U.S. delegation to fulfill with Mexican authorities for talks on the surge of migrants at border

MEXICO CITY (AP) — A high U.S. delegation is to fulfill with Mexico‘s president Wednesday in what many see as a bid to get Mexico to do more to stem a surge of migrants reaching the U.S. southwestern border.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has said he is willing to help, but also says he wants to see progress in U.S. relations with Cuba and Venezuela, two of the top senders of migrants, and more development aid for the region.

Both sides face strong 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 southwest U.S. border.

The U.S. has struggled to process thousands of migrants at the border, or 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 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. officials said those closures were done to reassign officials to help with processing migrants.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken left open the possibility those crossing 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 in a statement prior to Wednesday’s assembly.

Mexico already has assigned over 32,000 navy troops and National Guard officers – about 11% of its complete forces – to implement immigration legal guidelines, and the National Guard now detains much more migrants than criminals.

But the shortcomings of that method have been on show Tuesday, when National Guard officers made no try and cease a caravan of about 6,000 migrants, many from Central America and Venezuela, after they walked by way of Mexico’s foremost inland immigration inspection level in southern Chiapas state, close to the Guatemala border.

In the previous, Mexico has let such caravans undergo, trusting that they’d tire themselves out strolling alongside the freeway. No caravan has ever walked the 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) to the U.S. border.

But carrying them out — by obliging Venezuelans and others to hike by way of the jungle-clad Darien Gap, or corralling migrants off passenger buses in Mexico — now not works.

Many have merely discovered different methods. So many migrants have been hopping freight trains by way of Mexico that one of many nation’s two main railroad corporations was pressured to droop trains in September due to security issues.

Actual police raids to tug migrants off railway vehicles – the type of motion Mexico took a decade in the past – is likely to be one factor the American delegation want to see.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Homeland Security Adviser Liz Sherwood-Randall can even be in on the assembly.

One factor the U.S. has already executed is present that one nation’s issues on the border rapidly turn out to be each international locations’ issues. The Texas railway closures put a chokehold on freight shifting from Mexico to the U.S., in addition to grain wanted to feed Mexican livestock shifting south.

López Obrador confirmed final week that U.S. officers need Mexico to do extra to dam migrants at its southern border with Guatemala, or make it tougher to maneuver throughout Mexico by prepare or in vans or buses, a coverage often known as “contention.”

But the president mentioned that in change he wished the United States to ship extra improvement help to migrants’ house international locations, and to scale back or eradicate sanctions towards Cuba and Venezuela.

“We are going to help, as we always do,” López Obrador mentioned. “Mexico is helping reach agreements with other countries, in this case Venezuela.”

“We also want something done about the (U.S.) differences with Cuba,” López Obrador mentioned. “We have already proposed to President (Joe) Biden that a U.S.-Cuba bilateral dialogue be opened.”

“That is what we are going to discuss, it is not just contention,” he mentioned.

Mexico says it detected 680,000 migrants shifting by way of the nation within the first 11 months of 2023.

In May, Mexico agreed to soak up migrants from international locations akin to Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba who had been turned away by the U.S. for not following guidelines that supplied new authorized pathways to asylum and different types of migration.