U.S. delegation is meeting with Mexico’s government for talks on the surge of migrants at the border
MEXICO CITY
A top U.S. delegation is meeting with Mexico’s president Wednesday in what many see as an attempt to have Mexico do more to limit a surge of migrants reaching the U.S. southwestern border.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has said he’s willing to help, but he wants to see progress in U.S. relations with Cuba and Venezuela, two of the top sources of migrants, along with more development aid for the region.
“We have always talked about addressing the causes (of migration). The ideal thing is to help poor countries,” López Obrador said before the meeting.
Both sides in the talks face pressure to reach an agreement after past steps like limiting direct travel into Mexico or deporting some migrants failed to stop the influx. This month, as many as 10,000 migrants were arrested daily at the U.S. border.
The U.S. has struggled to process thousands of migrants at the border, and house them once they reach northern cities. Mexican industries were stung last week when the U.S. briefly closed two vital
Texas railway crossings, arguing that border patrol agents had to be reassigned to deal with the surge. Another non-rail border crossing remained closed in Lukeville, Arizona, and operations were partially suspended in San Diego and Nogales, Arizona.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken left open the possibility that those crossings could be reopened if Mexico provides more help.
“Secretary Blinken will discuss unprecedented irregular migration in the Western Hemisphere and identify ways Mexico and the United States will address border security challenges, including actions to enable the reopening of key ports of entry across our shared border,” his office said.
Mexico says it detected 680,000 migrants moving through the country in the first 11 months of 2023.
Mexico has assigned over 32,000 military troops and National Guard officers — about 11% of its total forces — to enforce immigration laws, and the National Guard now detains far more migrants than criminals.
But the shortcomings of that approach were on display Tuesday, when National Guard officers made no attempt to stop a caravan of about 6,000 migrants, many from Central America and Venezuela, from walking through Mexico’s main inland immigration inspection point in southern Chiapas state near the Guatemala border.
In the past, Mexico has let such caravans go through, trusting that they would tire themselves out walking along the highway.
By Wednesday, Lazara Padrón Molina, 46, from Cuba was sick and exhausted. The caravan set out Dec. 24 from the city of Tapachula and had walked about 45 miles through the heat to Escuintla in southern Chiapas state.
“The route is too long to continue walking. Why don’t they just give us documents so that we could get a bus or a taxi?” Padrón Molina said. “Look at my feet,” she said, showing blisters. “I can’t go on anymore.”
But wearing the migrants out — by obliging Venezuelans and others to hike through the jungle-clad Darien Gap, or corralling migrants off passenger buses in Mexico — no longer appears to work.
A few blocks from Mexico City’s main plaza — where Blinken will meet with López Obrador at the National Palace — migrants stayed at an improvised shelter at a church, gathering strength before continuing north.