Meeting between Washington and Mexico to fight against illegal immigration

(Washington) The United States and Mexico once again pledged to “work together” to combat illegal immigration along their shared border, Friday in Washington during a second round of talks in a little more of three weeks, in the middle of an electoral year in both countries.

“We have made great progress in the three weeks since this [première] meeting and look forward to taking stock of this today, as well as considering additional steps we can take together to advance our shared goal of reducing the unprecedented influx of irregular migrants,” said US Secretary of State Antony Blinken while receiving his Mexican counterpart Alicia Barcena at the State Department.

He also welcomed the recent inauguration of social democratic leader Bernardo Arévalo in Guatemala, which “opens an important new area of ​​cooperation on migration between our three countries.”

Mr. Blinken traveled to Mexico City on December 27 where he spoke with Mexican President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador, announcing progress in managing the migration crisis.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and White House Homeland Security Advisor Liz Sherwood Randall are also attending the meeting on Friday, along with their Mexican counterparts.

These close meetings demonstrate the desire of the Democratic administration of President Joe Biden to be firm on immigration, while Republican elected officials in Congress are demanding a clear tightening of migration policy in exchange for their support for a budgetary envelope for help Ukraine in its war against Russia.

For his part, former President Donald Trump, who is seeking his revenge at the polls this year against Joe Biden, has redoubled his attacks against migrants, accusing them in particular of “poisoning the blood” of the United States.

Both countries are in an election year: President Biden is up for re-election in November and presidential and local elections are scheduled in Mexico in June.

No announcement is expected on Friday from the “working meeting”, supposed to examine “the operational functioning between our two governments, on what works, on the way in which we can adapt, because these flows are dynamic”, indicated to journalists a senior American official on condition of anonymity.

U.S. and Mexican officials are also expected to discuss the situation in the Darien jungle, between Colombia and Panama, as well as the challenges posed by smuggling networks that exploit migrants.

A record of more than 520,000 migrants, including some 120,000 minors, crossed the inhospitable Darien jungle in 2023, en route to the United States, according to the Panamanian government.

Migration to the United States reached a record level last year.

Between October 2022 and September 2023, some 2.4 million migrants crossed the southern border of the United States, according to the US Border Patrol.

With more than 3,000 km of border with the United States, Mexico is a country of transit and waiting for migrants, mainly from Central American countries plagued by violence or poverty (Honduras, Guatemala , Salvador), the Caribbean (Haiti, Cuba) and Venezuela.