Mexico did not pay for the wall promised by Donald Trump, but in the four years that he was president it did allow his government to implement parts of its restrictive immigration agenda, supporting him, for example, with the deployment of the Mexican National Guard to stop migrant caravans. Central Americans, or their acceptance of the Stay in Mexico program, with which tens of thousands of asylum seekers in the United States had to carry out their procedures from Mexican territory, where they have been exposed to kidnapping and extortion.
Now that the incoming Joe Biden Administration has begun to implement changes that give hope to migrants, Mexico has promised collaboration and joint work.
However, despite the importance that immigration policy has for both countries and the number of migrants who are in limbo, the Mexican government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador has offered
very few details
about what its priorities, intentions are or plans for this new stage.
[The situation of thousands of migrants on the Mexican border worsens daily]
"Mexico celebrates the measures for the benefit of the Mexican community in the United States, particularly the strengthening of the DACA program [...] and the end of the construction of the border wall," Roberto Velasco, director for North America, told Noticias Telemundo in a note. of the Mexican Chancellery.
He added that "follow-up" will be given to the possible immigration reform, and that attention will be extended to the Mexican consulates, which constitute the largest network of any nation in the world.
Regarding the issues discussed in the calls between López Obrador and Biden, he said in a very general way that "they highlight the protection of Mexican people in the United States, as well as an avenue of cooperation towards an economic development program for the north of Central America." .
Despite several express questions from Noticias Telemundo, Velasco did not elaborate or specify
what will be done from the Mexican side or details of this possible
cooperation
program
to address the causes of emigration due to poverty and violence.
Central American migrants try to flee from a member of the Mexican National Guard in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, to cross the Rio Grande and try to seek asylum on the US side, on January 25, 2021.
[López Obrador assures that the critical phase of his contagion of COVID-19 is already passing]
He also did not speak about how it will work so that people who migrate fleeing violence do not end up being exposed to tragedies, as happened at the end of January to Guatemalan people who were burned in Tamaulipas, possibly by drug traffickers.
“While it is true that the changes that have had the most serious impact on the refugee and migrant population during the Trump years originated in the United States,
many of these policies depend on the collaboration of the Mexican State
, and for that reason there is a responsibility towards victims, ”said Daniel Berlin, deputy director in Mexico of the advocacy group Asylum Access.
Thousands of people are waiting for information or relief,
exposed not only to violence but to COVID-19 infections
.
This is what to expect:
Doubts about the end of Stay in Mexico
The Biden Administration has announced protections for dreamers benefiting from the DACA program and this Tuesday it will unveil a
team dedicated to reunifying families
who remain separated by the zero tolerance policy.
[A Guatemalan village mourns the deaths of migrants in Mexico, where there have been at least five similar massacres in a decade]
It also suspended Stay in Mexico, a program that has forced almost 70,000 people who fled violence, in mainly Central American countries, to process their possible asylum to the United States, having to wait from a part of Mexican territory, where
several suffered kidnappings, extortion and more violence.
Migrants at a shelter in Matamoros, northern Mexico, in November.
There are few sanitary measures in these types of places.
The Biden administration also sought to postpone the deportations, although a court temporarily halted that initiative as a Texas lawsuit is resolved.
Since before Stay in Mexico was established as part of the so-called Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), in Mexican territory there were already more than 12,000 pending or unresolved cases of minors and adults who had requested refuge for several years. years.
That is, after Trump threatened to impose tariffs,
Mexico agreed to host people who planned to request asylum in the United States ... although it had not yet resolved the requests to thousands more who requested it in its territory.
This meant that many of the migrant farms and shelters were already over capacity.
With the COVID-19 pandemic in Mexico, which is at its worst point of infections and deaths, many of the migrant shelters have closed to prevent the spread of the disease.
[Overcrowding, unhealthy and poor diet: this is how people live in migratory stations in Mexico]
Civil society has responded with what little it can, such as the coexistence and assistance program for minors called Sidewalk School, which seeks to provide shoes, clothes and playtime to minors living in the makeshift camps of Matamoros.
All these people, despite the fact that the new Biden Administration suspended the immigration program, are still in Mexican territory, under Mexican jurisdictions, and without knowing exactly what will become of them.
"Unfortunately,
there is no support from any level of government
," Juan Antonio Sierra, director of the Casa del Migrante shelter, told Noticias Telemundo.
It has not been said how it will work to facilitate that thousands of people affected by Stay in Mexico continue with their processes, nor has it been
clarified what will happen to new asylum seekers
who pass through Mexican territory on their way to the United States.
There are still "thousands of people in legal limbo, wanting to apply for asylum in the United States, but living in various places in Mexico without any state support," said Asylum Access's Berlin.
What will happen to the MPP program in the future Biden administration?
Dec. 3, 202000: 58
He added that other “tens of thousands of people received deportation orders due to the challenges that MPP posed to present an asylum case: many did not attend their hearings, in some cases because they had been kidnapped, others because they had been transferred to distant points. from the border ”.
[Gustavo was attacked with a machete before going to the United States to try to reunite with his grandfather. They deported him without notifying his family]
On reforms and development programs
Another of the key pending issues for cooperation between the two countries is the possibility of a US immigration reform.
Much
of the 11 million undocumented people in the United States are of Mexican origin
and would benefit from making their way to citizenship.
The White House has hinted that it could try to promote that reform piecemeal and gradually, since it will be very difficult for Congress to accept it - where Democrats barely have a majority in both houses and require Republican support for certain measures.
What the two governments have said is that they will focus on negotiating a joint program to address the root causes of emigration from Central America.
The López Obrador government had already established a similar aid fund plan;
however, much of the money was actually used to repatriate migrants and restrict their passage rather than for the development of Central America.
For Berlin, of Asylum Access, any joint program would be insufficient if it does not include investments that go beyond giving money to the authorities of Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua or Honduras.
[US prosecutors assure that the president of Honduras accepted bribes from drug trafficking]
"It is extremely important that the countries of the region invest not only in sustainable economic development in northern Central America, but also in organizations and institutions that can
reduce the levels of violence
and persecution in these countries," said the specialist, noting that without it people will continue to have to leave their homes in search of asylum.
Although the pandemic has led to the closure of good parts of the border crossings between Mexico and the United States, and with it a reduction in border detentions of migrants,
COVID-19 has not completely stopped migration.
The first migrant caravan of 2021 on its way from Honduras to Guatemala.Getty Images
Proof of this is that during January, two caravans of people were already organized that left Honduras with the intention of emigrating through Mexico to the United States, although they saw their way slowed down on the Guatemalan border.
"
Crossing a border to ask for protection from persecution, torture or death implies an essential journey" even in times of pandemic
, Berlin stressed.
"When there are no opportunities for a dignified life or for having security, the walls, the militarization of borders and expressly cruel immigration policies cannot stop the desire to travel in search of a better life," he added.
It remains to be seen if the promises of a new approach by Biden come true, and to what extent Mexico, which is a country of transit and also a country that hosts migrants, clarifies what its own plans will be to deal with the issue.