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U.S. President Joe Biden arrived in Mexico on Sunday for talks on immigration and drug smuggling and for a summit of North American leaders after making a politically charged stop at the border.
Biden will meet one-on-one with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday and Tuesday in a so-called “three Friends” Summit.
Lopez Obrador welcomed him on the red carpet before he joined Biden in his armored limousine from the airport.
While trade and environmental issues are also on the table, Biden has made a surge in irregular immigration and dangerous drug smuggling front and center in his trip, his first to Mexico as president.
On his way to Mexico City, he stopped for several hours in El Paso, Texas, the city at the center of the turbulent border.
In a sign of political sensitivity, it was his first visit to the southern border since taking office.
Biden met with U.S. officials at the Bridge of the Americas crossing and watched a demonstration of the latest border enforcement technology as well as customs-sniffing dogs. He later left the convoy to inspect part of the high fence that snaked between El Paso and its twin city, Juárez, on the Mexican side.
“They need a lot of resources. We’re going to get them for them,” Biden told reporters after touring customs.
– Explosion problem –
Biden is under intense political pressure to face rising illegal border crossings and asylum claims from people making dangerous journeys from regional countries affected by repression, poverty or serious crime.
Compounding the crisis is a surge in the smuggling of the highly addictive and often deadly narcotic fentanyl across borders.
Biden’s visit is aimed at responding to Republican accusations that he has been ignoring the situation.
But during a meeting with Biden at Air Force One, Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott handed Biden a letter slamming the visit as “$20 billion is too little and it’s too late.” two years”.
In a meeting with Lopez Obrador and Trudeau, Biden will discuss the regional scope of the issue.
“This is not something unique to the United States,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told ABC News, noting that migrants are moving from as far away as Haiti, Venezuela and Nicaragua.
“It’s sweeping across the hemisphere, and regional challenges require regional solutions,” he said.
Biden on Thursday sought to address the issue that has plagued U.S. presidents for decades by announcing expanded powers to deport people who show up at the border without a permit. At the same time, a strictly enforced legal pathway will be opened for up to 30,000 migrants a month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.
Quotas will be limited to those who already have a U.S. sponsor, while anyone attempting to cross the border illegally will be deported in cooperation with Mexico.
Human rights groups have harshly criticized this as closing the door on the desperate, but the Biden administration says its actions will essentially kill the market for people-smuggling networks while encouraging legal entry.
Mayorkas acknowledged the lack of a deeper solution, telling reporters that “we have very limited avenues…to deal with a broken system.”
However, he said the number of people stopped illegally crossing the border in El Paso has “declined dramatically” from about 2,000 a day to 700 since a peak in mid-December.
– Drug war and development? –
In 2021, the United States and Mexico announced reforms to the fight against drug smuggling to address the root causes of immigration, encourage economic development, and strengthen deterrence against cross-border arms smuggling.
Mexico has been plagued by cartel-related bloodshed, with more than 340,000 people murdered since 2006, when the government deployed troops in the war on drugs.
Days before Biden’s visit, Mexican security forces arrested the son of notorious drug lord Joaquin “Short” Guzman, who is serving a life sentence in a U.S. prison.
The United States has offered a $5 million reward for information leading to the arrest of Ovidio Guzman, accused of being a key figure in the Sinaloa cartel founded by his father.
Burs- SMS Dr/St
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