Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has said that his government would step up measures to contain migration, but details remain scarce ahead of a high-level US visit scheduled for next week.
Lopez Obrador’s pledge comes as the US grapples with a record high in the number of people trying to reach Mexico’s northern border. The unusually high influx of illegal migrants has already caused disruptions in cross-border trade. US officials have closed at least two rail crossings at the Mexico-Texas border in a bid to curb the migration wave.
In the Friday statement, Lopez Obrador’ said that the “extraordinary” migration situation would be at the center of talks with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other senior US officials in Mexico City on Wednesday.
The Mexican president said that Mexico would bolster containment measures in the south near the Guatemalan border.
A day before making the pledge, Lopez Obrador talked to US President Joe Biden on the phone.
“What was agreed is that we keep working together,” Lopez Obrador told the media.
“We have a proposal to strengthen our plans, what we’ve been doing,” he added.
In recent weeks, US border police have recorded close to 10,000 crossings every day.
From October 2022 to September 2023 there were a record 2.4 million encounters by US border patrol with migrants at both official ports of entry and in other places along the southern border.
Migrants are heading to the US through Mexico to escape violence, economic difficulties and impacts of climate change, according to the UN.
Ukraine war aid dependent on migration reform
As Antony Blinken prepares for his Mexico trip next week, Republican lawmakers in the US are urging significant changes on immigration policy in exchange for approving a package of emergency assistance for Ukraine and Israel.
The US top diplomat will “discuss unprecedented irregular migration… and identify ways Mexico and the United States will address border security challenges, including actions to enable the reopening of key ports of entry across our shared border,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said.
Homeland Security chief Alejandro Mayorkas is also expected to visit Mexico City alongside Blinken.
The US delegation will “underscore the urgent need for lawful pathways and additional enforcement actions by partners throughout the region,” Miller added.
dvv/dj (AFP, Reuters)
