Mexico City-The United States and Mexico agreed to keep border crossings open, said Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, following the visit of a mission led by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, which focused on ensuring the help from Mexico to stop a wave of migrants.
Earlier this month, the United States temporarily closed several crossings, including two key railroad bridges, to redeploy police resources elsewhere along the border amid a growing number of migrants arriving at various points, a key issue in the election. Americans next year.
“There is more and more movement on the border, on the bridges, and that is why we have to be vigilant so that the crossings are not closed,” said President Andrés Manuel López Obrador in his morning press conference.
“That agreement was reached. The crossings are already being opened for the railway and the border bridges and thus normalize the situation,” said the Mexican president about the agreements reached the day before.
The president said that Wednesday’s meetings with the US delegation, which included Blinken and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, were “direct” and praised the Biden administration’s relationship with Mexico.
Later, in a joint statement, both nations said that at the meeting “both countries reaffirmed their existing commitments to foster orderly, humane and regular migration,” including “strengthening our collaboration to address the root causes of migration, such as poverty, inequality and violence, as well as the joint initiative for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans.” They added that the delegations discussed the benefits of regularizing the situation of Hispanic migrants who have been undocumented for several years and the beneficiaries of DACA – an agreement that provides protection against deportation to those who arrived in the United States when they were still minors – and are a vital part of the American economy and society.
They also agreed to meet again in Washington in January 2024 to continue managing migration issues.
At the beginning of the month, López Obrador said he would help the United States by promoting measures to stop migration, without giving details. Yesterday, he stated that the immigration authorities of that country were overwhelmed by the arrival of up to 12,000 migrants each day in recent days.
The bilateral talks come as hundreds of migrants and asylum seekers, many with young children, walk slowly through southern Mexico. It is unlikely that the caravan, which some media and activists estimate at around 7,000 people and López Obrador only at around 1,500, will reach the border with the United States.
Reuters Agency
Source: Ambito
