Mexican security forces have arrested about 475,000 illegal immigrants since October, authorities said on Friday, at a time when US President-elect Donald Trump is threatening to impose tariffs on the country if it doesn’t stop them from arriving at the nations’ border . The record of nearly half a million immigrants detained between October 1 and December 26 suggests that tougher measures were taken at the end of the year. Since the start of 2024, about 900,000 immigrants have been arrested, the government reported earlier this month. “We believe that it is a model that works, that it can always be improved, but that it has responded very satisfactorily to this phenomenon (of immigration),” the country’s Foreign Minister, Juan Ramón de la Fuente, said on Friday. At a news conference alongside Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, she said the number of immigrants stranded at the U.S.-Mexico border fell 81 percent in mid-December compared to the same period a year earlier. Israel Ibarra, an immigration researcher at the Colegio de la Frontera Norte, said the increase in arrests is partly due to “the commitment to reduce the transit of people moving through Mexico to the United States,” made from Sheinbaum in a recent phone call he had with Trump. The call came at the end of November, after the Republican had threatened to impose a 25% tariff on imports from Mexico and Canada if these countries did not prevent the arrival of drugs – especially fentanyl – and immigrants in the States United.
Source: Terra
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