Mexico already built Trump's wall -- and paid for it The commander paces in front of a line of troops, preparing them for the day's mission. "We are in our country. We are in Mexico. We are enforcing our laws," he says, his voice getting louder with each point he makes. "Nobody is going to come here to trample on our laws," he continues. "Nobody is going come here to trample on our country, on our land." Soon afterward, according to local media reports, military police from Mexico's National Guard blocked a large group of migrants in Tuzantán, Mexico, who had been trying to head north. The caravan, made up of thousands of migrants largely from Africa, Central America and the Caribbean, was disbanded and sent to an immigrant detention camp in southern Mexico.  A video of the October 12 operation went viral and stirred a mix of reactions in Mexico, adding fresh fuel to a point critics of President Andres Manuel López Obrador have been making for months. Mexico, they argue, actually built US President Donald Trump's border wall after all -- not with concrete or bricks or steel, but with thousands of federal forces like this camouflage-clad commander and the troops following his orders. And Mexico, they argue, is paying for it. Yes, US taxpayers have been footing the bill for efforts to build new physical barriers at the US-Mexico border. But experts note that Mexico's massive deployment of National Guard troops over the past few months has played a major role in blocking migrants from reaching the US border in the first place. It's a point Trump himself has made at several recent events -- a dramatic change in tone from his sharp criticisms of Mexico earlier this year. "I would like to thank President López Obrador of Mexico for the great cooperation we are receiving, and for right now putting 27,000 troops on our southern border," Trump told the United Nations General Assembly last month. "Mexico is showing us great respect, and I respect them in return." A few days later, Trump told reporters he was "using Mexico to protect our border" because Democrats weren't doing enough to fix the immigration system. And last week, acting US Customs and Border Protection chief Mark Morgan praised Mexico on Twitter, sharing a news story about the October 12 operation to turn back the latest caravan. "Mexico's enhanced border security efforts along their southern border continue to have a dramatic impact on this regional crisis," he wrote. "I just returned from Mexico where we had collaborative discussions on stemming the flow of illegal migration throughout the region." https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/20/americas/mexico-border-wall-trump/index.html