Trump’s Best Means for Stopping Migrants Is Mexico’s Government. Mexican leader cracks down on caravans from Guatemala, fueling criticism at home, praise in U.S.

Wall Street Journal ^ | January 24, 2020 | José de Córdoba and Juan Montes

[karpov]

MEXICO CITY—Three years after President Trump vowed to build a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico to stop illegal immigrants, a much more effective obstacle has emerged: Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

Earlier this week, Mexico deployed hundreds of troops from its new National Guard to halt a caravan of some 2,000 Central American migrants who crossed a shallow river on Guatemala’s border with Mexico seeking to make their way to the U.S. Mexican television broadcast video of the guardsmen using plastic shields and tear gas to break up the migrant caravan.

On Thursday, a phalanx of guardsmen disbanded a group of some 800 migrants who had entered Mexico undetected and were advancing north. Video images posted on Twitter showed the federal agents stomping in lockstep toward the migrants. They pushed back the migrants with their plastic shields and encircled them using pepper spray amid shoving and yelling.

Most of the migrants in the caravan have been arrested and sent to crowded detention facilities, from where most of them will be deported to their home countries, a Mexican immigration official said.

The televised images brought home to Mexicans what a growing number of them see as an uncomfortable truth about Mr. López Obrador, who last month completed his first year in office. The charismatic, silver-haired leftist nationalist, once a passionate critic of Mr. Trump, has now become the main enforcer of his anti-immigration policies.

Most Mexicans agree that the country’s immigration laws must be enforced. But the contrast between Mr. López Obrador’s once-welcoming rhetoric and the harshness of his response in recent months has prompted a barrage of criticism, including some from members of the president’s party.

“Trump has built his wall, and Mexico is paying for it,” former Foreign Minister Jorge Castañeda said.

[Pearls Before Swine]

Mexico enforcement—should be done, convenient for us given our governmental paralysis, but we shouldn’t have to depend on them nor should we have to club them economically.

[HartleyMBaldwin]

Hmmm, national guard stopping illegal alien invaders at the border. What a concept. Perhaps we could learn something from Mexico.

[canuck_conservative]

Mexico’s President understands one simple truth: if the US border ever gets shut down, even for a day or two, the Mexican economy is hooped.

Why? Mexico exports a lot of produce, that depends on rapid delivery. If it’s held, it spoils and everything is ruined - making it unsellable. Similarly, a lot of Mexico’s manufacturing facilities - especially cars - depend on just-in-time deliveries to keep operating. If the J-I-T flow is interrupted, the whole manufacturing process is totally hooped, and for a lot longer than just a few days.

So considering all that, it would be idiotic NOT to do what the US wants. Big Media & Mexican politicians can whine all they want about crackdowns, there’s much bigger forces at work here