Mexican troops have doubled detention of migrants heading to US: White House

Mexico has reportedly doubled the detention of migrants after deploying 10,000 troops across the southern border, White House recently said.

Jen Psaki, the White House Press Secretary, on Monday announced the move as US counts on local governments to slow down arrivals at the US border.

Earlier in March, Mexico had began upping its enforcement operations to catch immigrants attempting to leave the country illegally towards the US. In addition, Reuters also reported that Mexico was working to better regulate the movement of people along the border with Guatemala.

Mexico has deployed members of the National Guard along with soldiers from the immigrant office and the navy.

By March 22, Mexico claimed to have 9,000 troops across the border from its defence ministry, its navy and the National Guard stationed across northern and southern borders. A member of the Mexican National Guard had said that the force’s daily arrests had doubled over the last few weeks.

Before Joe Biden took office as US president in January, Guatemalan authorities had stopped a US-bound caravan of migrants. Honduras has done the same to tackle the issue.

White House aide Tyler Moran had said in March that the White House has agreements with Mexico, Honduras, and Guatemala to deploy more troops along their borders.

(With inputs from agencies)