Associated Press
Fri, December 22, 2023
The Union Pacific International Railroad Bridge is seen behind concertina wire, Friday, Sept. 22, 2023, in Eagle Pass, Texas. The federal government has closed railroad crossings in two Texas border towns, including Eagle Pass, raising concerns about the potential impact on trade and goods available to American consumers. Carriers and politicians have decried the move that closes two of the six available railroad systems between Mexico and the U.S.
(AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s president said Friday that he is willing to help out with a surge of migrants that led to the closure of border crossings with the United States, but he wants the U.S. government to open talks with Cuba and send more development aid to migrants' home countries.
The comments by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador came a day after the U.S. announced that a delegation of top U.S. officials would visit Mexico for talks on how to enforce immigration rules at the two countries’ shared border.
López Obrador confirmed that U.S. officials want Mexico to do more to block migrants at its southern border with Guatemala, or make it more difficult to move across Mexico by train or in trucks or buses, a policy known as “contention.”
But the president said that in exchange he wanted the United States to send more development aid to migrants' home countries, and to reduce or eliminate sanctions against Cuba and Venezuela.
“We are going to help, as we always do,” López Obrador said. “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 said. “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 said at his daily morning press briefing.
Mexico is apparently offering to negotiate with Venezuela, whose people make up a large part of the surge of migrants at the U.S. southwestern border. That surge has led U.S. officials to pull immigration officers away from two Texas border rail crossings that are vital to Mexico’s economy.
López Obrador has long opposed U.S. sanctions on Cuba, whose migrants are also streaming to the U.S. border. And the Mexican president has long pressed the United States to contribute to a tree-planting program and to youth scholarship and apprentice programs that he has been pushing for Central America.
López Obrador said the development aid will help stem residents' need to migrate.
The Mexico-U.S. meetings come as Republican and Democratic lawmakers are debating border policy changes as part of a larger conversation over U.S. assistance for Ukraine and Israel, which are top foreign policy priorities for the White House.
Pressure mounted on Mexico following the closure of two railroad crossings in Texas earlier this week. U.S. officials said personnel assigned to the locations needed to be redeployed to help with large numbers of migrants illegally crossing the border. Mexican businesses warned the closures were hampering trade.
López Obrador spoke by telephone with Biden on Thursday and agreed that additional border enforcement was needed so the crossings can be reopened, White House national security spokesman John Kirby said.
Kirby said Biden asked Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and White House Momeland Security Advisor Liz Sherwood-Randall to travel to Mexico for talks with López Obrador and his team.
A U.S. official said the trip would likely happen the Wednesday after Christmas.
“Their visit will really be about getting at the migratory flows and talking to President López Obrador and his team about what more we can do together,” Kirby said at a White House briefing.
Mexican companies are so eager for the border points to reopen that the leader of the Industrial Chamber of Commerce wrote on his social media accounts late Wednesday that a deal had been brokered to get them reopened. A U.S. Embassy spokesperson quickly denied that, saying they remained closed.
The Mexican Employers’ Association described the closure of railroad crossings into Eagle Pass and El Paso, Texas, as a “failure of migration policy.” The organization said the situation was causing losses of $100 million per day in delayed shipments.
Mexico receives much of the corn and soy products it needs to feed livestock on trains from the United States. Auto parts and automobiles also frequently are shipped by rail in Mexico.
“We energetically but respectfully call on the governments of Mexico and the United States to address the migration crisis which is affecting the flow of goods, given that this measure only damages the economies of both nations,” the association wrote in a statement.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection said Sunday the decision was made “in order to redirect personnel to assist the U.S. Border Patrol with taking migrants into custody.”
But is also appeared the U.S. government wants Mexico to crack down on migrants riding rail cars to the U.S. border.
Elsewhere, the Lukeville, Arizona, border crossing is closed, as is a pedestrian entry in San Diego, while more officials are assigned to the entry points. Illegal crossings at the U.S. southwestern border topped 10,000 on some days this month, an unusually high number.
___
Follow AP's coverage of global migration at https://apnews.com/hub/migration
Blinken due in Mexico for border talks
Diego Mendoza
Fri, December 22, 2023
Semafor Signals
Insights from El Universal, the BBC, and CBS News
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s president said Friday that he is willing to help out with a surge of migrants that led to the closure of border crossings with the United States, but he wants the U.S. government to open talks with Cuba and send more development aid to migrants' home countries.
The comments by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador came a day after the U.S. announced that a delegation of top U.S. officials would visit Mexico for talks on how to enforce immigration rules at the two countries’ shared border.
López Obrador confirmed that U.S. officials want Mexico to do more to block migrants at its southern border with Guatemala, or make it more difficult to move across Mexico by train or in trucks or buses, a policy known as “contention.”
But the president said that in exchange he wanted the United States to send more development aid to migrants' home countries, and to reduce or eliminate sanctions against Cuba and Venezuela.
“We are going to help, as we always do,” López Obrador said. “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 said. “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 said at his daily morning press briefing.
Mexico is apparently offering to negotiate with Venezuela, whose people make up a large part of the surge of migrants at the U.S. southwestern border. That surge has led U.S. officials to pull immigration officers away from two Texas border rail crossings that are vital to Mexico’s economy.
López Obrador has long opposed U.S. sanctions on Cuba, whose migrants are also streaming to the U.S. border. And the Mexican president has long pressed the United States to contribute to a tree-planting program and to youth scholarship and apprentice programs that he has been pushing for Central America.
López Obrador said the development aid will help stem residents' need to migrate.
The Mexico-U.S. meetings come as Republican and Democratic lawmakers are debating border policy changes as part of a larger conversation over U.S. assistance for Ukraine and Israel, which are top foreign policy priorities for the White House.
Pressure mounted on Mexico following the closure of two railroad crossings in Texas earlier this week. U.S. officials said personnel assigned to the locations needed to be redeployed to help with large numbers of migrants illegally crossing the border. Mexican businesses warned the closures were hampering trade.
López Obrador spoke by telephone with Biden on Thursday and agreed that additional border enforcement was needed so the crossings can be reopened, White House national security spokesman John Kirby said.
Kirby said Biden asked Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and White House Momeland Security Advisor Liz Sherwood-Randall to travel to Mexico for talks with López Obrador and his team.
A U.S. official said the trip would likely happen the Wednesday after Christmas.
“Their visit will really be about getting at the migratory flows and talking to President López Obrador and his team about what more we can do together,” Kirby said at a White House briefing.
Mexican companies are so eager for the border points to reopen that the leader of the Industrial Chamber of Commerce wrote on his social media accounts late Wednesday that a deal had been brokered to get them reopened. A U.S. Embassy spokesperson quickly denied that, saying they remained closed.
The Mexican Employers’ Association described the closure of railroad crossings into Eagle Pass and El Paso, Texas, as a “failure of migration policy.” The organization said the situation was causing losses of $100 million per day in delayed shipments.
Mexico receives much of the corn and soy products it needs to feed livestock on trains from the United States. Auto parts and automobiles also frequently are shipped by rail in Mexico.
“We energetically but respectfully call on the governments of Mexico and the United States to address the migration crisis which is affecting the flow of goods, given that this measure only damages the economies of both nations,” the association wrote in a statement.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection said Sunday the decision was made “in order to redirect personnel to assist the U.S. Border Patrol with taking migrants into custody.”
But is also appeared the U.S. government wants Mexico to crack down on migrants riding rail cars to the U.S. border.
Elsewhere, the Lukeville, Arizona, border crossing is closed, as is a pedestrian entry in San Diego, while more officials are assigned to the entry points. Illegal crossings at the U.S. southwestern border topped 10,000 on some days this month, an unusually high number.
___
Follow AP's coverage of global migration at https://apnews.com/hub/migration
Blinken due in Mexico for border talks
Diego Mendoza
Fri, December 22, 2023
Semafor Signals
Insights from El Universal, the BBC, and CBS News
NEWS
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other senior officials will travel to Mexico in an effort to curb illegal immigration.
The announcement follows a phone call between U.S. President Joe Biden and his Mexican counterpart Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who agreed that “additional enforcement actions are urgently needed so that key ports of entry can be reopened across our shared border.”
Illegal immigration and cross-border flows of fentanyl have become an increasingly critical voting issue as overdose deaths and migrants strain resources in major U.S. cities.
SIGNALSSemafor Signals: Global insights on today's biggest stories.
Mass mobilization across the border isn’t helpingSources: El Universal, USA Today
“Securitization, threat, and control have done nothing” to combat the migrant crisis and have instead fueled profits made through drug and human trafficking, argued columnist Eunice Rendon for Mexico’s El Universal. Experts quoted by USA Today in 2018 meanwhile likened drug trafficking along the U.S.-Mexico border to a balloon: “If you squeeze one part, the air simply shifts to another.” Rather than fund expensive and inefficient projects like a longer border wall and more border agents, security experts said officials should rely more on paid informants and wiretapping programs to target specific smuggling operations.
China vows to crackdown on fentanyl, but will it commit?Sources: South China Morning Post, BBC
China will help stop the flow of fentanyl production products to Mexico on the basis of “mutual respect, equality and mutual benefit,” a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said Friday, as part of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s promise to Biden at an Asia-Pacific leaders’ summit last month. But one former U.S. trade official told the BBC that Chinese provinces are ultimately responsible for enforcement, and many lack the necessary resources — or are too corrupt — to stop the flow. Beijing is “capable” of expanding its crackdown, the official said, but the question is whether “it’s a sufficient priority,” with Xi only willing to commit depending on “broader geopolitical dynamics.”
Trump is capitalizing with anti-immigration rhetoricSources: CNN, Washington Post, CBS
With record-high border crossings, immigration has become a top concern for U.S. voters: 44% called the issue “extremely important” in a recent CNN poll. Former President Donald Trump — the frontrunner for the Republican primary — has seized the opportunity to amplify his hardline anti-immigration rhetoric, telling supporters at recent campaign events that undocumented immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of the country, prompting both Republicans and Democrats to denounce his comments as offensive and racist. Iowa voters interviewed by CBS said they “don’t speak” for Trump, but echoed his concerns about immigration. “We don’t know who these people are,” one said. “If we have terrorists or drug cartels coming in, that’s just going to corrupt America.”
Mexican president to boost measures aimed at curbing migration
Reuters
Fri, December 22, 2023
Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador attends his daily news conference, in Acapulco
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Friday his government plans to reinforce measures aimed at containing migration as he seeks to assist the United States in dealing with record numbers of people trying to reach the U.S. border.
Lopez Obrador's comments come a day after he spoke with U.S. President Joe Biden, during which both agreed that more enforcement was needed at the border between their countries, as record numbers of migrants disrupt border trade.
Top U.S. officials are set to visit Mexico next Wednesday to follow up on the call, Lopez Obrador said.
"What was agreed is that we keep working together," Lopez Obrador told a regular press conference. "We have a proposal to strengthen our plans, what we've been doing."
Lopez Obrador said he would step up efforts on Mexico's southern border with Guatemala, while also seeking agreements to manage higher numbers of Venezuelans, Cubans, Haitians and Ecuadoreans fleeing poverty, crime and conflict.
"We are not only seeking accords with the United States," Lopez Obrador said, saying his government was looking to reach agreements with countries, including Venezuela.
He also reiterated that he would continue to call for talks between the U.S. and Cuba, which has been under an American economic embargo for decades, and noted talks on easing U.S. sanctions on Venezuela were "progressing."
The number of migrants crossing the perilous Darien Gap into Central America has topped half a million this year, double last year's record figures.
(Reporting by Dave Graham and Ana Isabel Martinez; Editing by Sarah Morland and Jonathan Oatis)
Biden, Mexico president agree border crisis calls for 'urgently needed' enforcement
Francesca Chambers and Lauren Villagran, USA TODAY
Updated Thu, December 21, 2023
President Joe Biden spoke with Mexico's president about "additional enforcement actions" to slow migration at the U.S.-Mexico border after the arrival of tens of thousands migrants shut down trade at two ports of entry.
President Joe Biden spoke with Mexico's president about "additional enforcement actions" to slow migration at the U.S.-Mexico border after the arrival of tens of thousands migrants shut down trade at two ports of entry.
President Joe Biden arrives at White House in Washington, DC, on December 19, 2023, as he returns from Wilmington, Delaware.
Biden and Mexico President Andrés Manuel López Obrador spoke Thursday by phone, according to John Kirby, spokesman for the White House National Security Council, during a White House press briefing.
"The two leaders agreed that additional enforcement actions are urgently needed so that key ports of entry can be reopened across our shared border," Kirby said.
The administration is also sending a high-level delegation to Mexico City. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and White House Homeland Security Adviser Liz Sherwood Randall will meet with the Mexican president and his team in the coming days, Kirby said.
The White House and Congress have been negotiating a national security package that hinges on increased funding and policy changes to border security. Lawmakers left town this week without reaching a deal, and they are not scheduled to return until the second week in January.
Tens of thousands of migrants have crossed the border in Texas in recent days, prompting U.S. Customs and Border Protection to shut down international rail crossings in Eagle Pass and El Paso on Dec. 18. Migrants have been riding atop freight trains in Mexico north to the U.S. border, and the closures are slowing bilateral trade.
CBP also closed a busy pedestrian crossing at San Ysidro and vehicle crossings in Lukeville, Ariz., and Eagle Pass.
U.S., Mexico cooperation on border crisis
This week in Eagle Pass, Texas, hundreds of migrants waited in the open air on patches of grass cordoned off by U.S. Border Patrol, which has struggled to process the number of people crossing the border and turning themselves in to officers.
At the El Paso, Texas, border over the weekend, dozens of migrant families walked along a border highway in Ciudad Juárez, searching for a place to cross the Rio Grande river to the U.S. side as police trucks and vans belonging to the country’s migration authority slowly patrolled the levy on the south side.
A spokesman for Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said he did not have enough information on Biden’s conversation with López Obrador to comment. But the Republican governor has sharply criticized the Democratic president's approach to immigration and border enforcement since arriving at the White House.
“Biden’s deliberate inaction has left Texas to fend for itself,” Abbott said Tuesday in the border city of Brownsville where he signed legislation that allocates $1.54 billion to continue work on then-President Donald Trump's border wall, halted after the change of administrations in 2021.
At the press briefing, Kirby acknowledged the challenging situation.
"The president believes that we’ve got to do better at immigration, and he’s willing to talk and negotiate with members of Congress about immigration policy, just as he is about border security," Kirby said.
The delegation's visit to Mexico City "will really be about getting at the migratory flows and talking to President López Obrador and his team about what more we can do together."
USA TODAY network reporter John Moritz contributed to this report.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Biden, Mexico president agree border crisis needs urgent enforcement
Reuters
Updated Wed, December 20, 2023
A member of the Texas National Guard stands guard on the banks of the Rio Bravo river, as seen from Ciudad Juarez
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The White House said on Wednesday it was working with Mexico's government to resolve issues that led the Biden administration on Monday to close two rail crossings at the Texas-Mexico border used by increasing numbers of migrants to enter the U.S.
Dozens of major U.S. agricultural groups on Wednesday urged the U.S. to reopen the crossings, saying the closures of the railroad trade routes were causing steep export losses to U.S. growers.
The farm groups said the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency could reopen the rail bridges with as few as five employees per crossing, challenging the agency's rationale for shutting down the train routes.
A White House spokesperson said later on Wednesday that the U.S. was "working closely with the Mexican government in an attempt to resolve this issue, while surging personnel to the region."
"We are communicating regularly with industry leaders to ensure we are assessing and mitigating the impacts of these temporary closures," the spokesperson said.
The White House also repeated that U.S. Homeland Security Department officials shut down the two crossings to "stop a large movement of migrants coming by rail and to protect the health and safety of its personnel."
(Reporting by David Shepardson and Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Sandra Maler by Edmund Klamann)
No comments:
Post a Comment