Migrant caravan: Mexico calls for 'full investigation' into use of tear gas as Trump defends action

Almost 100 Central American migrants have been deported

Migrants enveloped in tear gas after heading toward US

A day after the US shutdown a port of entry on its southwestern border and shot tear gas and pepper spray into crowds of migrants to stop them from crossing illegally, Donald Trump has said Mexico should deport them back to their home countries.

Many of the approximately 5,000 migrants camped out in Tijuana, Mexico, are attempting to enter the US through the San Ysidro port near San Diego, California, in order to apply for asylum. US border agents are approving approximately 100 applications per day but tensions over the slow pace came to a head over the weekend.

Mr Trump - who also defended the use of tear gas - tweeted: "Mexico should move the flag-waving Migrants, many of whom are stone cold criminals, back to their countries. Do it by plane, do it by bus, do it anyway you want, but they are NOT coming into the U.S.A. We will close the Border permanently if need be. Congress, fund the WALL!"

Later, Mexico's foreign ministry presented a diplomatic note to the US government calling for "a full investigation" into what it described as non-lethal weapons directed towards Mexican territory on Sunday, a statement from the ministry said.

The decision on Sunday to use tear gas among crowds that contained a large number of women and children, was condemned by high-profile Democrats. Beto O’Rourke, who narrowly failed in his bid for a senate seat in Texas, said it should “tell us something about her home country that a mother is willing to travel 2,000 miles with her four-month old son to come here”.

“Should tell us something about our country that we only respond to this desperate need once she is at our border,” he wrote online. “So far, in this administration, that response has included taking kids from their parents, locking them up in cages, and now tear gassing them at the border.”

New York congresswoman-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez likened the Central American migrants to Jewish families fleeing Nazi Germany, declaring that applying for refugee status should not be considered a crime. Meanwhile, Gavin Newsom, recently elected as governor of California, from where the CBP agents fired the tear gas, tweeted a widely shared Reuters photograph of a woman with two young children running from a gas canister.

“These children are barefoot. In diapers. Choking on tear gas,” Mr Newsom wrote. “Women and children who left their lives behind - seeking peace and asylum - were met with violence and fear. That’s not my America. We’re a land of refuge. Of hope. Of freedom. And we will not stand for this."

If you want to see how developments unfolded read below

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Key Points

• Trump has said Mexico should deport Central Americans in their country seeking asylum in the US
• Mexico has agreed to deport 500 migrants after skirmishes over the weekend
• While people argue over the use of tear gas, most agree immigration law reform needs to happen

[26 November 2018 23:32 · Chris Stevenson]

Mexico has been in negotiations with the United States over a possible scheme to keep migrants in Mexico while their asylum claims are processed.

The team of Mexican President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who takes office on Saturday, says no deal has been agreed on the migrants. But officials are hinting they could remain.

"We should be objective, whatever happens they will stay in Mexico," said Alejandro Encinas, incoming deputy interior minister. "Migrants have rights and we will respect them."

[26 November 2018 23:47 · Chris Stevenson]

The US military has said it has shifted about 300 service members from Texas and Arizona to California in the past few days.

In a statement, US Northern Command said that these forces would include military police, engineering and logistics units. It added that less than 200 troops had been sent home from the border mission, meaning that in total about 5,600 troops active-duty troops are on the border with Mexico.

[27 November 2018 00:00 · Chris Stevenson]

Tijuana police chief Mario Martinez told a news conference on Monday that 194 Central Americans had been arrested in the 15 days the caravan has been in the area around the border.

[27 November 2018 00:09 · Chris Stevenson]

Mexico's foreign ministry has presented a diplomatic note to the US government calling for "a full investigation" into what it described as non-lethal weapons directed toward Mexican territory on Sunday, a statement from the ministry said.

[27 November 2018 00:25 · Chris Stevenson]

President Donald Trump is once again defending his administration's response to Central American migrants who tried to illegally cross the border in Tijuana. 

Mr Trump, speaking at a campaign rally in Mississippi, said that he is sending the caravan members a clear message: "Turn around and go back home." 

He told the crowd that "we don't want those people in Mississippi" and that migrants are "not coming through anymore" illegally. 

[27 November 2018 00:37 · Chris Stevenson]

NBC's Annie Rose Ramos has spoken to the mother in one of the major photos of the tear-gassing on Sunday.

 

[27 November 2018 00:51 · Chris Stevenson]

Earlier, Mr Trump claimed outside the White House that tear gas was not used on children.

While it is obvious that many of those involved in the clashes at the border were adult males, there was also a number of children caught up in the use of tear gas.

[27 November 2018 01:01 · Chris Stevenson]

More from Mr Trump in Mississippi on who we believes should be able to enter the US:

"They have to be talented people that love our country, that have to come through merit."

[27 November 2018 01:16 · Andrew Buncombe]

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