Mexico deploys military to curb migration, reportedly offers major concessions as Trump tariffs loom

Mexican authorities stop a migrant caravan that had earlier crossed the Mexico - Guatemala border, near Metapa, Chiapas state, Mexico, Wednesday, June 5, 2019. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

With just days to go until the Trump administration is set to impose punishing tariffs on Mexico unless the country halts the unprecedented flow of illegal immigrants across the southern border, numerous signs that Mexico would capitulate emerged Thursday -- but it remained unclear Friday morning whether their efforts would satisfy the White House.
Reports in the evening indicated that Mexico's negotiators with Washington have offered to immediately deploy 6,000 National Guard troops to the border with Guatemala. Additionally, Mexico has reportedly agreed to a major overhaul of reasonable asylum protocols, which would require asylum applicants to seek permanent refuge in the first country they arrive in after fleeing their home countries.
For virtually all Central American migrants, that country would not be the United States. The Trump administration has already begun requiring asylum applicants to wait in Mexico while their claims are processed, saying too many applicants were using the system fraudulently to escape into the country. Last month, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals denied a request to stop that practice temporarily.
However, two administration officials tell Fox News that while talks have been going well with Mexico, and that Mexico is making some fresh proposals, there is not yet a deal that U.S. officials are sure to imminently accept.
Also on Thursday, Mexico's financial intelligence agency announced it had frozen the bank accounts of 26 people who it claimed "have presumably participated in migrant smuggling and the organization of illegal migrant caravans."
The agency said it had detected money transfers from central Mexico to six Mexican border cities presumably related to the caravans.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador insisted on Thursday that the Mexican government does not "act against anybody to please any foreign government."

Mexican authorities stop a migrant caravan that had earlier crossed the Mexico - Guatemala border, near Metapa, Chiapas state, Mexico, Wednesday, June 5, 2019. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

Meanwhile, some 200 Mexican military police, immigration agents and federal police blocked the advance of about 1,000 Central American migrants who were walking north along a southern Mexico highway on Wednesday, once again showing a tougher new stance on attempts to use the country as a stepping-stone to the U.S.
The group of migrants, including many women and children, set out early from Ciudad Hidalgo at the Mexico-Guatemala border and was headed for Tapachula, the principal city in the region. State and local police accompanied the caravan.
The officials blocked the highway near the community of Metapa, about 11 miles from Tapachula.
Unarmed agents wrestled some migrants who resisted to the ground, but the vast majority complied and boarded buses or immigration agency vans. Some migrants fainted and fell to the ground. One young man who collapsed was taken for medical attention.
That afternoon, in Mexico City, police detained Irineo Mujica, the head of migrant aide group Pueblo Sin Fronteras, and Cristobal Sanchez, a migrant activist.
Vice President Mike Pence, monitoring the talks from his travels in Pennsylvania, said the U.S. was "encouraged" by Mexico's latest proposals but, so far, tariffs still were set to take effect Monday.
Trump, in announcing the tariffs last week, promised that they would swiftly increase if no action was taken. The president declared Wednesday evening that "not nearly enough" progress was being made in last-minute negotiations with Mexico.
"On June 10th, the United States will impose a 5% Tariff on all goods coming into our Country from Mexico, until such time as illegal migrants coming through Mexico, and into our Country, STOP," Trump said on May 30. "The Tariff will gradually increase until the Illegal Immigration problem is remedied, ... ..at which time the Tariffs will be removed. Details from the White House to follow."
Fox News is told the tariff on all goods by land, sea, and air from Mexico will hike to 10 percent on July 1 -- and potentially increase substantially from there.
"If Mexico still has not taken action to dramatically reduce or eliminate the number of illegal aliens crossing its territory into the United States, Tariffs will be increased to 15 percent on August 1, 2019, to 20 percent on September 1, 2019, and to 25 percent on October 1, 2019," Trump said in a statement released later by the White House on Thursday. "Tariffs will permanently remain at the 25 percent level unless and until Mexico substantially stops the illegal inflow of aliens coming through its territory."
The statement added: "Thousands of innocent lives are taken every year as a result of this lawless chaos.  It must end NOW! ... Mexico’s passive cooperation in allowing this mass incursion constitutes an emergency and extraordinary threat to the national security and economy of the United States."
Specifically, White House sources told Fox News that Mexico would need to step up security efforts on the border, target transnational smugglers, crack down on illicit bus lines and align with the U.S. on a workable asylum policy. Mexico could use certain so-called choke points on the southern border to curb illegal migration sharply, according to the sources.
Arrests along the southern border have skyrocketed in recent months, with border agents making more than 100,000 arrests or denials of entry in March, a 12-year high. Immigration courts that process asylum claims currently have faced a backlog of more than 800,000 cases and asylum applicants increasingly have been staying in the U.S. even after their claims for asylum have been denied.
More than 4,000 individuals have been apprehended at the border with children who are not their own in recent months, administration officials tell Fox News.

FILE - This May 29, 2019 file photo released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) shows some of 1,036 migrants who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in El Paso, Texas, the largest that the Border Patrol says it has ever encountered. (U.S. Customs and Border Protection via AP, File)

And, Customs and Border Protection said it apprehended or turned away over 109,000 migrants attempting to cross the border in April, the second month in a row the number has topped 100,000.
In a dramatic moment, more than 1,000 illegal immigrants were apprehended by border agents near the U.S.-Mexico border last week -- the largest ever group of migrants ever apprehended at a single time, sources told Fox News. The group of 1,036 illegal immigrants found in the El Paso sector included migrants from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, according to sources.
The Trump administration has heavily focused on asylum law reforms, making the current reported Mexican overtures in that area particularly important. Asylum law, conservatives point out, is intended to shield individuals from near-certain death or persecution on account of limited factors like religious or political affiliation — not poor living conditions and economic despair.
Last year, the Justice Department eliminated gang violence and domestic abuse as a possible justification for seeking asylum.
Most asylum applicants are ultimately rejected for having an insufficient or unfounded personalized fear of persecution, following a full hearing of their case before an asylum officer or an immigration judge.
Fox News' John Roberts and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Trump launches blistering attack on 'nasty, vindictive, horrible' Pelosi

President Trump has taken the gloves off in his ongoing feud with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Speaking exclusively to Fox News’ Laura Ingraham in Normandy, France, in an interview that aired Thursday, the president first took time to pay tribute to the heroes who fought on D-Day 75 years ago, describing them as “incredibly brave people” who displayed incredible “valor.”
Then, the president switched gears, slamming Pelosi, D-Calif., as a “nasty, vindictive, horrible person” -- after saying he had “tried to be nice to her.”
“I think she’s a disgrace. I actually don’t think she’s a talented person, I’ve tried to be nice to her because I would have liked to have gotten some deals done,” Trump said on “The Ingraham Angle.”
“She’s incapable of doing deals, she’s a nasty, vindictive, horrible person, the Mueller report came out, it was a disaster for them.”
Trump then referenced former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report, suggesting some Democrats hoped it would give them the so-called silver bullet to take him down.

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“They thought their good friend Bobby Mueller was going to give them a great report and he came out with a report with 13 horrible, angry Democrats who are totally biased against me,” the president told Ingraham.
“A couple of them worked for Hillary Clinton, they then added five more, also Democrats. With all of that, two-and-a-half years, think of it, from before I even got elected, they’ve been going after me and they have nothing.”
Ingraham then asked Trump if he cared whether or not Mueller would testify publicly about his report. The president used the question as another chance to unload on Pelosi.
“Let me tell you, he made such a fool out of himself the last time she -- because what people don’t report is the letter he had to do to straighten out his testimony because his testimony was wrong but Nancy Pelosi, I call her nervous Nancy, Nancy Pelosi doesn’t talk about it,” Trump told Fox News.
“Nancy Pelosi’s a disaster, OK, she’s a disaster and let her do what she wants, you know what? I think they’re in big trouble because when you look at the kind of crimes that were committed, and I don’t need any more evidence, and I guess from what I’m hearing there’s a lot of evidence coming in.
“And then ask Nancy, why is her district [having] drug needles all over the place? It’s the most disgusting thing what she’s allowed to happen to her district, with needles, with drug addicts... with people living on the sidewalk.”
Trump continued, referencing Pelosi’s reported comment to fellow top Democrats that she would like to see him in “prison.”
“It was a horrible, nasty, vicious statement while I’m overseas... She didn’t want to – she is a terrible person and I’ll tell you her name, it’s nervous Nancy because she’s a nervous wreck.”
Pelosi, as Politico reported, made the remark while defending her stance against impeaching the president in an evening meeting with House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., and other top Democrats.
“I don’t want to see him impeached, I want to see him in prison,” she said, according to multiple Democratic sources familiar with the meeting. House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings, D-Md., Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., and Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., also reportedly attended the meeting.
Trump also discussed his potential 2020 opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden, during his interview with Ingraham.
After being asked about Biden downplaying the potential threat of China to the U.S. at a recent town-hall event, Trump said: “He just doesn't get it, he just doesn't get it.”
“How happy would President Xi be to have Joe Biden be the nominee of the Democratic party,” Ingraham followed up, to which the president replied: “Well he wants him, he wants him.”
Elsewhere during the president’s wide-ranging interview with Ingraham, he said Mueller made “such a fool” out of himself last week when he delivered his first and only public statement about the Russia investigation.
“Let me tell you, he made such a fool out of himself ... because what people don’t report is the letter he had to do to straighten out his testimony because his testimony was wrong,” Trump told Ingraham.
Trump was referring to Mueller’s initial suggestion that the president was not charged with an obstruction-of-justice offense because of longstanding Justice Department policy.
“Charging the president with a crime was not an option we could consider,” Mueller said last week, citing an Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) opinion stating that a sitting president could not be indicted.
“If we had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said that. ... We concluded that we would not reach a determination one way or the other about whether the president committed a crime,” Mueller said.
Fox News' Brooke Singman contributed to this report.

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'No means no!': Ilhan Omar has bizarre response to 2020 Dem's request to debate AOC

Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., rebuked a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate on Wednesday after he defended his offer to debate Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.
"No means no!" Omar said, using the language surrounding consent.
She was responding to former Rep. John Delaney, D-Md., who pushed to debate Ocasio-Cortez after she told him to "sashay away" from the 2020 field, citing his position on "Medicare-for-all"
Delaney appeared to provoke the ire of California Democrats on Saturday when he told the state's Democratic convention that "Medicare-for-all" was bad policy.
“We should have universal health care. We should have universal health care, but it shouldn’t be a kind of health care that kicks 150 million Americans off their health care. That’s not smart policy," Delaney said.
When Ocasio-Cortez, a prominent "Medicare-for-all" supporter, criticized Delaney's statement, he requested a debate with the progressive congresswoman.
Her refusal prompted the response that Omar blasted on Wednesday. "At a minimum, we have to be tolerant of different views on achieving the same goal: universal healthcare," Delaney tweeted, alongside an article about Ocasio-Cortez's refusal.
"That's why I responded to @aoc tweet with a debate offer. This isn't about slogans - people's lives are at stake. We need debates and the truth."
"AOC and Rep Omar are incredibly intelligent women and rising stars inside of the Democratic party. Instead of tweeting at our campaign and taking pot shots, we should be sitting down and talking about the best path forward," said Michael Starr Hopkins, the Delaney campaign's national press secretary. "We’re on the same team. It’s okay to disagree, but refusing to have a substantive conversation helps no one, especially not the Americans who so desperately need us to solve this healthcare crisis."
Delaney, on Wednesday, also lamented the Democratic Party's "intolerance to different ideas." He told Fox News that "Medicare-for-all" made it difficult for Democrats to beat Trump in 2020.
“In the Medicare-for-all bill, it makes private insurance illegal. And there are 150 million Americans who have private insurance and most of them like it," he said.
"And I think the Republicans are not going to be afraid to talk about this and they’re going to pound it over the American people’s heads and make them afraid that the Democrats are going to make them lose their health insurance, and tell them that they’ve got to go on a government website to get their health insurance,”
Their exchange came as 2020 Democrats faced scrutiny over how they would pay for the program as well as whether or not it would kick millions off of their private health insurance plans.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., an ally of Ocasio-Cortez, said at the end of May that he would likely pay for the program with a progressive income tax increase and a payroll tax on employers. The program has been estimated to cost more than $30 trillion, according to two right-leaning think tanks that looked at the issue.
The Trump administration has blasted the proposal as "the biggest threat to the American health care system."
Fox News' Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.

Nancy Pelosi told Dems she wants to see Trump 'in prison': report

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told senior Democrats on Tuesday that she ultimately wants to see President Trump “in prison,” according to a report.
The speaker reportedly made the remark while defending her stance against impeaching the president in an evening meeting with House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler and other top Democrats, according to Politico.
“I don’t want to see him impeached, I want to see him in prison,” she said, according to multiple Democratic sources familiar with the meeting. House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff, Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings, Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal and Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot Engel also reportedly attended the meeting.

“I don’t want to see him impeached, I want to see him in prison.”
— Remark attributed to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, according to a report

Pelosi wants to hold the president accountable, the sources said, but thinks voters should get him out of office in 2020, after which he could possibly face criminal charges.
Nadler and dozens of Democrats have been pressing Pelosi to hold impeachment hearings, but the speaker reportedly believes there should be public and bipartisan support to launch the process, according to Politico.
Pelosi has previously said the president’s actions “are villainous to the Constitution of the United States."
A Pelosi spokesperson told the New York Post the lawmakers “had a productive meeting about the state of play with the Mueller report. They agreed to keep all options on the table and continue to move forward with an aggressive hearing and legislative strategy, as early as next week, to address the president’s corruption and abuses of power uncovered in the report.”
The spokesperson did not directly address whether Pelosi made the remark about Trump that was attributed to her.
The House will hold hearings next week "focused on the alleged crimes and other misconduct laid out in Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report."

Bret Baier: D-Day was a grand gamble

Operation Overlord — or D-Day as it came to be known — was the highest risk venture of World War II. Researching my upcoming book, "Three Days at the Brink: FDR’s Daring Gamble to Win World War II," I was struck by the drama involved in the decision to launch an invasion across the English Channel on Western Europe.
At a critical conference in Tehran in November 1943, the “Big Three” – President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Josef Stalin –fiercely debated the wisdom and timing of such a launch. They all knew it was a high-stakes gamble and that failure could lead to a catastrophic bloodbath that would turn the war in German leader Adolf Hitler’s favor. And yet, they decided it must be done.
Supreme Commander Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower was aware that, despite the peril, Overlord was a necessity.
"Every obstacle must be overcome, every inconvenience suffered and every risk run to ensure that our blow is decisive," Eisenhower wrote to his commanders. "We cannot afford to fail."

He had devised an elaborate plan, choreographed to the last detail, but he knew that some circumstances were out of his control.
On June 4, 1944, hearing discouraging weather reports and already having delayed the invasion a day because of storms, Eisenhower faced an agonizing moment of decision: to go on June 6 or wait for better weather.

When President Trump delivers his D-Day remarks Thursday at the U.S. Cemetery in Normandy, he has the rare opportunity to pay tribute with emotion, personal stories, and soaring words to the service and the sacrifice of those who died on those beaches and saved the world.

At Southwick House, the invasion headquarters in the southern English town of Portsmouth, Eisenhower sat bowed, head in hands, and contemplated a seemingly impossible choice. He wasn’t all-knowing; he could only judge circumstances as they were set before him.         
Further delay might mean scrapping the mission altogether; the tides allowed only the narrowest window for invasion, and the troops were already poised. "How can you keep this invasion on the end of a limb and let it hang there?" he asked.
On the other hand, if Allied forces invaded as a storm rolled across the Channel, landing craft would be overwhelmed, air support would be impossible, and thousands could perish to no avail.

Indeed, unbeknownst to Eisenhower, German Gen. Erwin Rommel had already decided the Allies would never risk the invasion and had left the theater to meet with Hitler in Germany.
Eisenhower finally rose from his seat, unwilling to decide just yet. He suggested to his team that they try to get a few hours sleep and reconvene later.
At 3:30 a.m. on June 5, Eisenhower brought his team back together and polled them for their opinions, pacing the room as they spoke. He was heartened by an improved weather forecast.
After everyone had finished speaking, he paused, and then said, "OK, we’ll go."
The invasion was on for the following day.

FILE -- June 6, 1944: U.S. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, left, gives the order of the day to paratroopers in England prior to boarding their planes to participate in the first assault of the Normandy invasion. (U.S. Army Signal Corps via AP)

Back in his quarters, Eisenhower privately agonized over the decision. He wrote a note in longhand, which he folded into his wallet, accepting responsibility in the event of Overlord’s failure.
The note said: "Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based upon the best information available. The troops, the air, and the navy did all that Bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone."
That night Eisenhower drove to Newbury, where the 101st Airborne Division was preparing to fly out. He walked among the paratroopers, with their blackened faces, and spoke to as many of them as he could. Then he waited until the last of them were in the air before returning to headquarters around midnight, his mind filled with thoughts of the brave men who would risk their lives at dawn.

On Thursday, as we commemorate the 75th Anniversary of D-Day, we know the story of what happened on the Normandy coast. The scenes of courage, of horror, of loss and ultimately triumph are stamped on our minds.
It was the beginning of the end for Hitler, and although VE Day would not occur until May 8, 1945, we know we have the brave forces who fought on D-Day to thank for our victory.         
On the evening of June 6, as the early positive reports from the invasion reached his desk in the Oval Office, President Roosevelt, who had accepted the risk of the invasion back in Tehran, was filled with a mixture of relief and also heartache over the sacrifices suffered that day. He chose to broadcast to the nation — not a speech, but a prayer.
President Roosevelt said this prayer to radio listeners: "Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity ... they will need Thy blessings. Their road will be long and hard. For the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces. Success may not come with rushing speed, but we shall return again and again; and we know that by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph … Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom."
When President Trump delivers his D-Day remarks Thursday at the U.S. cemetery in Normandy, he has the rare opportunity to pay tribute with emotion, personal stories, and soaring words to the service and the sacrifice of those who died on those beaches and saved the world.

Trump, other leaders mark D-Day's 75th anniversary in Normandy, France

President Trump planned to join other world leaders in Europe on Thursday to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the D-Day invasion, a monumental event that was largely responsible for shaping the outcome of World War II.
The ceremony was to take place on the edge of Omaha Beach in Normandy where thousands of American and Allied soldiers lost their lives.
Trump, continuing the tradition of his predecessors, will stand alongside leaders from Britain, Canada, France, and even Germany to pay homage to the troops who stormed the fortified Normandy to help turn the tide of the war.

Udo Hartung from Frankfurt, Germany, a World War II reenactor, holds the U.S. flag as he stands at dawn on Omaha Beach, in Normandy, France on Thursday. (Associated Press)

In a Twitter message early Thursday, the president seemed to be looking forward to the day's events.
"Heading over to Normandy to celebrate some of the bravest that ever lived. We are eternally grateful!" the president wrote.
The message included a Defense Department video featuring remembrances of some veterans who participated in the D-Day invasion.
Earlier, the president tweeted an excerpt from his D-Day remarks.
"They did not know if they would survive the hour," the president wrote. "They did not know if they would grow old. But they knew that America had to prevail. Their cause was this Nation, and generations yet unborn."
Remembrances will continue to take place throughout the day. Trump will deliver a speech later Thursday at the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial, where more than 9,000 American military dead are buried.
On Wednesday, Trump joined British Prime Minister Theresa May and about 300 veterans – ages 91 to 101 – on the southern coast of England where he read a prayer delivered by President Franklin Roosevelt on D-Day.

floral tributes are placed at the National Guard Monument Memorial as members of the USAREUR band play in the background near Omaha Beach, in Normandy, France, on Thursday. (Associated Press)

D-Day was the largest invasion – by both air and sea – in history. On June 6, 1944, 160,000 Allied troops carried by 7,000 boats landed on the beaches code-named Omaha, Utah, Juno, Sword, and Gold.
When the day was over, 4,414 Allied troops – including 2,501 Americans – were killed, and 5,000 were injured. That summer, Allied troops would advance their fight, take Paris, and race against the Soviets to control as much German territory as possible by the time Hitler committed suicide in a Berlin Bunker in May 1945.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Jerry Nadler Cartoons