrol and other agencies to implement the agreement. She did not describe it as a pilot program and made no mention of any limitations on where asylum seekers could be made to wait in Mexico.
[Read Kirstjen Nielsen’s January memo.]
That same month, Mexican officials said publicly that they had agreed to begin taking some asylum seekers at the Tijuana crossing from the United States, leaving it ambiguous about how quickly the program would expand to other parts of the border.
The program’s speed soon became a source of tension between the two countries, with American officials demanding to move more quickly and the Mexican government arguing that it was not ready for such an acceleration.
A federal judge in the United States briefly made the disagreement moot when he suspended the program after it briefly went into effect. But after an appeals court reversed that order at the beginning of May, the United States began quickly forcing asylum seekers to wait in Mexico.
There are about 10,000 migrants waiting in Mexico for their asylum cases to be processed. But with 144,000 migrants crossing the southern border illegally or without documentation in May alone, the program has been overwhelmed.
In a brief news conference on Monday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo insisted that the new agreement with Mexico was more substantial than the one Ms. Nielsen negotiated.
“The scale, the effort, the commitment here is very different from what we were able to achieve back in December,” Mr. Pompeo told reporters. “It’s a fundamentally different commitment about doing this across the entire border at scale.”
Asked about whether there were any other agreements with Mexico that had not been revealed, Mr. Pompeo said: “There were a number of commitments made. I can’t go into them in detail here.”
~~~~~
Finally stay tuned to The Intercept's coverage of.....
The War On Immigrants
Of course...
Democracy Now !
~ Added bonus to the Update/Edit, more videos ! So one of my neighbors told me he had a really cool video of Bo Diddley and one of Trump which should put a smile on your face I hope... won't be back for a few days.....let's face it, if I blogged all the Trump lies I would be down here forever and really not have a life, so I'll probably miss some (I mean a lot) but will return with the local drug war events as promised.
end edit
Bonus Videos From One Of My Neighbors ! ~~~~~ LMFAO !!
- Update/Edit 06/11: More Trump Lies - so what's new? Oh, guess what no secret Immigration Deal Exists ! No special BS Agriculture deal exists !!
- From MSN/The New York Times
No Secret Immigration Deal Exists With U.S., Mexico's Foreign Minister Says
by, Micheal D. Shear and Maggie Haberman
" WASHINGTON — The Mexican foreign minister said Monday that no secret immigration deal existed between his country and the United States, directly contradicting President Trump’s claim on Twitter that a “fully signed and documented” agreement would soon be revealed.
Marcelo Ebrard, Mexico’s top diplomat, said at a news conference in Mexico City that there was an understanding that both sides would evaluate the flow of migrants in the coming months. If the number of migrants crossing the United States border is not significantly reduced, he said, both sides have agreed to renew discussions about more aggressive changes to regional asylum rules that could have a bigger effect.
“Let’s have a deadline to see if what we have works, and if not, then we will sit down and look at the measures you propose and those that we propose,” Mr. Ebrard said, describing the understanding reached by negotiators last week.
The public statement served as an official response to several days of tweeting by Mr. Trump, who has reacted angrily to the suggestion that he withdrew his threat of tariffs on all Mexican goods in exchange for a weak deal on immigration.
Mr. Trump has insisted that the agreement reached with Mexico on Friday evening is a strong one, rejecting criticism that it largely called upon the Mexicans to take actions to reduce the flow of immigration that they had already agreed to months earlier.
In a Twitter post on Monday morning, he said, “We have fully signed and documented another very important part of the Immigration and Security deal with Mexico, one that the U.S. has been asking about getting for many years. It will be revealed in the not too distant future and will need a vote by Mexico’s Legislative body!”
American officials said Monday that what Mr. Trump appeared to be referring to was the agreement in principle to revisit the migration situation, and they said it gave the United States strong leverage over Mexico to live up to its promises. The numbers will be reviewed in 45 days and again in 90 days, officials said.
The “U.S.-Mexico Joint Declaration” that Mr. Trump announced with fanfare on Friday did include a mention of possible “further action.” It said the two countries agreed to “continue their discussions on the terms of additional understandings to address irregular migrant flows and asylum issues, to be completed and announced within 90 days, if necessary.”
One idea that Washington has proposed for years is a “safe third country” arrangement in which migrants who flee persecution in Central American countries would first have to apply for asylum in Mexico. Those who do not could be turned away if they seek refuge in the United States. Mexico has long opposed the idea.
But there appeared to be a significant disagreement on Monday between the Mexican government and American officials about what the negotiators actually agreed to regarding further action and the possibility of implementing a “safe third country” arrangement.
Administration officials characterized the Mexicans as having all but agreed to asylum changes that would effectively mimic the benefits of “safe third country” as long as it was done regionally, including countries like Guatemala.
Mr. Trump did not specifically mention the idea, but said Monday that “we have an agreement on something they will announce very soon. It’s all done.”
But that was not the understanding described by Mr. Ebrard at his Monday news conference. He told reporters only that Mexican officials would discuss changing asylum rules if the flow of migrants was not substantially reduced in the next several months.
“They will propose safe third country,” Mr. Ebrard said, describing what he expects would be the United States position in any future discussions. “We said it will have to be with the U.N.H.C.R., it will have to be regional,” he said, referring to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Mr. Ebrard said Mexico preferred a regional asylum agreement that would review the flow of migrants across Mexico and Central America, with a number of countries, including Panama and Brazil.
But Mr. Ebrard said any agreement on the asylum changes would have to be negotiated and then approved by the Mexican Senate before it could go into effect. He said the agreement announced Friday effectively delayed that discussion, giving Mexico time to prove to Mr. Trump that it would help reduce the flow of immigration that has so infuriated him since the beginning of his presidency.
Mr. Ebrard also denied that there was an agreement reached on Mexico purchasing additional agricultural goods from the United States, rejecting a claim Mr. Trump made twice on Twitter.
The deal Mr. Trump announced on Friday included two main provisions that he said would slash the number of immigrants flowing into the United States.
One of those was a promise by the Mexicans to deploy their newly constituted national guard to the border with Guatemala. Mexico had agreed to do that in March, but officials said the Mexican government agreed to send more troops more quickly last week.
The other provision in Friday’s agreement was an expansion of a plan to allow the United States to force asylum seekers to remain in Mexico while their legal case proceeds. The declaration said that “this means that those crossing the U.S. southern border to seek asylum will be rapidly returned to Mexico, where they may await the adjudication of their asylum claims.”
A person close to Mr. Trump said Monday that the new agreement was broader than a deal called the Migrant Protection Protocols, which the United States reached with Mexico in December, arguing that the older deal was merely a pilot program at three ports of entry.
But that is not the way Kirstjen Nielsen, the homeland security secretary at the time, described that deal when she announced it at a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Dec. 20.
“Today, I am announcing historic measures to bring the situation under control,” Ms. Nielsen said, telling lawmakers that under the agreement, the United States had the authority to send asylum seekers to Mexico to wait while their cases are processed.
“I cannot overstate the significance of these developments. We are taking lawful, unilateral action to stop illegal entry now,” Ms. Nielsen said at the hearing. “Our two countries have committed to a major regional plan to solve this crisis.”
In a four-page “ACTION” memo to her top deputies on Jan. 25, Ms. Nielsen directed the Border Patrol and other agencies to implement the agreement. She did not describe it as a pilot program and made no mention of any limitations on where asylum seekers could be made to wait in Mexico.
[Read Kirstjen Nielsen’s January memo.]
That same month, Mexican officials said publicly that they had agreed to begin taking some asylum seekers at the Tijuana crossing from the United States, leaving it ambiguous about how quickly the program would expand to other parts of the border.
The program’s speed soon became a source of tension between the two countries, with American officials demanding to move more quickly and the Mexican government arguing that it was not ready for such an acceleration.
A federal judge in the United States briefly made the disagreement moot when he suspended the program after it briefly went into effect. But after an appeals court reversed that order at the beginning of May, the United States began quickly forcing asylum seekers to wait in Mexico.
There are about 10,000 migrants waiting in Mexico for their asylum cases to be processed. But with 144,000 migrants crossing the southern border illegally or without documentation in May alone, the program has been overwhelmed.
In a brief news conference on Monday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo insisted that the new agreement with Mexico was more substantial than the one Ms. Nielsen negotiated.
“The scale, the effort, the commitment here is very different from what we were able to achieve back in December,” Mr. Pompeo told reporters. “It’s a fundamentally different commitment about doing this across the entire border at scale.”
Asked about whether there were any other agreements with Mexico that had not been revealed, Mr. Pompeo said: “There were a number of commitments made. I can’t go into them in detail here.”
Michael
D. Shear reported from Washington, and Maggie Haberman from New York.
Edward Wong contributed reporting from Washington, and Elisabeth Malkin
and Kirk Semple from Mexico City.
~~~~~
Finally stay tuned to The Intercept's coverage of.....
The War On Immigrants
Of course...
Democracy Now !
~ Added bonus to the Update/Edit, more videos ! So one of my neighbors told me he had a really cool video of Bo Diddley and one of Trump which should put a smile on your face I hope... won't be back for a few days.....let's face it, if I blogged all the Trump lies I would be down here forever and really not have a life, so I'll probably miss some (I mean a lot) but will return with the local drug war events as promised.
end edit
Bonus Videos From One Of My Neighbors ! ~~~~~ LMFAO !!
