Harris turns focus to Mexico on trip to address migration
MEXICO CITY (AP) - Vice President Kamala Harris is kicking off her first overseas trip with a visit to Mexico on Tuesday and meeting with President Andres Manuel López Obrador as the Biden administration's efforts to stem a spike in migration is an important but complex ally. US border.
While López Obrador had committed in a previous virtual meeting with Harris that the U.S. would help resolve the issue of irregular migration. Can "trust us," the Mexican president has in the past blamed on President Joe Biden for an increase in immigration across the border. And despite Trump's harsh policies toward migrants, he was friendly with his predecessor, President Donald Trump.
Earlier last month, he also accused the US of violating Mexico's sovereignty by giving money to NGOs that were criticizing his government.
But Harris has sought to strengthen diplomatic ties with the Mexican president in his role in tackling the root causes of increased migration from the countries of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, as well as Mexico's Northern Triangle. She has made several phone calls and held a virtual bilateral meeting with her, and Tuesday will be the latest indication of whether her efforts will be fruitful for either country.
"We have a partnership, a longstanding partnership. Apart from Canada, we are each other's closest neighbors," Harris told reporters Monday night. "That's the basis of my conversations with her — with that feeling, that We have to be partners."
The meeting came after Harris's visit to Guatemala on Monday, where he met with President Alejandro Giammattei. To coincide with their meeting, the Biden administration announced a number of new commitments to tackle smuggling, smuggling and corruption, as well as investing in economic development in the country. But on Tuesday, his meeting with López Obrador is not expected to deliver as many concrete commitments.
The two will witness the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding that will establish greater cooperation between the two countries on development programs in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. Harris' aides say they will discuss vaccine sharing, economic and security ties between the two countries and tackling the root causes of migration from other countries in the region. Harris speaks frequently of the need to improve economic conditions for the area's residents, so he Don't feel compelled to trek to the limit.
The MoU marks a new level of cooperation, according to special envoy Ricardo Zuniga, who accompanied Harris on the trip, and is important because the two countries have "some similar issues" when it comes to irregular migration.
He told reporters traveling with Harris, "It's very important to show that the United States and Mexico are cooperating at the grassroots level between our neighbors and trying to improve the situation, as are others in Central America." We both have importance in countries."
Harris will spend the rest of the day meeting with women entrepreneurs and labor leaders across the country.
The meeting comes days after the country's midterm elections, during which López Obrador's party was set to maintain its majority in Mexico's lower house of Congress, but fell short of a two-thirds majority as some voters voted against the struggling opposition. Promoted, according to preliminary election results.
Harris is not expected to address the election results during his meeting with the president, but the bloody campaign — nearly three dozen candidates or ex-candidates killed as drug cartels sought to protect their interests — dominated his conversation. sure to be. The government's inability to provide security in parts of the country is of interest to the US in an immigration context, both for those displaced by violence and those desperately trying to recover from the pandemic. It has an impact on a weak economy.
Still, while aides say corruption was the main focus of his meeting with Giammattei, it is unclear whether he will take up the issue with López Obrador.
But with increased immigration at the border becoming one of the major challenges facing Biden in the early months of his first term, Republicans are capturing an issue they see as politically advantageous as polling shows. That Americans are less favorable to Biden's approach to immigration. They are towards the economy and their policies on the COVID-19 pandemic.
He has tried to make Harris the face of that immigration policy, alleging that he and Biden are ignoring the issue because the two have not yet visited the southern border. Harris told reporters in Guatemala on Monday that she was focused on addressing the root causes of migration in a way that yields "tangible" results as opposed to "grand gestures."
Regardless of the final outcome of their meetings on Tuesday, Mexico will remain a major participant in enforcement efforts at the border.
Illegal border crossings have steadily increased since April 2020, when Trump introduced pandemic-related powers to deny migrants the opportunity to seek asylum, but intensified under Biden, who has criticized many of Trump's harshest laws. The border policies were quickly dismantled – notably the "Stay in Mexico" program to make asylum seekers in Mexico wait for court dates in US immigration court.
Shortly after taking office, Biden also exempted unaccompanied children from Title 42, named for a section of a vague 1944 public health law that mandated officials to prevent the spread of the disease. Allows access denied. Mexico agreed to withdraw its own citizens under Title 42 officers as well as those from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.
US border officials confronted nearly 19,000 unaccompanied children in March, the most on record. In total, it had more than 170,000 encounters at the border in April, the highest level in more than 20 years, although the numbers are not directly comparable as the pandemic has no legal consequences for being stopped under authorities concerned, resulting in multiple crossings. There are.
Mexicans accounted for 36% of encounters with people crossing illegally in April, the largest nationality according to the latest monthly data available from US Customs and Border Protection. Honduran was second with 22% and Guatemalan was third with 17%.
In March, López Obrador also blamed Biden for the increase in immigration at the US border, alleging at a March press conference that the Biden administration had made "expectations" that "migrants would be better treated."
"And it has made Central American migrants, and from our country as well, want to cross the border thinking that's easy to do," he said.