■ President Joe Biden met virtually with his Mexican counterpart.
Pair discuss pandemic, migration, other issues
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden met virtually Monday with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador — a chance for the pair to talk more fully about migration, confronting the coronavirus and cooperating on economic and national security issues.
“This is what I know, the United States and Mexico are stronger when we stand together,” Biden told López Obrador at the outset of the meeting.
“We’re safer when we work together. Whether it’s addressing the challenges of our shared border, or getting this pandemic under control.”
Mexico’s president had said he intended in the meeting to propose to Biden a new immigrant labor program that could bring 600,000 to 800,000 Mexican and Central American immigrants a year to work legally in the United States.
A senior Biden administration official declined to say whether the U.S. president would back the proposal, saying only that both countries agree on the need to expand legal pathways for migration.
The official insisted on anonymity to discuss private conversations. Asked about the Mexican president’s proposal, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said that reinstituting the Bracero program would require action by Congress.
On Monday, López Obrador said his new proposal would be a program not only for agriculture workers but for other sectors and professionals.
The White House also signaled that Biden was not willing to budge on another López Obrador request — to send U.S.- manufactured coronavirus vaccines to his country.
Biden would not agree to the move, Psaki said, adding that the president was first focused on getting Americans vaccinated. A similar posture toward Canada has also proved to be a wrinkle in that relationship.