The Trump administration is moving ahead with a plan to pay Mexico $20 million to deport migrants from that country and prevent them from reaching the U.S. – even after the plan had been halted by top Democrats in Congress and so far dismissed by the Mexican government.
The plan is just the latest by the administration to reduce the number of immigrants crossing the U.S. southern border, including its “zero tolerance” policy where anyone entering illegally would be prosecuted – leading to the infamous separations of children from their parents.
But it’s the push-through – despite the informal “hold” that Democrats put on the transfer – that has outraged Capitol Hill, which has oversight of the State Department and the executive branch’s funds. Congress was notified late Monday night that over the weekend, the administration had transferred the funds.
“You have decided to act contrary to years of practice and precedent, and in a manner that threatens to upend long-standing norms of comity between the Department of State and its oversight committees in Congress,” Democrat Sens. Bob Menendez and Patrick Leahy wrote in a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo this week. Menendez is the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Leahy is the top Demicrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Thousands of Central Americans travel through Mexico to reach the U.S. and either cross the border illegally or apply for asylum from the violence of their home countries. In the first seven months of 2018 alone, 57,000 […]
Read the full story: US moves ahead with plan to give Mexico $20M that it doesn’t want to deport migrants
