US Department of Homeland Security will deploy up to 89 agents to Guatemala by end-August under a joint agreement to reduce the irregular migration and strengthen the border security, an official document said. The agreement, dated 27 May, was reportedly signed by Acting US Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan and Guatemalan Interior Minister Enrique Degenhart.
The document comes after Mexican Secretary of Defence Luis Cresencio Sandoval said earlier in the day that over 21,000 troops had been deployed across the country in a bid to stop illegal migrants from reaching the United States.
An extra 2,000 troops were sent to the southern border with Guatemala and Belize, while 4,500 troops were stationed in Mexico’s southeast.
Mexico agreed to tighten border controls after the United States threatened it with steadily rising import tariffs if it did not stop thousands of migrants from marching towards the southern border of the US.
Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said some 14,000 of them had been sent back to Mexico since January while their requests for US asylum are being processed.
Prior to that, the US president has stated that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement is set to remove the illegal migrants from the country "as fast as they come in".
In May, US authorities arrested more than 130,000 migrants along the nation’s border with Mexico, the highest number in 13 years, US Customs and Border Protection reported.
