A van bearing Mexican migrant Guadalupe García is stopped by protesters outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Phoenix this week. PHOTO: ROB SCHUMACHER/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Influential Mexicans are pushing an aggressive and perhaps risky strategy to fight a likely increase in deportations of their undocumented compatriots in the U.S.: jam U.S. immigration courts in hopes of causing the already overburdened system to break down, reports the Wall Street Journal
The proposal calls for ad campaigns advising migrants in the U.S. to take their cases to court and fight deportation if detained. “The backlog in the immigration system is tremendous,” said former Foreign Minister Jorge Castañeda. The idea is to double or triple the backlog, “until [U.S. President Donald] Trump desists in this stupid idea,” he added.
Mr. Castañeda is part of a group of Mexican officials, legislators, governors and public figures planning to meet with migrant groups Saturday in Phoenix to lay out plans to confront the Trump administration’s deportation policy.
Mexico’s government hasn’t endorsed the strategy or the group’s Phoenix mission. But it recently allocated some $50 million to assist undocumented migrants facing deportation, and President Enrique Peña Nieto has instructed the country’s 50 consulates in the U.S. to defend migrants.
Mr. Castañeda says it makes better sense for Mexico to work to keep migrants in the U.S. rather than resettling them in Mexico, where many would lack jobs.
The Obama administration deported more illegal immigrants than any before it. But Mexico is concerned that the new administration is widening its range of targets, citing Thursday´s deportation of Guadalupe García , a 36-year-old Mexican who lived in the U.S. for 22 years and has two U.S.-born children.