A look at President Trump’s efforts to halt the flow of Central American migrants on the southern border.
President Trump has called for imposing tariffs on Mexico, the administration’s latest attempt to slow the stream of migrant families who have been arriving at the southwest border by the thousands each day.
It is just the latest move by the president to rein in illegal immigration after a series of executive orders, regulations, ramped-up border security and diplomatic threats have failed to dissuade Central Americans, mostly fleeing poverty and violence, from journeying north. In fact, migrant families have continued to arrive in unprecedented numbers.
Nearly 110,000 people were apprehended at or near the border last month, the largest number since 2007. On Wednesday alone, the Border Patrol in El Paso encountered a group of 1,036 migrants, the largest single group ever.
Since his days on the campaign trail, the president has made unauthorized immigration central to his agenda, framing it as a threat to national security that creates unfair competition for American workers. Thursday’s announcement that the government would impose across-the-board tariffs on Mexico until that country made significant reductions in the number of people entering the United States prompted a number of warnings: that it would impede manufacturing supply chains, jeopardize a new North American trade agreement, and impede cooperation with Mexico over immigration issues.
The bigger question — will it work — is unknowable for now. What is more clear is that little else has worked so far — in some cases because the administration’s initiatives are so constitutionally questionable that they have been blocked by the courts and not been given a chance to work.
Here’s a look at some of the policies that the administration has tried to carry out.
In July 2017, the Department of Homeland Security undertook an experimental program in the El Paso area under which it filed criminal charges against all adults illegally crossing the border and sent their children sent to government shelters.
It was effective: By October, the last month of the trial program, the number of families apprehended had dropped by nearly two-thirds. That perceived success set the stage for a national rollout of the policy the following year, which would become known as the zero-tolerance program.
The attorney general announced on May 7,2018, that all illegal border crossers would be referred for prosecution, prompting the forced separation of thousands of families. The practice was met with public outrage, and lasted until the president issued an executive order ending it on June 20. Afterward, the number of migrant families arriving at the border continued to increase.
Mr. Trump threatened in March to close all or part of the border with Mexico if the neighboring country did not “immediately” stop the flow of migrants passing through its territory to reach the United States.
“If Mexico does not immediately stop ALL the illegal immigration that enters the United States through our southern border, I will be CLOSING the border, or large sections of the border, next week,” the president said on Twitter.
