Washington (AFP) –
US President Joe Biden is set to speak with his Mexican counterpart Andrés Manuel López Obrador this Friday about the migration crisis at the border and the Summit of the Americas, days before AMLO travels to Central America and Cuba.
The phone call, scheduled for 1:00 p.m. local time (17:00 GMT), will center on the migration crisis at the border between the two countries, which is expected to increase if a health regulation (Title 42) is lifted in May, due to which the United States is expelling the United States almost all illegal migrants.
The United States Customs and Border Protection Agency reports 7,800 arrests of undocumented immigrants per day along the border with Mexico for the past three weeks, nearly five times the 2014-2019 average before the Covid pandemic.
“We have worked closely with Mexico to manage, stem and reduce irregular migration, especially as we plan together to end the use of Title 42,” said a US official who asked not to be identified.
US authorities foresee an increase in the number of migrants if Title 42 is repealed, a repeal that has caused bubbles among Republicans and some Democratic congressmen from states bordering Mexico.
“More than ever, we need confidence in our association’s response to the surge in a coordinated manner, with additional personnel and resources on both sides of our border to ensure we have an orderly and humane response to the migratory flow,” the official said.
Border crossings have bothered President Biden since his arrival in the White House and especially a few months before the November midterm elections, in which he could lose an already narrow majority in Congress.
– Summit of the Americas-
The two leaders will also discuss priorities for the June Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles related to the economic fallout from the war in Ukraine and will examine ways to boost the region’s post-pandemic economic recovery, the senior reported, US official who also requested anonymity.
And one of the central themes of the Summit of the Americas will also be migration, especially from Central America.
Precisely López Obrador will travel to Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Belize and Cuba next week.
The two countries are keen to mobilize a broad response in America, and “we are working closely with Mexico and other key partners to deliver a strong statement that looks to the future and reflects the spirit of shared responsibility for migration.” ‘ said the officer.
“Over the past year, we’ve worked very hard to rebuild bilateral ties between our institutions,” said the official, who estimates that “cooperation mechanisms with Mexico didn’t work during the previous administration” of former Republican President Donald Trump.
“We have a strong and forward-looking economic agenda under the High-Level Economic Dialogue,” and we are committed to strengthening supply chains and “aligning our economies with the industries of the future,” the official said.
This does not rule out discrepancies between Mexico and its main trading partner. López Obrador’s Mexican government has not heeded Washington’s calls for a strong and united front against Russia over the invasion of Ukraine, and is defending a more neutral position.
“Of course we hope that they will join us in putting a price on the Kremlin for what it is doing,” said an official, specifying that there were consensus and recalling that Mexico condemned the invasion in multilateral fora have.