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U.S. President Donald Trump threatened Thursday to “immediately” double tariffs on Mexico unless it stops a caravan of more than 1,000 migrants walking north after last week’s midterm elections, warning they “will not be accepted.”
"Here we go again! With the perceived loss by the Republicans in the Midterms, I was not on the ballot—the invasion of our Country is taking place again. Huge caravans are forming and beginning their illegal march through Mexico," Trump wrote on Truth Social.
"Mexico must stop them, now, and if they do not do so, the Tariffs on Mexico will be immediately doubled," he wrote. "There will be no leniency!"
Trump said Mexico, "the very liberal new governor of Texas," the Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement had been informed, referring to incoming Democratic Gov. Gina Hinojosa, who unseated Republican Gov. Greg Abbott.
He claimed many caravan members are people other countries do not want.
The Mexican government did not immediately respond.
The threat came days after Trump told CBS’ 60 Minutes that his deportation crackdown "might be too tough" and that it "ultimately" hurt him politically.
The caravan of about 1,500 people, many of them families, set off Tuesday from Tapachula near the Guatemalan border, a Chiapas state government source told Reuters. The group, dubbed "God With Us," aims first to reach Mexico City, more than 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) away, to seek help from the federal government and protection from detention.
"There might be a light at the end of the tunnel, a way for us to get in," said Cesar Sandoval, 47, a Nicaraguan deported from the U.S. months ago. "We believe the Democrats will help us... with God’s help."
Billy Noe Martinez, a Honduran who survived the 2010 massacre of 72 migrants in Tamaulipas, appealed to President Claudia Sheinbaum.
"I cannot return to my country because people there are looking for me to kill me, and the same is true in Mexico," he said.
"It’s something beneficial for migrants," Honduran Misael Vazquez, 25, told Agence France-Presse (AFP) of the Democrats’ victory. "The only one who opposed migrants is Donald Trump," said construction worker Pablo Garcia, 23.
"As long as Trump remains president, the deportations will not stop," said Ivan Porraz, a researcher at the College of the Southern Border cited by Reuters, warning that smugglers could exploit migrants.
It is the third Central American caravan since September. The previous ones got no farther than about 250 kilometers into Mexico before immigration authorities broke them up and issued temporary residence documents, as Trump’s Mexico tariff threat raises the stakes.
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