WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S.-Mexico migration agreement reached last week includes a regional asylum plan and Mexico’s commitment to examine and potentially change its laws, according to a copy held up to journalists by President Donald Trump on Tuesday.
The deal lays out “a regional approach to burden-sharing in relation to the processing of refugee status claims to migrants,” the document said. A Reuters photograph of the folded document, taken as Trump held it up, allowed reporters to read parts of it.
The deal averted escalating import tariffs of 5% on Mexican goods, which Trump had vowed to impose unless Mexico did more to curb migration. Trump made curbing illegal immigration a main issue in his 2016 election campaign and his efforts to carry out aspects of that policy have been frustrated.
Mexico and the United States signed the deal on Friday, with Mexico agreeing to take steps here to control the flow of people from Central America, including deploying 6,000 members of a new national guard along its border with Guatemala.
Over the weekend there was no sign here that Mexico had started to harden the border, with migrants and locals crossing a river on rafts in sight of a busy official port of entry.
U.S. authorities say they have been overwhelmed by a shift in the type of migrants turning up at the border. Increasing numbers of Central American families and unaccompanied minors seeking asylum from violence have been turning themselves in to U.S. border agents who have long focused on catching mainly single, adult Mexicans trying to cross.
Reporting by Leah Millis and Makini Brice; writing by Susan Heavey and Grant McCool; Editing by David Gregorio