Mexico tells migrants not to be duped ahead of rule change

AFP :
Mexico urged migrants Friday not to be deceived by people smugglers spreading rumors that they will be able to enter the United States when Covid-19 rules are lifted next week.

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador warned that the smugglers, known as “coyotes,” are tricking undocumented migrants by telling them they will be able to cross the border when Title 42 lapses.

He urged migrants to use legal channels available to them to apply for US visas from their countries of origin instead.
“This will help a lot, so that migration flows do not increase, based on misinformation,” he said.

Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said that migrants were being lured to the US-Mexican border by people smugglers charging thousands of dollars and telling them that they will be able to cross over.

“It’s false. They’re deceiving them,” he said, adding that a “very significant flow” of migrants towards the frontier had been detected.
On May 11, President Joe Biden’s administration will lift Title 42, the strict protocol implemented by previous president Donald Trump to deny entry to migrants and expel asylum seekers based on the Covid pandemic emergency.

Instead, the US administration plans to deter undocumented migrants using another rule called Title 8, which essentially criminalizes illegal border crossings, making future legal residency impossible. Washington says hopeful migrants and asylum seekers must now register for interviews with immigration officials from their own countries, or countries they pass through to reach the border.

On Tuesday, the United States said that it would deploy 1,500 more troops to help provide security at the US-Mexican border in preparation for a possible surge in migrant crossing attempts.

Figures from US Customs and Border Protection show officials had 192,000 “encounters” with migrants at the southern border in March, the last month for which figures are available.