U.S. to send surplus vaccine to Mexico

Biden administration seeks help containing border migration surge.

The Biden admini stration has agreed to supply Mexico with excess doses of the coronavirus vaccine, and Mexico is moving to help the United States contain a migration surge along their shared border, according to senior offifficials from both countries involved in the conversations.

What’s happening

The decision to send AstraZeneca vaccine to Mexico, and t o Canada, i s expec t ed t o be announced today. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently asked President Joe Biden to help them fifill vaccine shortfalls.

Why it matters

Mexican and U. S. offifficials who described the agreement said it was not a quid pro quo conditioning the delivery of vaccines on an enforcement crackdown. Rather, the United States made clear it sought help from Mexico in managing a record influx of Central American teenagers and children. Mexico pledged to take back more Central American families “expelled” under a U. S. emergency health order while urging Biden to share the U. S. vaccine supply, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

“We are assessing how we can loan AZ doses to both Canada and Mexico” and “assessing the feasibility” with companies, a White House official said. “Our top priority remains vaccinating the U. S. population, but the reality is that this virus knows no borders and ensuring our neighbors can contain the virus is mission- critical to protecting the health and economic security of Americans and for stopping the spread of COVID19 around the globe.”

What it means

The requests f or more border cooperation fifit an increasingly familiar pattern in which the United States turns to the Mexican government for enforcement help during moments of crisis.

In recent weeks, Mexico has st aged and publicized a number of anti- migration operations, largely along its southern border with Guatemala. Mexico’s national guard has raided the northbound trains that Central American teenagers ride to the U. S. border, stopped migrants with counterfeit United Nations documents, and detained migrants crammed into trailers.

Those kinds of operations are not new in Mexico, but they have proliferated in recent weeks, according to current and former Mexican offifficials. Mexican offifficials have said publicly that their immigration enforcement actions are conducted independently of the United States, with an aim to applying their own laws regulating the flow of migrants.

A more visible Mexican immigration enforcement effort is expected to be announced soon, offifficials said.

“It seems that what we’re going to see in the coming days is are activation of the Mexican immigration enforcement that Trump negotiated and pressured in 2019,” said Tonatiuh Guillén, the former leader of Mexico’s migration agency who resigned in 2019. “But it appears that the new agreement is with the Biden government, as a reaction to increased migratory flows.”

The new enforcement effort will consist partially of a larger deployment of Mexico’s national guard and — unlike the train raids — will more closely target migrants traveling with smugglers, often in private vehicles.

JULIO CORTEZ/ AP Litzi Pop, 8, and her mother, Jaquelyn Morales, of Guatemala wait to be processed Wednesday in Brownsville, Texas. They were stopped while trying to cross the U. S.- Mexico border.