President Joe Biden sent officials to Mexico City to meet with President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador to discuss the problem of record numbers of migrants crossing into US borders.
The meeting lasted more than two hours with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and homeland security adviser Liz Sherwood-Randall.
One official said that Mexico “came prepared to share a plan with us on how they were taking the work that they are already doing” to help stem the flow of migrants into the border.
“We have seen in recent days a pretty significant reduction in border crossings. So again, this is not something that the U.S and Mexico will be able to address on or off on their own. So I would say the majority of our conversation actually focused on work that we’re doing together in the region.”
Obrador at the White House
Blinken and Lopez Obrador discussed legal pathways for migrants. The senior administration officials said that Mexico also agreed that it needed to crack down on smuggling.
The meeting comes on the back of New York, Chicago and Denver mayors saying that they simply have no more room for migrant arrivals, while Texas Gov Greg Abbot continues to send migrants these cities.
Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson said on December 27 that without significant intervention from the federal government, this mission will not be sustained.
“We have reached a point where we are either close to capacity, or nearly out of room,” said Johnson.
Border Patrol screened more than 50,000 migrants who entered the United States illegally in five days last week. In November they detained 191,000 migrants who crossed the US-Mexico border unlawfully.
Obrador said that he want the United States to provide more aid to region.
“We have always talked about addressing the causes of [migration]. The ideal thing is to help poor countries,” said Obrador.
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