U.S. President Donald Trump took to popular social media site Twitter on Monday night to announce that next week, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency will “begin the process of removing the millions of illegal aliens who have illicitly found their way into the United States,” reported The Daily Mail .
At the moment, around 12 million undocumented immigrants are living within the United States’ borders, most of whom arrive from Central America and Mexico. Trump has made illegal immigration one of the cornerstones of his presidency and has been working with his administration to crack down on the issue.
Adding that “they will be removed as fast as they come in,” Trump went on in his tweet to mention that Mexico’s strong immigration laws have done a good job of helping prevent immigrants from illegally crossing the U.S. border.
The president also mentioned that Guatemala is going to be signing a Safe-Third Agreement, which would include the country receiving asylum seekers from neighboring nations as a so-called “safe-third country.” The agreement would essentially require Guatemala to resettle asylum seekers within its borders instead of allowing them to continue on to their preferred final destination of the United States.
Next week ICE will begin the process of removing the millions of illegal aliens who have illicitly found their way into the United States. They will be removed as fast as they come in. Mexico, using their strong immigration laws, is doing a very good job of stopping people…….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 18, 2019
….long before they get to our Southern Border. Guatemala is getting ready to sign a Safe-Third Agreement. The only ones who won’t do anything are the Democrats in Congress. They must vote to get rid of the loopholes, and fix asylum! If so, Border Crisis will end quickly!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 18, 2019
Details of the Safe-Third Agreement with the Central American country have not yet been publicly revealed, and Guatemala has not confirmed talks that the U.S. State Department and Vice President Mike Pence said were taking place on Friday.
Mexico has also committed to considering a Safe-Third Agreement with the United States if the amount of undocumented immigrants attempting to enter the U.S. does not diminish.
U.S. rights group Human Rights First responded to the announcement of a potential Safe-Third Agreement with Guatemala, calling it “simply ludicrous” to expect the country to safely protect refugees when many of the asylum seekers in the U.S. are Guatemalan citizens fleeing violence in their country.
#US : The Trump administration is expected to finalize its “public charge” rule soon. https://t.co/pQnASv5mGX #humanresources #immigration
— BAL Immigration (@BAL_Immigration) June 18, 2019
According to a post on Human Rights First’s website , the organization believes that the Trump Administration has grossly mismanaged the humanitarian crisis occurring at its southern border.
Eleanor Acer, who works with the human rights group, spoke out about the issue.
“It is long past time for real solutions, but the Trump Administration is just dishing out more of the same, expanding its inhumane and illegal efforts to ban, bar, and block people seeking refuge from the United States.”
Continuing on, Acer commented, “This cruel and counterproductive quest to destroy the U.S. asylum system and prevent this country from providing protection to fleeing refugees is not a solution. It will just put the lives of even more refugees in danger and trigger even more dysfunction and chaos.”
