Migrants looking to enter the US across the southern border are turning back after President Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration.
Fox News reported on an internal Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) memo that described how multiple groups of immigrants who were looking to cross the border turned back.
One large group comprised of migrants from Honduras, Panama, El Salvador and Venezuela told officials in Honduras that they had decided to return home after “learning about the multi-agency force security on the Southwest Border in social media and through family members in the United States.”
Around 11,000 migrants have been deported to Mexico from the United States since Trump took office on 20 January.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum announced the figures during a press conference on Friday morning.
The migrants included around 2,500 non-Mexicans. President Sheinbaum said that her country has already begun voluntary repatriation to Honduras.
Earlier this week, President Sheinbaum reached an agreement to pause US tariffs on Mexican goods in exchange for the deployment of 10,000 Mexican national-guard soldiers to the border to prevent crossings.
A similar agreement has been reached between the US and Canada.
Illegal border crossings are reckoned to have dropped by 90% since Trump returned to office.
“US Border Patrol knows how to get the job done, we know how to secure the border. All we needed was a president that was going to empower us — a strong leader like President Trump — and a secretary like Secretary Noem that knows exactly what we need to do to secure the border,” Michael Banks, a former US border agent, told Fox and Friends on Thursday.