Illegal migrants on way to US down 56%: Mexico

Bloomberg

Mexican Foreign Affairs Minister Marcelo Ebrard said that the nation’s strategy to stop undocumented migrants in
response to demands from US President Donald Trump is succeeding and that flows have been cut by 56 percent in three months.
Ebrard, who will head to Washington for meetings at the White House on Tuesday, said that measures including the deployment of more than 25,000 National Guard members to help on migration have reduced illegal flows to about 63,000 people in August from 144,000 in May.
Ebrard said he doesn’t expect Trump to repeat his threat of tariffs given the reduction in arrivals from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. He reiterated that his nation wouldn’t accept a deal sought by the US in June which would require asylum seekers to apply in Mexico before doing so in the US.
A so-called safe-third country agreement like the one Guatemala accepted in July “goes against the interests
of Mexico,” Ebrard told reporters, adding that he couldn’t rule out that the US may ask for it again. “It’s unfair and it’s not equitable.”
Trump warned at the end of May that he’d slap a 5 percent tariff on all imports from Mexico, and then steadily ratchet it up until the government of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador took effective action to stop the flow of people.