World News | Mexican president to hold conference call with Biden on immigration

MEXICO CITY, May 8 (AP) — Mexico’s president said Monday he will speak on the phone with U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday to discuss immigration and the fentanyl crisis.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said the leaders will also discuss development plans to help stem the influx of migrants across the U.S. border. The conversations came two days before the end of pandemic-era immigration restrictions that allow U.S. authorities to quickly deport immigrants who cross the border illegally.

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López Obrador calls on migrants not to take advantage of smugglers to get to US border.

“Don’t let yourself be fooled,” López Obrador told a morning news conference. “Don’t allow yourself to be ripped off by coyotes, smugglers, they put you in danger.”

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Mexico agreed last week to keep accepting Venezuelan, Haitian, Cuban and Nicaraguan migrants who have been turned away at the border, as well as some others from Central America.

The Mexican president has previously asked the U.S. government to provide more development aid to Central America so people don’t have to relocate.

López Obrador also blasted proposals by U.S. Republican lawmakers to make it harder to apply for asylum and make it easier for authorities to stop migrants at the border.

“It really demeaned them morally,” he said.

The two presidents will also discuss the fentanyl crisis. Smuggled mostly out of Mexico, the synthetic opioid is responsible for an estimated 70,000 overdose deaths in the United States each year.

López Obrador denies drug cartels manufacture fentanyl in Mexico, though he admits precursor chemicals — finished fentanyl, he claims — are smuggled into Mexico from China, a claim China denies . (Associated Press)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)