Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Wednesday credited President Trump with halting a “caravan” of migrants the president had warned were headed toward the U.S. border through Mexico.
“The president was clear that this caravan needed to be stopped before it arrived at our southern border, and his efforts now appear to be successful,” Sessions said in a statement released by the Justice Department.
Trump demanded this week that the caravan of roughly 1,000 people be stopped, claiming that Mexico had “absolute power” to keep them from entering the U.S. illegally.
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Pueblo Sin Fronteras, a migrants rights group that organized the journey, said the caravan’s destination was not the U.S. border.
“Our job with the caravan ends in Mexico City,” the organization’s director Irineo Mujica told The Washington Post. The caravan, organized to protect individual migrants from travel dangers, has largely disbanded in central Mexico.
Mexican officials have handed out temporary permits for the migrants, most of whom fled Honduras, allowing them time to return home or apply for asylum in Mexico, according to the report.
Individual migrants may attempt to cross the U.S.-Mexico border, but not in an organized group.
Sessions, in the statement, said the caravan was only one form of “lawlessness” at the southern border that the U.S. is cracking down on.
“But let me be clear as well: we will not accept the lawlessness of these types of efforts and those who choose to violate our laws, and those who conspire to assist others to violate our laws, will face criminal prosecution,” Sessions said.
The White House confirmed Wednesday that the Trump administration will deploy the National Guard to the Mexico border, a move Sessions said he “fully supports.”
“I will soon be announcing additional Department of Justice initiatives to restore legality to the southern border,” Sessions said.