USA and Mexico speak of progress on migration policy
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled to Mexico with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Security Advisor Liz Sherwood-Randall for talks on immigration policy. The Mexican President welcomed the outcome of the talks to "directly address issues of economic cooperation, security and migration".
A high-ranking US official, who wished to remain anonymous, said that Mexico's representatives had presented the US delegation with new measures that the country was taking. These included those against smugglers who bring migrants to the US border by train or bus.
"We were really impressed with some of the new measures that Mexico is taking," said the US representative. "We've seen a pretty significant drop in border crossings over the past few days." However, the US knows that "you should never draw conclusions based on daily fluctuations" in the number of migrants, he added.
The US Border Patrol has reported around 10,000 irregular border crossings a day in recent weeks - almost twice as many as before the pandemic. The Mexican head of state had also said that the number of migrants from Venezuela, Haiti, Cuba and Ecuador traveling through Mexico to the USA had increased. Mexico will step up its efforts to stem irregular migration, particularly in the south near the border with Guatemala, said López Obrador.
As part of agreements negotiated with both US President Joe Biden and his predecessor Donald Trump, Mexico has agreed to at least temporarily accept migrants who want to cross the border into the US.
Border policy is a particularly controversial issue in the US and extremely sensitive for Biden politically. Republicans accuse the Democrat of allowing hundreds of thousands of foreigners to enter the country unchecked and fuel fears of an increase in crime and drug problems. Biden has recently promised the Republicans concessions on the issue if they agree to new military aid for Ukraine, which is under attack from Russia, in return.
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Source: www.stern.de
