Mexico Agrees to Establish ‘Tactical Checkpoints’ After U.S. Requests Help with Surge of Migrants
Last month, amid the latest surge of migrants crossing the southern border, U.S. officials in the Border Patrol’s Del Rio sector in Texas contacted officials in the Mexican government to request their assistance to defer migrant traffic away from the sector’s overwhelmed ports of entry.
According to a government document obtained by Yahoo News, Mexican officials agreed to help and enlisted the state police in the Mexican state of Coahuila, which borders Texas, to activate “tactical checkpoints” at four locations to interdict migrants traveling to the U.S. border. The document, which was issued by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Intelligence on March 16, was marked “unclassified” and “law enforcement sensitive.”
The plan for Coahuila police checkpoints described in the March 16 CBP document was initiated in response to an uptick in border crossers in the Del Rio sector that occurred before the termination of Title 42 was announced. But the timing of the collaboration, in addition to recent, high-level meetings between U.S. and Mexican officials, raises red flags for some immigration advocates.
“This confirms our general suspicion that the U.S. will continue to turn to Mexico to stop migration, especially now that there are plans to lift Title 42,” said Savitri Arvey, policy adviser for migrant rights and justice at the Women’s Refugee Commission.