Trump Binds Mexico

Published in El Pais
(Spain) on 13 September 2019
by (link to originallink to original)
Translated from by Brandee McGee. Edited by Laurence Bouvard.
The U.S. Supreme Court decision to support the immigration policy of Donald Trump, whose administration could establish a new rule that restricts the conditions for asylum application, even making it impossible for many Central Americans, does not only signify a triumph of Trump’s intransigence toward immigration. It also serves to demonstrate the fragility that Mexico has remained exposed to in the face of unilateral decisions made by the president of the United States, turning it into a sort of immigration police for the occupier of the White House.

The new rule affects this Latin American country directly, because all asylum seekers who have passed through its territory will not be able to seek protection on United States territory unless they have been turned down by the Mexican government or by another country’s government. This new measure signifies, in practice, a padlock on the door to the United States for hundreds of thousands of Central Americans who, for the most part, flee from violence and poverty. Hondurans and Salvadorans would have to seek asylum in Guatemala and Mexico; Guatemalans, on their part, would do it in Mexico.

Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s administration has lamented the verdict of the highest U.S. judicial authority, but the rebuttal has been extremely lukewarm, like all moves that the government has made in the past three months, ever since Trump threatened to impose a 5% tariff on Mexican products. The fragility of the economy, which narrowly avoided recession in the first half of the year, has required López Obrador to dodge, at whatever price and against his own beliefs, any trade confrontation with the United States. This has, it’s true, given him the approval of the business class, which is confronting other issues with the president.

The new Mexican president started his six-year term with an open door policy toward Central American immigrants and promoted a kind of Marshall Plan, which would require economic support of the United States. All that has been blurred with each passing month. Mexico has subjected its immigration policy to the interests of one Donald Trump who, in the middle of his re-election campaign, has given no sign that he would hesitate, when the time comes, to go back to criticizing his neighbor to the south if that is what his interests require. Each time the focus on Central American immigrants in Mexico gets stronger, all alarms go off. There is a stronger rejection of the immigrant population each time and xenophobic incidents reoccur with increased regularity. The vulnerability that the immigrants remain exposed to, thanks to the organized crime mafias in a country with a serious security crisis, deserves an even more forceful rejection.


La decisión del Tribunal Supremo de Estados Unidos de respaldar la política migratoria de Donald Trump, cuyo Gobierno podrá aplicar una nueva normativa que restringe las condiciones de solicitud de asilo, hasta hacerlas casi imposibles para muchos centroamericanos, no solo supone un triunfo de la intransigencia de Trump respecto a la migración. También vuelve a evidenciar la fragilidad a la que ha quedado expuesto México ante las decisiones unilaterales del presidente de Estados Unidos, convirtiéndose en una suerte de policía migratoria del inquilino de la Casa Blanca.

La normativa afecta de forma directa al país latinoamericano, porque todos los solicitantes de asilo que hayan pasado por su territorio no podrían pedir protección en suelo estadounidense, a menos que hayan sido rechazados por el Gobierno mexicano o por el de otro país. Esta nueva medida supone, en la práctica, un candado en la puerta de Estados Unidos para cientos de miles de centroamericanos que huyen, en su gran mayoría, de la violencia y la pobreza. Hondureños y salvadoreños tendrían que pedir asilo en Guatemala y México; los guatemaltecos, por su parte, lo harían en México.

El Gobierno de Andrés Manuel López Obrador ha lamentado el fallo de la mayor autoridad judicial estadounidense, pero el rechazo ha sido sumamente tibio, como todos los movimientos que ha dado el Ejecutivo desde que hace tres meses Trump amenazó con imponer un arancel del 5% a los productos mexicanos. La fragilidad de la economía, que ha sorteado por poco la recesión en el primer semestre del año, ha obligado a López Obrador a esquivar, al precio que sea y contra sus propias creencias, cualquier enfrentamiento comercial con Estados Unidos, lo que, es cierto, le ha generado el visto bueno de la clase empresarial, enfrentada en otros asuntos al mandatario.

El nuevo presidente de México inició su sexenio con una política de puertas abiertas hacia los migrantes centroamericanos e impulsó una suerte de Plan Marshall, que requería del apoyo económico de Estados Unidos. Todo eso se ha esfumado con los meses. México ha supeditado su política migratoria a los intereses de un Donald Trump que, en plena campaña por la reelección, no ha dado visos de que vaya a titubear a la hora de volver a criticar al vecino del sur si así lo requieren sus intereses. La concentración cada vez mayor de migrantes centroamericanos en territorio mexicano dispara todas las alarmas. El rechazo de la población a la inmigración es cada vez mayor y los brotes xenófobos se reproducen con más asiduidad. La vulnerabilidad a la que quedan expuestos los migrantes, a merced de las mafias del crimen organizado en un país con una grave crisis de inseguridad, merece un rechazo más contundente.
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