Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador denied that he increased the number of migrants deported to Mexico after the new restrictions on asylum in the United States promulgated last week by the Joe Biden government.

The president argued in his morning conference that after a “crisis” in December, with 12,000 daily migrants intercepted at the U.S. border with Mexico, the figure has fallen almost 56% to 5,506 on May 9, so he expects this trend to continue.

“No (it implies more migrants returned to Mexico), we are like this (with this trend). We’re doing well,” López Obrador replied to the express question in his morning conference.

The Mexican ruler referred to the rule promulgated on Thursday by the Biden government to instruct immigration agents to prohibit people considered a “risk to public or national security” from applying for asylum and being, therefore, admitted within the United States.

The US authorities immediately expel rejected applicants to Mexico or enter a formal deportation process, depending on their nationality.

But López Obrador asserted that the measures that Biden has adopted, such as opening legal alternatives for migrants from certain Latin American countries, “are helping to prevent the migratory flow from overflowing.”

On the day Washington announced the new restrictions, last Thursday, the Mexican president received Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, Biden’s National Security adviser, and the United States ambassador to Mexico, Ken Salazar, at the National Palace.

“It was basically (the meeting) on the migration issue, we are working in a coordinated way. Of course, we do not take our finger off the line so that there are investments by the United States Government to poor countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, addressing the causes,” López Obrador said now.

The president indicated that his Government will “help in the protection of migrants and order the migratory flow.”

“The only thing we want is to be good neighbors, that there is a policy of good neighbourliness, and I have already said it many times, we must integrate more and more economically, we are the main commercial partner in the world, Mexico and the United States, we need each other,” he said.

Although arrests at the common border have decreased during the first months of this year, in 2023 the United States reported a record of more than 2.3 million arrests of migrants.

While Mexico recorded a year-on-year increase of almost 200% in irregular migration intercepted by the Government in the first quarter, up to almost 360,000 people.

Biden and López Obrador agreed at the end of April “to work together to immediately implement concrete measures in order to significantly reduce irregular border crossings and at the same time protect human rights.”

Donald Trump’s former lawyer and former right-hander, Michael Cohen, assured on Monday that the former American president, accused of falsifying accounting documents to buy the silence of the porn actress Stormy Daniels, acted in this way to protect his 2016 electoral campaign, and not so much his marriage to Melania.

“I want it to be hidden until the elections are passed (2016). If I win, it will not be relevant because I will already be president; if I lose, I won’t even care,” Cohen paraphrased Trump, adding that “it was for the campaign, not for Melania” Trump.

Some statements that provoked the first ostensible gestures of denial with the head by the former president during this Monday’s session in the New York court, where he has even remained prolonged moments with his eyes closed.

“I didn’t even think about Melania. It was all for the campaign,” Cohen repeated.

Melania and Donald Trump met in 1998, when he was 52 years old and she was 28, and the couple arrived at the altar in 2005, just a year before the alleged slip with Daniels; an ‘affair’ that, if proven, took place when she was pregnant.

In addition, Barron, the only son resulting from the marriage between Trump and Melania, was born on March 20, 2006 and grew up in the attic of the Trump Tower, where, according to the Prosecutor’s Office, the agreements of the former head of the American Executive were forged to hide this mess of skirts and another with Karen McDougal, a Playboy model.

Cohen, in the same way, revealed on Monday in the criminal trial that the former president faces in New York how he insisted that “not come to light” alleged extramarital relationships that could have affected his 2016 campaign.

“The purpose was to prevent the story from being sold or marketed to an external source,” Cohen explained after explaining how his role in intermediation with the American tabloid The National Enquirer was.

According to his account, Cohen was in charge of executing Trump’s requests for the aforementioned media, led by media tycoon David Pecker, to exercise the tactic known in English as ‘catch and kill to acquire the publishing rights of these alleged ‘affaires’, but finally leave them stored in a drawer and never see the light.

Trump is accused of forging accounting documents to buy the silence of the porn actress Stormy Daniels and thus safeguard her reputation in the face of the 2016 elections, in which she would eventually end up imposing.

The scheme, according to the Prosecutor’s Office, consisted of Cohen advancing the payment of $130,000 to Daniels so that his alleged relationship was not revealed, which then had to be reimbursed to the former lawyer, as part of a plot that served to “corrupt” the aforementioned elections.

Another of the women’s names highlighted in the case is that of Karen McDougal, a Playboy model who also tried to filter an affair with Trump and for whose silence Cohen contacted Pecker.

First, I “asked” Trump “if he knew who he was,” Cohen recalled to questions from the Prosecutor’s Office, to which the former president allegedly replied: “She is very beautiful.”

“I told him ‘okay’, but right now he’s trying to sell a (love) story,” Cohen recalled.

“Make sure it doesn’t come to light,” Trump would answer, according to Cohen assuming that “history had to be acquired” by applying the ‘catch and kill’ technique.

“What he told us (Pecker) was that he could be attentive to anything negative about Mr. Trump and that he could help us know in advance what was going to come out and try to prevent it from coming out,” Cohen said, who detailed that the media executive ended up being paid $150,000 to silence the story.

On the other hand, Cohen added that they were also aware of the publication of negative stories about Trump’s rivals in The National Enquirer and set the example with one about Hillary Clinton: “Hillary Clinton appeared with very thick glasses, among some accusations that she had a brain injury.”

In addition, Cohen said that Trump was “enchanted” with the role of this tabloid because his great competitive advantage was that it was present in most “cash registers of supermarkets and grocery stores,” suggesting that it reached a large part of society.

Cohen also narrated how he forged his relationship with Trump in the early 2000s to be part of his close circle by making important transactions or resorting to invoices that he considered “unfair.”

“I felt like I was at the top of the world when (Trump) said that I was fantastic or great,” Cohen said.

Trump made all the requests, according to Cohen, in person because the former head of the US Executive “never” had a personal email address.

“Part” of the work that he entrusted to him was, according to his story, also to mediate and even “enable” those who signed articles with some kind of criticism of the former president.

“If there was an article that bothered him, I was also in charge of talking (with journalists),” he explained about his work, which he summed up in eminently “making happy” the presumptuous candidate of the Republican Party in the U.S. presidential elections in November.

Become one of Trump’s main enemies today, Cohen had already declared against his former chief during the civil trial for fraud that was held in New York where he blamed him for fictitiously inflating his assets to obtain better credit conditions. That process resulted in a fine of 364 million dollars that the tycoon is appealing.

The number of deaths from the serious floods that have been punishing southern Brazil for two weeks has reached 148 and the number of missing persons has reached 127, according to the latest Civil Defense bulletin.

According to the organization, the greatest climate tragedy in the history of the southern region of Brazil has also left 806 injured.

The most dramatic situation is in Rio Grande do Sul, a state bordering Argentina and Uruguay and where at least 147 deaths have been reported. The other victim has been registered in the neighboring state of Santa Catarina.

According to the Civil Defense, the tragedy has spread to 447 of the 497 municipalities of Río Grande do Sul. Affecting 2.12 million people, which corresponds to 18.8% of the 11.3 million inhabitants of this prosperous state.

Of those affected, 80,826 have had to be accommodated in improvised accommodation in schools, gyms and churches. Another 538,241, in homes of family and friends.

The Civil Defense has also reported that the rescue work, in which 27,651 firefighters, military and police participate with the support of 4,405 patrols, 41 aircraft and 340 boats, have so far allowed the rescue of 76,470 people and 10,814 animals.

The devastating floods have destroyed part of some populations. They have left numerous municipalities totally flooded and partially others, such as Porto Alegre, the regional capital, and a huge trail of devastation.

The already serious situation may get worse in the coming days, by the time new storms with precipitation, cold and strong gusts of wind are expected.

The rains have fallen again with intensity since Sunday, so the level of the waters of the rivers, which had begun to decrease on Friday, has risen again but without reaching the highs they recorded.

With the rains on Saturday and Sunday, the Guaíba River, which flooded much of the historic center of Porto Alegre, including its airport and the land transport terminal, has risen again and is now at 4.78 meters.

Projections from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) indicate that the water level in the Guaíba can reach the historical mark of 5.5 meters in the coming days if the rain persists.

In the same way, the Taquari and Caí rivers have overflowed again and have caused new floods in the municipalities of the interior of Rio Grande do Sul.

The new flood has dragged in the early hours of Monday the bridge that connected the cities of Caxias do Sul and Nova Petrópolis. The new floods have led the authorities to declare the maximum alert for the possibility of intense flooding in the Vales region.

Likewise, the maximum alert is maintained in the municipalities located on the banks of the so-called Lagoa dos Patos, where all the waters of the Guaíba flow and whose level has been rising since last Thursday causing flooding in important cities such as Pelotas and Rio Grande.

One of the main concerns is the economic impact that the tragedy will have. Río Grande do Sul is an important agricultural center in the country and the largest rice producer in Brazil.

According to the regional authorities, the initial needs to address the emergency are estimated at 18,839 million reais (3,663 million dollars or 3,392 million euros).

The Brazilian city of Porto Alegre spent ten days flooded and it is very likely that its situation will be aggravated by a new flood of the Guaíba River, which could reach a new record level on Tuesday, according to local authorities.

The heavy rains of the last few days in southern Brazil have again caused the rise of the river, which this Monday reached 4.94 meters, a level that exceeds 4.76 meters that, until last week, was the highest level of which there were records and that had only been reached once, in 1941.

The governor of Río Grande do Sul, Eduardo Leite, warned that the river will be able to exceed the level of 5.5 meters on Tuesday, which is 20 centimeters more than the level reached last week, at the worst moment of the flood that affects the capital of the state of Rio Grande do Sul.

At a press conference, Leite said that “it is still not time to return home” and asked that people who returned to their homes in risk areas be safely returned to shelters.

The Brazilian Government announced on Monday a suspension of the payments of the debt of the state of Rio Grande do Sul with the Treasury for three years, to help the reconstruction of that region devastated by the floods.

The debt of that state reaches 104 billion reais (20,390 million dollars or 18.9 billion euros) and, with the moratorium, about 10% of that amount will be released for the reconstruction of the state, said the Minister of Finance, Fernando Haddad, along with the president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and Parliament authorities, who will have to approve that measure.

The minister added that, during that period, interest on the debt will not be counted either, all with the purpose of “recovering the economic capacity of Rio Grande do Sul in the shortest possible period,” he said.

The governor of Rio Grande do Sul, Eduardo Leite, who attended the announcement by videoconference, thanked the support and recognized “the effort of the entire federal government” in the face of the emergency.

With less intensity, the rain also affects the borders of Argentina and Uruguay, where thousands of people have been evacuated.

Before the current climate disaster, Rio Grande do Sul already had serious problems honoring its debt to the Treasury, which is equivalent to 185% of that state’s annual income, according to data from the regional government.

The economic consequences of the disaster are still immeasurable, but a balance sheet of the Federation of Industries of Rio Grande do Sul has already drawn a partial panorama.

According to that organization, 86.4% of the state’s industrial plants are located in the affected cities, which have had their activities practically paralyzed for two weeks, like almost the entire regional agricultural sector.

Also about 600,000 small and medium-sized companies have plummeted, due to the difficulties for delivery in regions where bridges and roads have collapsed and the airports operate halfway or are completely closed, as is the case with the one in Porto Alegre.

Last week, the federal government had already announced an aid plan for Rio Grande do Sul for about 50 billion reais (9.8 billion dollars or 9.09 billion euros), which includes direct assistance and subsidized credits for small businesses, among many other measures.