Thousands of asylum seekers from Central America and beyond faced one of the most treacherous parts of their journey to the United States on Monday. Thousands of newly stationed members of Mexico’s National Guard used everything at their disposal – including rocks, tear gas and pepper spray – to stop folks from crossing the southern border of Mexico, according to The Wall Street Journal. It is 2020’s first en masse attempt to challenge Donald Trump’s plan to restrict entry to asylum seekers by way of Mexican and Guatemalan authorities.
Mexico’s National Guard was created in 2019 to fight violent crime and battle drug cartels. In July of that year, their mission and purpose pivoted to illegal immigration prevention. About 20,000 members of the Guard work across approximately 15 miles of Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala – a slow, steady and significant spike from the 6,500 troops the NPR saw in the summer. An additional 500 troops were sent over just last week as news of the incoming caravan spread.
Their presence at the border was initially meant to be solely symbolic. Guards would protect immigration agents and intimidate immigrants but never act. “My government is not in favor of the use of force to contain migration,” Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said last year. On Monday, tensions rose and troops at the border reportedly used tear gas to divide the group.
“If we all come over to the National Guard for this work, who will go after the traffickers of drugs and people?” a concerned, anonymous member of the Guard told NPR earlier last year.
Their increasingly violent presence at the border presents a concerning reshuffling of priorities that can only further deepen the issues that push people to the border in the first place – crime, violence, extreme poverty and more.
The Mexico-Guatemala border was previously an easy and largely unprotected point of entry into Mexico, with most visitors acting as just that – visitors. In November, the Trump administration vowed to send asylum seekers to Guatemala (and eventually El Salvador and Honduras). They also threatened Mexico with tariffs on Mexican goods – a potential bluff that led López Obrador to agree to the rigorous immigration enforcement deal.
“López Obrador and Mexico have become Trump’s wall,” said Irineo Mujica, the head of advocacy group People Without Borders.
LGBT+ Labour apologises for inviting ‘gender critical’ journalist Helen Lewis to speak at event
LGBT+ Labour has apologised for inviting journalist Helen Lewis to take part in a panel discussion about the legacy of Maureen Colquhoun, Britain’s first openly gay MP.
There was immediate backlash on social media on Tuesday (1 February) when it was announced that Lewis would be joining Angela Eagle MP and Dr Mairi Todd, Colquhoun’s step-daughter, in a panel discussion about the late Labour politician’s career.
Labour members and trans people were quick to criticise LGBT+ Labour for inviting Lewis to sit on the panel discussion, which was due to go ahead on Wednesday evening (2 February) over Zoom.
Helen Lewis invitation was ‘an oversight’
Shortly after 6.30pm on Tuesday, LGBT+ Labour issued a statement saying one of its panelists had been invited “in error”.
“LGBT+ Labour would like to apologise profoundly for the composition of the panel for our event ‘Remembering Maureen Colquhoun MP’,” the group wrote.
“An invitation was made in error and it has been withdrawn. LGBT+ Labour does not endorse one of the panelist’s views on Gender Recognition Act reform or trans rights, and the organisation stands in total solidarity with our trans siblings. The invitation was an oversight which we have corrected.
“LGBT+ Labour recognises that trans people and their rights face constant attack in the media and from government, and will always advocate for equality for trans and non-binary people.”
LGBT+ Labour would like to apologise profoundly for the composition of the panel for our event “Remembering Maureen Colquhoun MP”. An invitation was made in error and it has been withdrawn. pic.twitter.com/liZ8HWFmoM
— LGBT+ Labour (@LGBTLabour) February 1, 2022
The political group added that it had taken the decision to postpone the event entirely and that it will announce another date in the near future.
Dr Todd criticised LGBT+ Labour’s response, tweeting: “This was supposed to be a celebration of Maureen and Helen Lewis wrote an incredible tribute to her in her book, which gave me huge comfort at a terrible time.
“I am horrified that it has become an argument about something else.”
Lewis has attracted criticism in the past for her vocal criticism of proposed reforms to the Gender Recognition Act (GRA) which would allow trans people to self-identify. Numerous countries currently allow trans people to self-identify, meaning they can determine their own legal gender with fewer legal and administrative hurdles.
Plans to introduce a similar system in the UK were scrapped following years of vocal criticism from a group of “gender critical” feminists.
In her columns, Helen Lewis has claimed that allowing trans people to self-identify would prevent women from being able to “challenge someone with a beard exposing their penis in a women’s changing room”.
She was a vocal opponent to reforms to the Gender Recognition Act, stating that proposed changes were “gender’s version of Brexit” and represented a “radical rewriting of our understanding of identity”.
Lewis also described the trans rights movement as “the imperial overreach of a handful of trans activists, in trying to rewrite widely accepted ideas about gender by stealth”. Lewis also complained about being described as a TERF in the same piece.
PinkNews has contacted Helen Lewis and LGBT+ Labour for comment.
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