With two presidents who fell short of their campaign promises as they promised as candidates to promote the human rights of migrants, and amid questions from NGOs in Mexico and the United States, the governments of Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Joe Biden Progress in designing a policy based on Control and expulsion of migrants.
Photos released by the Mexican government showed a cordial meeting. AMLO (the acronym for the President of Mexico) received US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of National Security Alejandro Mayorkas in a meeting also attended by White House National Security Advisor Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall. This highlights the preeminence that the current US administration seeks unprecedented migration crisis in 2023.
With elections in 2024, both in the USA, where Biden is seeking re-electionAs in Mexico, where AMLO is banking on the continuity of his government with the candidacy of Claudia Sheinbaum, both governments fear the negative impact that a change could have on public opinion. The wave of migration is larger than the already very high one this yearMillions of migrants from many different countries cross Mexico with the aim of entering US territory without documents.
Between October 2022 and September 2023, the US fiscal year, is the US immigration authorities They accounted for more than 3.2 million detentions of undocumented immigrants. A record 2.7 million arrests were recorded in the previous financial year. Immigration studies experts estimate that for every arrest, at least three more migrants may reach their destination enter the USA without papers.
This massive human mobility, its central planor involves settlement in Mexicopublic services are also collapsing in various small and medium-sized cities, in addition to the fact that many migrants of various nationalities settle temporarily or permanently in Mexican territory after being arrested in the United States.
On the other hand, recently Biden administration He has admitted that his interest in a negotiating channel with the Nicolás Maduro regime is related to controlling the migration flow of Venezuelans. Thanks to these direct discussions, repatriation flights were established in 2023, bringing thousands of Venezuelans back to Caracas, including some who were documented to have been persecuted by Chavismo.
Mexico now served as a refuge for many migrants returning from the USA. The Immigration policy who seem to be arguing Biden and AMLO It would mean preventing third-country migrants from entering Mexican territory in return for allowing Mexicans mobility to the United States and imposing stricter border controls.
After questioning his predecessor Donald Trump about building a border wall, Biden has decided on the allocation of funds to this project. And his government's message is that if the migrant does not have a visa or entry permit that needs to be processed beforehand for humanitarian reasons, he is not welcome.
As a candidate, AMLO promised to respect the human rights of migrants. However, testimonies from Venezuelans, Cubans and Haitians, as well as other nationalities, reflect violent treatment and mistreatment of various kinds by Mexican officials.
The high-level meeting on December 27th had the background of the last and largest refugee caravan of 2023. According to journalists present, around 8,000 people left the municipality of Huixtla in the state of Chiapas on the border between Mexico and Guatemala on Christmas night.
For Mexican activist Ana Lorena Delgadillo, this caravan, entitled “Exodus from Poverty,” represents a clear example of “living an exodus that is the direct result of the enormous lack of protection they experience in the face of violence and insecurity experience”. , lack of opportunity and in many cases the absence of the rule of law.
Cubans, Venezuelans, Hondurans, Haitians and Salvadorans are part of this caravan, whose spokespeople have called for humanitarian action Governments of Mexico and the United States to be able to mobilize and to be allowed to enter US territory.
“It is not militarization, imprisonment and mass deportation that will bring results. It is necessary to generate something.” safe routes for migration in its different phasesas well as a regularization policy,” said Delgadillo, director of the Foundation for Justice, in a message to the governments of Mexico and the United States.
The Washington Office for Latin America (WOLA) also issued its own a harsh statement, but one aimed specifically at the Biden administration and to the two parties represented in the US Congress, the Republicans and the Democrats.
“It is time to take a realistic look at the factors driving migration, ensure due process for people in need of protection, provide additional legal pathways for migration, and work with countries across the hemisphere that are also experiencing record numbers of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers.” says the WOLA statement.
Meanwhile, several human rights organizations were questioning the platform that AMLO offered to the dictatorships of Cuba and Venezuela At a meeting at the end of October to discuss the migration crisis that worsened in 2023, Miguel Díaz-Canel and Nicolás Maduro in this room blamed Washington's coercive measures massive migration in their countries and they avoided self-criticism about their own actions and the lack of freedoms as a trigger for emigration.