A new deal between the United States and Mexico, according to which the Southern neighbor of the US pledged to expand a controversial asylum programme and increase border security at its southern border to cut down on the flow of illegal immigrants from Central American nations attempting to enter US through Mexico, would by strongly enforced by Mexico, said the US president Donald Trump.

This agreement between the two neighbors helped Mexico to avert the potential and threatened tariffs on all of its goods into the US which was supposed to be implemented from June 10.

“Mexico will try very hard, and if they do that, this will be a very successful agreement between the US and Mexico,” Trump wrote in a tweet yesterday morning.

Trump also added that purchase of “large quantities” of agricultural goods from US farmers would be started immediately by Mexico. The US farmers have been hit hard by the US trade war with China and were also facing further hits if the trade tariffs had been imposed on Mexico and being retaliated by Mexico.

It was not however clear whether such a promise had been made by Mexico. The joint US-Mexican declaration which announced the immigration deal did not contain anything about any pledge by Mexico of increased purchases of US agricultural products.

For Trump, the issue of illegal immigrants into the US has been important even during the campaigning for the presidential election in 2016 and has remained so even after he assumed office. The increase in the number of Central American migrants seeking asylum in the US has also frustrated him.

The agreement on immigrants between the two countries arrived at last week would see Mexico immediately increasing an asylum programme along the entire border which gives the United States greater chance to return asylum-seeking migrants back into Mexico till such time that their cases are resolved.

In the border cities of Tijuana, Mexicali and Ciudad Juarez, this program – which is known commonly as Remain in Mexico, has been in force since January this year. The program has been challenged legally by the American Civil Liberties Union and other rights groups even as more than 10,390 people have been returned to Mexico under the program. Most of the illegal Americans are from Central American countries.

Mexico has also pledged to make measures to curb illegal immigration to the United States stronger such as the deployment of its militarised National Guard at the southern border of the country.

In May, more than 132,000 people crossing from Mexico were detained by US border officers, which is the highest since 2006. Earlier in May, Trump threatened to impose import tariffs on all Mexican goods into the U – first at 5 per cent and then increasing by 5 percentage points every month till it reached 25 per cent in October, if nothing substantial was done by Mexico to curb illegal migrants moving into the US through the US-Mexico border.

(Adapted from Independent.ie)

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