MEXICO CITY, Jan 18 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador offered 4,000 jobs to migrants in a new caravan currently crossing Central America toward the United States.
“We have more than 4,000 jobs along our southern border, and also migrant shelters. There is work in our country,” he leader said at his daily news conference.
The caravan, which formed in Honduras this week and is making its way across Guatemala, currently has around 3,000 migrants, Lopez Obrador said.
Mexico has come under pressure from President Donald Trump to slow a surge of undocumented migrants who arrived at the US-Mexican border last year.
Trump threatened in May to impose tariffs on Mexico if the government did not do more to stop them.
Cornered, Lopez Obrador’s administration deployed 27,000 National Guardsmen to tighten its borders and has allowed the United States to send more than 40,000 asylum-seekers back to Mexico while their cases are processed, under the so-called “Remain in Mexico” policy.
Tens of thousands of Central American migrants crossed Mexico toward the United States last year in large caravans, fleeing chronic poverty and brutal gang violence and seeking safety in numbers from the dangers of the journey.
That prompted Trump to warn of an “invasion” and deploy nearly 6,000 US troops to the border.
Lopez Obrador said the caravan has between 2,500 and 3,000 migrants from Honduras and El Salvador. Mexico, he said, has plenty of jobs available for them in the southern border region between the country and Guatemala.
“There is a way for them to have work. My ideal is full employment – work for everyone… and the right to work guaranteed,” he said.
He did not specify what the jobs were, but he said the positions would also be available to Mexican nationals.
Mexico has cracked down on the flow of migration to the United States since Trump threatened tariffs in May.
In September, the Mexican government announced it had cut migration to the US by about 56%.
This is the first caravan of the new year. — NNN-AGENCIESh