(dpa/TBI Africa.com) Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Tuesday denied that his government had toughened its migration policy following the arrest of hundreds of Central American migrants heading for United States.
Mexico does not want migrants to transit freely through its territory because “we have had problems with the killings of migrants’’ in the north of the country, local media quoted the president as saying.
Nearly 400 migrants were arrested near Pijijiapan in southern Chiapas state on Monday.
The migrants formed part of a caravan of at least 2,000 people.
The migration authorities accused them of having attacked migration officials, according to the daily Contexto de Durango and other media.
The detainees, who included women and children, were expected to be deported.
Until this week, Mexico had been tolerant of migrant caravans which have crossed its territory since 2018.
But many Mexicans have started losing patience with the migrants after the United States reassigned border protection officials to deal with a surge in asylum seekers, leading to long queues of vehicles forming on the border.
Lopez Obrador denied that Mexico was changing its migration policy under U.S. pressure. “They would not have liked migration, but it is produced by circumstances of poverty, abandonment’’ in Central America, the daily La Jornada quoted him as saying.
