A new agreement has been made with Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala to temporarily surge security forces to their borders in an effort to reduce the large amount of migration to the U.S. border. The agreement has been a priority as the U.S. saw a record number of unaccompanied children attempting to cross the border in March, and the largest number of Border Patrol encounters overall with migrants on the southern border since March 2001. According to the White House, Mexico will maintain a deployment of about 10,000 troops, while Guatemala has surged 1,500 police and military personnel to its southern border and Honduras deployed 7,000 police and military to its border. Guatemala and Honduras were deploying troops temporarily in response to a large caravan of migrants that was being organized at the end of March. The objective is to make it more difficult to make the journey, and make crossing the borders more difficult.
Mexico announced in March that it was deploying National Guard members and immigration agents to its southern border, and it has maintained more personnel at its southern border since Trump threatened tariffs on Mexican imports in 2019. Guatemalan troops have been responsible for breaking up the last several attempted migrant caravans. The increase in migrants at the border is becoming one of the major challenges confronting Biden in the early months of his first term.
