From USA Today:
“Trump announces U.S.-Mexico
border closure to stem spread of coronavirus”
The U.S.-Mexico border will be
closed to nonessential travel to further help stem the spread of the novel
coronavirus, President Donald Trump announced Friday. "As we did with
Canada, we're also working with Mexico to implement new rules at our ports of
entry to suspend non-essential travel," Trump said. "These new rules
and procedures will not impede lawful trade and commerce." Trump said that
Mexico is also suspending air travel from Europe. Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo said the U.S. has taken "two important steps" this week to
curb the spread of the virus. He noted the border closure with Canada,
announced Wednesday, would go into effect at midnight. He said the closure
would last 30 days and reiterated the news Trump shared that the border with
Mexico would also close. "The
United States and Mexico have agreed to restrict nonessential travel across our
border," Pompeo said. Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said
that essential travel includes medical purposes, to attend educational
institutions, for emergency response/public health purposes and lawful cross
border trade. "Tonight, at
midnight, we will execute the CDC order by immediately returning individuals
arriving without documentation to Canada, Mexico, as well as a number of other
countries, without delay," Wolf added. The State Department on Thursday
issued a new travel alert urging Americans not to go abroad under any
circumstances and to return home if they are already abroad unless they plan to
remain overseas. Pompeo repeated the Thursday announcement at the Friday briefing.
"If you choose to travel internationally, your travel may be
disrupted," he said. There are 118
coronavirus cases currently in Mexico and 14,250 in the U.S, according to Johns
Hopkins data. For tourists, Mexico is the seventh most-visited country around
the world, according to Mexico tourism data, and 26 million U.S. travelers
visited Mexico from January to August 2019, according to the U.S. National
Travel and Tourism Office. The
Mexico-U.S. border has been a prominent and often contentious issue during
President Trump's tenure in the Oval Office. During his campaign ahead of the
2016 election, the "build the wall" movement, an effort to build a
wall along the border to keep Mexican immigrants from entering the U.S., gained
traction among his support base but stoked criticism among his detractors. As the world works to slow the spread of
coronavirus, countries have imposed a variety of travel restrictions, which
range from suspending international flights and banning travelers from impacted
countries, to requiring citizens or foreign nationals to self-quarantine for 14
days upon arrival.
^ Once Canada and the US closed
the northern border it was only a matter of time between the southern border
was also closed. ^
https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/news/2020/03/19/u-s-mexico-officials-look-ban-non-essential-travel-across-border/2874497001/
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