On December 2., Donald Trump decided to step away from a U.N. agreement aimed at addressing the needs of immigrants and refugees, saying it could “undermine the sovereign right of the United States to enforce our immigration laws and secure our borders”, according to a communiqué of the U.S. State Department. Inspired by the governments of Mexico and Switzerland, the U.S., in September of 2016, had joined 195 nations in unanimously signing a Global Compact on migration under then-President Barack Obama. The signatory nations had agreed to celebrate a summit conference this past week in Puerto Vallarta to negotiate a framework for a definitive treaty to enhance international border security cooperation as well as to intensify international cooperation in dealing with present and future waves of immigrants and protect the human rights of all refugees and migrants, regardless of status, to be signed in September of next year. Approximately 65.6 million persons have been displaced worldwide – among them 8 million undocumented Mexicans, suffering persecution in the United States. Of the total number, 22.5 million are refugees according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. Because of conflict, war and other hardships we are dealing with the highest number of displaced people since the end of the Second World War. But now, with the open hostility of the United States, the entire project appears to be headed for failure. In a statement, released on December 3., United States Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, stated in no uncertain terms that her country’s participation in the Global Compact on Migration was incompatible with President Trump’s immigration policies. She went on to state: “Our decisions on immigration policies must always be made by Americans and Americans alone. We will decide how best to control our borders and who will be allowed to enter our country. The global approach is simply not compatible with U.S. sovereignty!” As if that weren’t already enough, now Donald Trump has ordered to set a cap on refugees allowed to enter the United States at 45,000 in the 2018 fiscal year with the following breakdown: 19,000 from Africa, 5,000 from East Asia, 2,000 from Europe and Central Asia, 1,500 from Latin America and the Caribbean, and 17,500 from the Middle East and South Asia. This quota system, cooked up by Trump, flies in the face of international law, consecrated in the U.N. Convention on the Condition of Refugees of 1951 and ratified by the U.S. at that time which precisely prohibits the establishment of quotas.
To add insult to injury, on Monday, December 4th, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the legality of Trump’s muslim travel ban because he had added two non-muslim nations to the list ! So, now citizens of the following countries can no longer enter the United States: Chad, Iran, Libya, North Korea Somalia, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen. With the renegotiation of NAFTA going nowhere, could Mexico be next on the list?
