Trump-Mexico Deals Have ‘Huge’ Impact Stopping Caravans, Says New Border Patrol Deputy Chief

Agreements made by the Trump Administration and Mexico regarding immigration, asylum, and border security made a significant impact on stopping the recent Honduran migrant caravan, says the incoming deputy chief of the U.S. Border Patrol.

“What Mexico is doing on their southern border is having a huge impact on the entire [U.S.] southwest border,” Del Rio Sector Chief Patrol Agent Raul Ortiz told Breitbart Texas in an interview. U.S. Customs and Border Protection Acting Commissioner Mark Morgan recently appointed Ortiz to become the new deputy chief of U.S. Border Patrol.

The White House announced Monday that Chief Ortiz will be a guest of President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump at the 2020 State of the Union Address before a joint session of Congress.

Ortiz referenced recent events where thousands of Honduran migrants attempting to force their way across the Guatemala-Mexico border were stopped by members of the Mexican National Guard. “You have two options: You go back to Guatemalan territory or you come with us,” Mexican guardsmen told the migrants who illegally crossed the river.

Mexico told the migrants they were free to enter Mexico as long as they registered and applied for work in southern Mexico. The Mexican government repeated its position that the migrants would not be given free passage to the United States.

“Over the last four months we’ve seen a reduction in traffic — considerably,” the incoming deputy chief stated. “I think a lot of that has to do with the Migrant Protection Protocol (MPP), the electronic notification and verification system, and the asylum referral that has allowed us to more quickly repatriate some of these people back to Mexico, Guatemala, and other locations. In other words, it ended ‘Catch and Release.'”

“Every sector (of the U.S. southwestern border) has seen a decline in the number of people coming across that border,” Ortiz explained. “This is really allowing us to focus on the border security or national security mission set.”

In January, CBP officials announced a decrease in the apprehension of illegal aliens by Border Patrol agents. This is the seventh straight month of decreases in apprehensions, Breitbart Texas reported.

Border Patrol agents in the nine southwest border sectors apprehended 32,858 people (1,060 per day), according to the Southwest Border Migration Report released by CBP officials on January 9. This represents a slight drop from the 33,510 migrants apprehended in November 2019 and a major drop (nearly 75 percent) from the 132,856 apprehended at the peak of the crisis in May 2019.