Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum confirmed on Friday that there were no migrant convoys heading to the US border, after her US counterpart, Donald Trump, threatened to increase customs duties on the country if it did not prevent migrants from heading north.
Sheinbaum's government has intervened since September to obstruct the movements of groups of migrants arriving from Central America, but at least two other groups have tried to head north in recent days.
The leftist president said during her daily press conference: “There is currently no migrant convoy heading to the northern border,” noting that the local authorities succeeded in dissuading a group of people from continuing their journey, after they set off last week.
Trump said on Thursday that the tariffs imposed on Mexico would “immediately double” if the authorities failed to prevent migrant caravans from heading to the border.
Migrants in two convoys, the first comprising about a thousand people and the second about a hundred, expressed their hope that the defeat of the Republicans in the midterm elections would lead to an easing of restrictions imposed on crossing the US border, according to Agence France-Presse.
On Friday, the US Supreme Court agreed to consider President Donald Trump's executive order banning asylum requests at the southern border, one of the pillars of the Republican president's wide-ranging campaign to tighten immigration restrictions.
The Trump administration is seeking to overturn lower court rulings, which deemed the executive order banning asylum applications illegal.
Federal law gives people the right to seek asylum if they fear persecution in their home countries, regardless of how they entered the United States. At the same time, the law also gives the executive authority the power to decide whether or not to grant people asylum.
According to the Associated Press, the Trump administration argues that it has the authority to categorically reject asylum requests for immigrants covered by the executive order, and that it should not be obligated to accept requests that are scheduled to be rejected.
Federal government lawyers said years-long processing times for asylum applications had previously contributed to a large influx of migrants to the southern border, many of whom were allowed to enter the country and remain there while waiting for their claims to be decided.
On the other hand, immigration lawyers at the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Immigrant Justice Center counter that border crossings had already begun to decline before Trump took office.
They say Trump's executive order represents an attempt to unilaterally undermine legal guarantees aimed at protecting people fleeing dangers in their countries of origin.
The US Air Force said today (Friday) that it conducted a test launch of ammunition for its B-21 Raider stealth bomber last week, moving the next-generation aircraft from the flight test phase to an operational weapons platform.
The Air Force awarded the contract to develop the B-21, America's next-generation stealth bomber, to Northrop Grumman in 2015, according to Reuters.
Northrop Grumman's partners in the B-21 program include Pratt & Whitney, Janicki Industries, Collins Aerospace, GKN Aerospace, BAE Systems, and Boeing's Spirit Aerospace unit.
The B-21 Raider was designed to bypass modern and dense integrated air defense systems and deliver conventional and nuclear munitions.
The Air Force said that the B-21 aircraft took off during the test from Edwards Air Force Base in California and fired a conventional projectile, proving that its digital models and systems architecture were working as expected.
Air Force Chief of Staff Ken Wilsbach said: “This weapons test proves the superiority of the B-21 program.”
The Air Force said the program is ahead of schedule, and the first operational aircraft is expected to arrive at Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota in 2027.
