Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador plans to fulfill a 2018 campaign promise to sell the country’s presidential plane to help fund the country’s efforts to curb entry into, and travel through, the country by Central American immigrants seeking to reach the U.S. border, according to Reuters.
Selling the $150 million Boeing 787 Dreamliner was part of a campaign promise Lopez Obrador made during the presidential campaign, with the proceeds to go to funding a string of welfare programs for the poor and the elderly. There are also 60 government planes and 70 helicopters on sale for the same purpose.
Many Mexicans are none too pleased to learn funds from the sale of the plane bought with $218 million of taxpayer dollars will ultimately be spent on non-Mexicans, and others are worried the plane won’t be sold within 45 days allowed before the migration deal expires.
US-Mexico migration agreement
The agreement between the U.S. and its trade partner, Mexico was reached last week and would end the threat of tariffs on Mexico’s exports to the U.S. Mexico committed to send 6,000 members of the National Guard to the southern border to deter the entry of undocumented migrants and agreed to allow the return of all migrants seeking asylum in the U.S. as they await the outcome of their claims.
Mexico News Daily reports that according to a government official, this means the U.S. will return as many as 50,000 asylum seekers to Mexico in the coming months, a nearly fivefold increase on the number of migrants already returned under the Trump administration’s “Remain in Mexico” policy.
In the joint declaration issued on June 7, the two countries said that “those crossing the U.S. southern border to seek asylum will be rapidly returned to Mexico” and “Mexico will authorize the entrance of all of those individuals for humanitarian reasons.”
Further, the statement also states that Mexico will offer returning migrants “jobs, health care and education according to its principles.” This expanded use of the Remain in Mexico policy implemented by the Trump administration will end up stretching Mexico’s resources to the breaking point.
The director of a migrant shelter in Reynosa, Tamaulipas, this week condemned the new migration pact, stating that already overwhelmed shelters will be unable to cope with the increased number of arrivals from the U.S.
The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said on Wednesday that 593,507 migrants have arrived at the southern U.S. border from Mexico this year, and that asylum applications in Mexico have increased 196 percent.
The influx of migrants into the U.S. has gotten so bad that officials have decided to use Fort Sill in Oklahoma to house as many as 1,400 unaccompanied migrant children. The base was used to house migrant children during Barack Obama’s presidency and during WWII, was used to detain Japanese-Americans.
