Migrant flow to US cut by 70%: Mexico

The Mexican government said that it has reduced the flow of migrants to the US border by nearly 70 per cent, while defended the country's plan against irregular immigration.

"This is the most important reduction in the flow (of migrants) in the past few decades," Foreign Relations Secretary Marcelo Ebrard said on Thursday, adding that even though the government launched a large operation mostly conducted by the new National Guard, no complaints of human rights violations have been received.

The number of migrants, according to the Migration and Development Plan released by Ebrard on Thursday, arriving on the southern US border fell from 144,116 in May to 42,710 in November, a drop of 70.4 per cent, reports Efe news.

He said the number of unaccompanied migrant children arriving on the border has fallen by around 82 per cent.

Ebrard said Mexico had not denied asylum to practically anyone and was currently reviewing asylum requests from some 60,000 people, noting that this was "a very high number".

Mexican authorities arrested 103 people traffickers between May and November.

A total of about 280,000 migrants, including 59,843 on the southern border, were also rescued, Ebrard said.

In early June, after a week of diplomatic tensions, the US and Mexico reached a migration agreement, ending a threat by President Donald Trump's administration to impose tariffs on Mexican products unless the flow of migrants was stemmed.

Following the agreement, Mexico deployed the newly created National Guard to its northern and southern borders, reducing the flow of migrants but also drawing criticism from human rights groups and other non-governmental organizations.

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Thursday that the agreement was reached with the US government "on very good terms" after the migrant "crisis", avoiding the "possibility of a trade war" that would have harmed both countries.

( With inputs from IANS )