“Migrants at the Southern Border will not be allowed into the United States until their claims are individually approved in court,” he tweeted Saturday evening. “All will stay in Mexico.”
The president also renewed a threat to close the U.S.-Mexico border “if for any reason it becomes necessary.”
The tweets came after The Washington Post reported earlier in the day that Mexico’s incoming government has agreed to support the U.S. government’s plan to remake U.S. asylum policy.
The newspaper said the plan, known as “Remain in Mexico”, would require those seeking refuge at the border to stay in Mexico while their cases are processed, potentially terminating the system, which Trump has decried as “Catch and Release” that has generally allowed asylum applicants to wait on U.S. soil.
“For now, we have agreed to this policy of Remain in Mexico,” said Olga Sanchez Cordero, Mexico’s incoming interior minister, who will take office next month, while calling it a “short-term solution” in an interview with the U.S. newspaper.
But her office later issued a statement saying: “There is no agreement of any type between the future federal government of Mexico and that of the United States of America.”
A group of migrants, many of whom say they are fleeing from persecution, poverty and violence in Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador, were making their way through Central America towards the U.S. border for weeks. Many of them want to claim asylum.
Several thousands of migrants, including women and children, are reportedly in the Mexican border city of Tijuana living in a makeshift shelter.
Thousands of U.S. troops have been deployed along the country’s southern border with Mexico to help strengthen border security while offering only engineering, logistic and medical support.
However, Trump said earlier this week that he has given the troops the “OK” to use lethal force against migrants “if they have to.”
