The head of American diplomacy, Antony Blinken, met for two hours on Wednesday with the Mexican president to try to defuse the crisis of the new influx of migrants at the border, the subject of a burning political debate in the United States.
On the eve of an election year, this rare holiday trip comes at a time when Republican elected officials in Congress are demanding an agreement on immigration with Joe Biden’s government in exchange for their support for a new aid package for Ukraine.
The United States also announced on Wednesday the release of $250 million in military aid for Ukraine, their last tranche available without a new vote in the American Congress.
“We are going to have periodic meetings,” said Foreign Relations Secretary Alicia Bárcena, referring journalists to a future statement on the meeting.
“We will work together with Guatemala, with South America and Central America,” she added, repeating that Mexico wanted to tackle “the structural causes” of migration.
In recent weeks, some 10,000 people a day have attempted to cross the U.S. southern border illegally, nearly double the numbers recorded before the pandemic.
And a caravan of thousands of migrants left southern Mexico on Sunday to try to reach the United States.
“No one is going to stop the migration. No one can stop with all the money in the world the fact that people are looking for better living conditions,” an activist organizing this march, Luis Garcia Villagran, told the press.
Overwhelmed by the influx, American authorities have had to close border crossings to deal with migrants attempting illegal crossings.
On Thursday, two migrants drowned at the border on the Mexican side near the city of Matamoros, from where they were trying to cross into the United States, trying to escape Mexican migration surveillance, according to images that the AFP obtained it.
The Secretary of State was accompanied by the Minister of Homeland Security, responsible in particular for border police, Alejandro Mayorkas, and the Homeland Security Advisor, Liz Sherwood-Randall.
President Lopez Obrador, who spoke by telephone with Joe Biden on Thursday, December 21, pledged to strengthen measures to restrain migrants in the south of the country, on the border with Guatemala.
Coercive actions
“We will continue to do it and we want to come to an agreement because given that there are also elections in the United States, the subject will animate minds,” the Mexican president declared Wednesday to the press before his meeting with Mr. Blinken.
The American delegation was to discuss with Mr. Lopez Obrador “the urgent need for routes [d’immigration] legal and strengthening enforcement actions,” according to US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller.
Former Republican President Donald Trump, who is preparing to face Joe Biden at the polls in November 2024, recently doubled down on his attacks on migrants, accusing them of “poisoning the blood” of the United States, comments which he said Detractors echo Nazi rhetoric.
In this tense political context, the Democrats are trying to find an agreement on immigration with the Republicans in Congress in order to have at the same time approved spending of 61 billion dollars to help kyiv in its war with Moscow.
The White House has warned that it will “run out of resources” for Ukraine “by the end of the year”.
In the negotiations, the Biden administration notably proposed funding 1,300 more positions within the border police.
“Rational decision”
Washington should undoubtedly ask Mexico to still keep migrants on their soil, for example by giving them work permits, believes Andrew Rudman, researcher specializing in Mexico at the Wilson Center think tank in Washington.
But “one of the challenges is that everyone wants a solution right away to a global problem that has existed for a long time.” However, “there is no magic wand”.
The majority of migrants are fleeing Central American countries ravaged by poverty, violence and natural disasters, or the political, economic and social crisis in Venezuela.
In recent months, there has been an increase in the number of migrants from Haiti, devastated by gang violence, and Venezuela.
Met on Tuesday by AFP in Comaltitlan, in the caravan that left southern Mexico, María Alicia Ulloa said she left Honduras to “offer a better life for [ses] children “.
If she were to be blocked on the way, she would return to her country, where “there is crime and little work,” she confided from the side of the road, backpack on her shoulders.