López Obrador unlikely to give on immigration
Mexico’s incoming president, a relentless critic of the ruling elite, has voiced no objection to the free-trade deal its current government brokered with the United States.
On security matters, Presidentelect Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s team says it wants a productive relationship with the Trump administration and will continue partnering in the fight against drug cartels.
But if there is a potential source of conflict in the U.S.-Mexico relationship after Dec. 1, when López Obrador will take office, it is likely to be immigration enforcement. There, the left-wing Mexican populist and President Donald Trump appear to be on a collision course.
The flow of Central American migrants through Mexico and into the United States — a matter of intense personal and political interest to the U.S. president — is on the rise again, defying Trump’s attempts to crack down at the border. Stopping migrants and asylum seekers through tougher enforcement is a priority for the Trump administration. López Obrador and his team have a different take.
“We are not going to chase migrants. We are not going to criminalize them,” said Alejandro Encinas, the incoming undersecretary in Mexico’s ministry in charge of immigration. “We have to stop looking at immigration as an issue of public security or national security, or the national security of the United States.”
Those sentiments echoed statements made by López Obrador during the presidential campaign, when he said Mexico had been doing Washington’s “dirty work” by catching Central Americans “fleeing violence and misery.”
Last month, the Trump administration notified Congress that it planned to transfer $20 million from State Department economic support funds to a Department of Homeland Security program that would help Mexico detain and deport more migrants. Mexico hasn’t taken the money.
On Friday, a spokesman for Marcelo Ebrard, who was chosen as foreign minister in Mexico’s new government, said the Trump administration’s offer for funding was “not necessary.”
Mexico’s current president, Enrique Peña Nieto, clamped down on Central American migration early in his term. Under Obama administration pressure, Peña Nieto introduced in 2014 the “Southern Border Plan,” which intensified immigration patrols at Mexico’s frontier with Guatemala, detaining many migrants before they could reach the United States. During Peña Nieto’s first full year in office, 2013, Mexico detained and deported 78,733 Central Americans. That number shot up to 176,726 two years later, according to Mexican government statistics.
Peña Nieto also cooperated with the United States by sharing biometric data collected on detained migrants and allowing Homeland Security advisers to work out of southern Mexico.
López Obrador’s aides have described the Southern Border Plan as a failure. They argue that migrants continue to easily cross Mexico’s porous border with Guatemala and that an intensified hunt for illegal immigrants led to human rights abuses and corruption.
“The only thing it’s accomplished is to increase the levels of corruption and violence in the south,” Encinas told The Washington Post. “The problem of the southern border is not a problem of cops and robbers.”
Mexico’s new government plans to shift roles within the Interior Ministry so that Encinas, as undersecretary, will oversee human rights and migration. Previously, those responsibilities were held by separate officials. Some migrant advocates are calling for deeper administrative change — such as moving Mexico’s migration agency out of the Interior Ministry entirely.
López Obrador’s advisers say their intention is to protect the human rights of migrants while also pushing economic development programs in southern Mexico and in Central America, to give people in the region more reason to stay at home. Some of the incoming administration’s signature projects in southern Mexico — a “Mayan Train” that would traverse the Yucatan Peninsula; a reforestation project in the jungles of Chiapas — would likely rely on Central American migrant labor.
“Instead of having only military and police measures to keep this exodus of Mexicans and Central Americans from going to the United States, we want to reach the same objective of reducing these numbers by promoting social development in our countries,” said Hector Vasconcelos, a senator who served as a top foreign policy aide to López Obrador during the campaign.
It remains unclear whether the incoming administration’s gentler rhetoric about migrants will translate into fewer deportations — and fewer Central Americans crossing into Texas.
Some Trump administration officials worry López Obrador’s team emphasizes migrant rights above law enforcement. At the same time, they’re encouraged by how much interest López Obrador’s team has shown to find areas of cooperation.
“I think, at a senior level, they acknowledge the need to have a border with Guatemala, and they want to partner with us to confront [criminal groups],” said one senior Trump administration official with knowledge of the Mexico talks. “This is where I believe we will have common ground.”